Warning: This review contains full spoilers for The Pitt Season 2, Episode 5!

We’re now five episodes and a third of the way into The Pitt Season 2. Most other shows these days would have rounded the halfway mark by now, but that’s the joy of watching something that hearkens back to the pre-streaming era of television. There’s still plenty of room left on this runway. Even so, the tone of the series is definitely intensifying as the situation at the Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center grows more dire, resulting in what is easily the strongest chapter of Season 2 to date.

Episode 5 is great about addressing some of the niggling problems with previous installments, most notably when it comes to the relative lack of focus on Patrick Ball’s Dr. Langdon. As I’ve said before, if this season were to have a main focal character, it should be Langdon, but he’s been purposely relegated to the sidelines by his old mentor. But now Langdon is back in the thick of things, and we start to see the simmering tension between him and Noah Wyle’s Dr. Robby start to boil over.

It’s great watching that mostly silent feud play out in Episode 5, as Robby does everything within his power not to talk to Langdon or be in the same room with him. You can easily sympathize with both men. Robby’s angry dismissal of Langdon was one of the standout scenes of Season 1, and it’s easy to recall the sheer pain and disbelief he felt in that moment. But at the same time, Langdon has paid his dues, and you can understand his frustration at being flatly rejected by a thoroughly unsympathetic Robby.

That all comes to a head in the final moments of Episode 5, as Louie (Ernest Harden Jr.) fittingly becomes the catalyst that forces both men to work together. There’s been the sense all along that the affable Louie’s long string of luck is about to run out, and that finally happens here. Not a bad cliffhanger on which to end the week.

Elsewhere in the ER, Dr. Santos (Isa Briones) is really the star of the show in Episode 5, as the series takes a slightly more humorous approach to her particular plight. The running gag of Santos getting one or two sentences deeper into her dictation, only to be interrupted again by Whitaker (Gerran Howell) or Ogilvie (James Howell), never gets old. But it’s also nice seeing her on the backfoot so much this season, after Season 1 really played up her crusading, righteous doctor side. Paperwork is the bane of us all.

By the same token, it’s fun to watch the insufferable know-it-all Ogilvie continue to get his just desserts. Last week it was almost killing a patient with a reckless extraction; this week, it’s being forced to clean out an elderly woman’s impacted colon.

Ogilvie’s fellow student Joy (Irene Choi) also gets a nice little bit of added attention in this episode. Up until now, Joy has been a fairly one-note character. She’s the scowling, disaffected med student who (understandably) can barely tolerate being paired with Ogilvie. But we get a chance to see a different side of the character when she swoops in to offer a solution to the family shuddering under the burden of crushing medical debt. It’s a happy ending to a depressing subplot, and one that tells us a lot more about who Joy is and why she’s seemingly so detached from it all.

Finally, this episode makes some inroads with Dr. Al-Hashimi (Sepideh Moafi), a character who so far has been played a little more antagonistically than I’d like. She’s the newcomer disrupting the carefully oiled machine that is the ER, and we’ve been left to sympathize with Robby on that front. But the two characters share a strong scene together where Al-Hashimi rightfully berates Robby for treating her like an underling rather than a colleague. It’s subtle, but it helps turn the character in a more favorable direction. Hopefully, that trend continues in the coming episodes.

Dell wants the Alienware Aurora 16X to be your star mid-range gaming laptop, and it mostly succeeds in that role with its strong RTX 5070 performance and gorgeous 16-inch, 2K display. But after spending enough time with it, its keyboard gets too tiresome to game with, and I clung to my gaming headset even when playing alone. Already, those flaws mixed with a high price tag are tough to swallow. However, the Aurora 16X still gets the job done (and in style), so it might still be worth taking a look.

Design and Features

Just because it’s smaller than the Area-51 doesn't make the Aurora 16X sleek — it’s still a chunky beast, but I’m not mad about it. The indigo colorway spreads like a silk sheet over the Aurora’s anodized aluminum lid. I love this color way more than what the Area-51 is wearing (teal), which is ironic because that’s the more expensive one.

The curved edges around the lid, hinge, and sides give a soft approach, which is a refreshing break from the usual edgy gamer look. With little-to-no flex over its iridescent Alienware logo, this gaming laptop is hella sturdy. It stacks up to 14.05 x 10.45 x 0.76~0.92 inches and 5.7 pounds.

Popping open the hood revealed more of the same sleek colorway, this time on a magnesium alloy frame with a nice satin finish. There’s a curved palm rest for comfort and ease of lifting the lid. Meanwhile, the keyboard is neatly packed in the center, but supports only one-zone RGB lighting, which looks cheap. The touchpad sits just underneath, somewhat smaller than I expected, and the bezels on the display look a bit thick due to the angled lip.

A neat feature about the underside is there’s a thick slab that props the laptop up, with vents all around it to ensure good airflow. More laptops need better cooling designs like this — there’s nothing more annoying than an underside that gets scorching hot because you positioned it on the wrong surface.

Configurations

The Alienware Aurora 16X is a classic mid-range gaming laptop, but it comes in pricey compared with other rigs in its category. But that’s what you get when you’re looking to buy from a premium brand like Alienware. Here’s what’s packed in the unit Dell sent me for review:

This review unit costs $1,999 (seen for $1,649), which is up there for an RTX 5070 gaming laptop. It also comes in an RTX 5060 version for $1,549. But if you’re looking for something cheaper than that, you need to lose the “X” in the Aurora 16X (yes, really).

The Aurora 16 comes in two GPU variants, including the RTX 5060 and RTX 5050, and both opting for an Intel Core 7-240H processor. They cost around or under $1,000. But wait, what does the “X” really lose you? Well, you drop to a 120Hz display with lower brightness, a 720p webcam, and you lose the Thunderbolt 4 port. The latter two are pretty insignificant, but losing the display is tough.

Display

While I will continue to rant about Alienware needing to offer OLED or Mini-LED options for their gaming laptops, the Aurora 16X’s IPS display is quite stunning.

This display is plenty bright, rated at 500 nits, and offers a crisp 2560 x 1600 resolution, so I could admire the sharp strands of hair on Naoe Fujibayashi’s head in Assassin’s Creed Shadows. Making my way through Hijacked in Call of Duty: Black Ops 7, the brown wood planks contrasted well against the milky white ship, which was dreamy enough to get me killed by some jabroni running out of the cabin.

With Nvidia G-Sync to reduce screen tearing and the 240Hz refresh rate, getting in car chases across Night City in Cyberpunk 2077 felt satisfyingly smooth as I drifted back onto the highway. However, keep in mind that if you want to use the full breadth of the 240Hz refresh rate, you’ll need to turn down the graphics quite a bit. An RTX 5070 can’t get you quite that far on the highest settings – especially at 1600p.

Everything In-Between

There’s a decent number of ports to get your essential peripherals all connected to the Alienware Aurora 16X, even if you don’t have Bluetooth accessories. There’s a Thunderbolt 4 slot for fast connectivity (great for external storage) as well as an additional USB Type-C port. You also get two USB Type-A ports and a headphone jack to connect legacy devices. Then there’s an HDMI 2.1 slot to connect to an external display, and an Ethernet port to speed up your internet speed. But with Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 5.4, you shouldn’t have to worry much about connectivity.

The keyboard is comfortable thanks to the cushy palm rests, but the key travel is a bit short. It’s okay to type on, but it’s not satisfying to use when gaming. I wish the keyboard was a bit higher on the deck. The angled palm rest makes it feel like my hand is sliding off when in the WASD position. And the touchpad is in a similar boat where it’s unpleasant to use – it’s too resistant, stiff, and small.

Laptop webcams are almost never good, and the Alienware Aurora 16X’s 1080p shooter is no exception. It’ll get you through video chatting with friends, but between the grain imposed over the image and the washed out colors, I wouldn’t try to stream with this thing.

Dolby Atmos isn’t enough to elevate the speakers beyond middling. The dialogue in Cyberpunk 2077 sounded crisp, but combined with the gunfire and techno music, it felt more like a muddled mess. It gave me a headache listening to it for a short while. I highly recommend gaming with headphones.

Performance

The Alienware Aurora 16X delivers all the performance you expect from an RTX 5070, hitting solid numbers even in the highest settings on intensive AAA games. However, you may struggle in certain areas, especially if you’re averse to supersampling technology.

Before I got to the crunchy numbers, the Alienware Aurora 16X suffered from some serious stuttering while gaming. I updated my graphics drivers and Windows 11, and yes, turned it off and on again. I took a peak at the Alienware Command Center (Settings > Performance) and saw that Hybrid Graphics was enabled, which allows the laptop to switch between integrated and discrete graphics to save on battery life. I disabled that with the MUX Switch and games ran fine after that.

I reached out to Dell for some insight, and a representative tried to replicate the issue on a different machine, but didn’t see the stuttering. I have experienced issues with hybrid graphics on other gaming laptops, so it might not be a problem on Aurora 16X, but if you run into it, you now know what to do.

Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 ran smooth as I started rinsing fools through a Japanese feudal castle and a war-torn Alaskan town. The benchmarks reflected that great performance, too, proving that the Alienware Aurora 16X can handle competitive games at the highest settings. However, as I mentioned earlier, the Aurora isn’t taking full advantage of its 240Hz screen. If you want higher frames, you need to turn the graphics down.

On a more intensive test, the Alienware Aurora 16X cleared 30 fps in Cyberpunk 2077 at its native resolution set to Ray Tracing Ultra. However, Ray Tracing Overdrive proved to be too much for it, and that tracks with most mid-range gaming laptops. But if you run it at 1200p, you’ll get playable frames at the highest settings.

With no upscaling technology, the Aurora 16X’s RTX 5070 did decently well on the Metro Exodus benchmark, scoring close to 60 fps at 1200p on the highest settings. But it failed to get past the 30 fps threshold at its native resolution.

In games like Assassin’s Creed Shadows, you can see the benefit of frame generation technology. At Ultra High settings on its native resolution, the Alienware Aurora 16X jumped from unplayable to an average of over 50 fps.

Battery Life

Gaming laptops typically don’t last very long in the battery life department, although they’ve improved over the years, with laptops like the Razer Blade 14 hitting over 7 hours. But the Alienware Aurora 16X isn’t a 14-inch gaming laptop with reduced power output. Its chunky 16 inches lasted only 3 hours and 20 minutes on Procyon's Office Productivity Battery Life Test. (This is with hybrid graphics enabled.)

The Alienware Aurora 16X isn’t going to get you very far when gaming on battery alone, not to mention the fact that the performance will tank as well. I highly recommend keeping the Aurora 16X plugged in at all times.

Spoilers follow for Star Trek: Starfleet Academy Episode 5, “Series Acclimation Mil,” which is available on Paramount Plus now.

So here it is – the Benjamin Sisko episode that Starfleet Academy has been teasing since at least as far back as last summer. The notion of returning to the mystery of what happened to Avery Brooks’ legendary Deep Space Nine captain is a daunting undertaking for the fledgling Starfleet Academy, but fortunately the episode’s writers (Trek vets Kirsten Beyer and Tawny Newsome) don’t attempt to alter or add to Sisko’s story – which after all was essentially completed with the end of DS9 – but rather use his legend to expand on one of the new show’s main characters, Sam (Kerrice Brooks).

I mean, that’s literally how the episode starts off as “A Story About Me” is scrawled over the “A CBS Studios Production” title screen. Make no mistake: “Series Acclimation Mil” is about Sam, not Sisko. The episode is even named after her!

And while the story involving Sam is another of the coming-of-age type tales that Starfleet Academy is interested in, one where the holographic student finds some semblance of independence from her overbearing “parents,” there’s no denying that merely evoking the name Ben Sisko is a big pull, and that as a result anything short of the return of Brooks in the role can’t help but feel a bit anti-climactic.

As all the episodes of this first season have done so far, “Series Acclimation Mil” focuses on one of the series’ leads, and in so doing finally gives us some information about who and what Sam is. We knew she was a photonic being, aka a hologram, but now we know that her real mission at the Academy is to serve as an emissary for her “people,” who come from a world called Kasq and were enslaved by organic beings “a long time ago.” As a result, they now fear that interacting with non-photonic lifeforms will mean a return to the slavery of their past, and so they’ve sent Sam to feel things out and figure out what the deal is with these organic types.

The thing is, her overseers are basically jerks who don’t get her or understand the outside world in the same way that Sam has already come to do in her short time at the Academy. So basically she’s the same as any student who goes off to college and realizes their parents are totally out of it. Join the club, kid.

The episode is shot in a pretty unconventional way for Star Trek, with Sam talking directly to the camera at times and doing some impromptu dancing, while on-screen graphics illustrate some of what she’s discussing and distinctly non-Trek music pops off in the background, all of which will surely infuriate the Very Angry crowd who either specialize in the monetization of hate or just plain don’t understand what Star Trek was ever about (or maybe are just bots). Whatever the case, I liked the unique presentation of this episode, though I do suspect that if the aim here is to have it speak to young audiences, it will read as more “cringe,” as they say, than anything else to that very same audience.

Of course, the real reason Sam is talking to the camera is that this is all supposed to be the message she sends Sisko at the end of the episode. Speaking of which, if they couldn’t get Avery Brooks back, then Cirroc Lofton returning as his son Jake is the next best thing. The holographic recording of Jake talks about his dad the way he knew him, as a man, a guy who loved baseball, a chef, but most of all as a dad… the lessons and example of which Jake pulled from when he eventually became a dad himself. This father/son relationship was always one of the most important on Deep Space Nine, and the fact that Beyer and Newsome lean into it with their script is just perfect, as is Lofton’s return. Sisko’s relationship with his status as Emissary of the Prophets was always an uneasy one, and it only makes sense that Jake would remember his dad as the man he was, not the god he would become.

Meanwhile, the B-story involving the War College’s Chancellor Kelrec (Raoul Bhaneja) is amusing in and of itself, especially since it gives Tig Notaro and Robert Picardo something to do this week, and certainly the reveal that he feels that Holly Hunter’ Chancellor Ake betrayed Starfleet when she resigned years earlier is interesting.

But back to Sam, the return to Sisko’s old stomping grounds to party, resulting in the hologram getting drunk, leads to various hijinks that just stop short of becoming annoying. Starfleet Academy has proven adept at weaving its various characters’ ongoing story threads into whatever else is going on each week, and just when drunk Sam is about to become too much, we cut to Caleb and Tarima flirting outside the bar, or tensions with the War College kids escalating (again).

The culmination of the episode is sweet, as Sam visits with Jake through some Magic Science and comes to realize that just as Sisko did 800 years earlier, Sam has to make her own life choices for herself as much as she can. It’s the “We’re Not Gonna Take It” of Star Trek resolutions, thank you Dee Snider, and it works beautifully, culminating in words spoken by Avery Brooks himself (if not recorded for this actual episode) as the image of Sisko can faintly be made out in the clouds.

Questions and Notes from the Q Continuum:

• When that DS9 theme music kicked in… man.
• Tawny Newsome didn’t just co-write the episode, but that’s also her as the Starfleet instructor who turns out to be the latest incarnation of Dax.
• I’m surprised Robert Picardo’s The Doctor, as a hologram himself, hasn’t been given more of a stake in Sam’s story so far. Although his advice about moving on after loss is telling…
• While it doesn’t seem that Sam’s “people” were created by humans or the Federation – presumably Sam has been made to look humanoid/human to fit in better – their history of enslavement does sound familiar, as we saw on Star Trek: Voyager how a whole army of holographic doctors had been forced into hard labor when they became obsolete.
• Those War College jerks!
• A theremin? Why not!
• “Bajoran kids don’t play.”
• They don’t even show images of Sisko anymore on Bajor because they believe he’s transcended human form… and probably because Avery Brooks would have to be paid for it?
• Why would the Sisko Museum have Benny Russell’s typewriter if Benny had only existed as a dream/vision/whatever?
• Jake’s novel Anslem does have its roots in the original DS9, having first been mentioned in the all-time great episode “The Visitor.”
• The bar formerly known as The Launching Pad was in fact the site where Sisko fought a Vulcan, specifically Solok, the a-hole who he'd also battle in a baseball match in the episode “Take Me Out to the Holosuite.”
• While I said earlier that this episode doesn’t really change Sisko’s story in any way, that is perhaps not entirely true. After all, if Dax and Jake don’t have the answers regarding what happened to Sisko after he ascended to the Celestial Temple, then presumably nobody does? Which means Sisko never did come back… even though he promised in the DS9 finale that he would. But then again, maybe Dax and Jake just aren’t talking…

The QN90F Neo QLED is Samsung’s highest‑end LCD TV for 2025… at least below the stratospherically priced 8K models. I've got the 65" version in for testing, currently selling for $1599, which carries over the same quantum dot technology and much of the design and performance of last year's QN90D, but there have been a few notable changes: a small bump in max refresh rate to 165 Hz (up from 144 Hz), and last year's glossy screen has been replaced with the matte anti-glare coating directly from the S95F OLED. Whether the latter is an improvement is up for debate. Fullscreen and HDR brightness also gets a small but welcome boost from last year's model – I measured more than 2300 nits on a test slide and real-world HDR highlights can easily hit 1100. Samsung also touts its NQ4 AI Gen3 processor, but I don't usually comment on these because Samsung (and other manufacturers, to be fair) rarely, if ever, provide performance metrics for its chips, and besides, the specific processing chip inside these TVs seems to have a nebulous, at best, connection to how they perform in our own, real-world testing.

And our testing reveals that, much like last year's QN90D, the QN90F really struggles with blooming. A combination of Samsung's local dimming algorithm and the physical construction of the backlight produces blocky, grid-like zones that are ruinous to dark scenes. This shouldn't happen. At this price level, or even cheaper, Hisense and TCL offer more and better controlled backlight zones, and Samsung's own QD-OLED models, like the S90F, offer substantially better all-around performance at a like-for-like price. Yes, the QN90F is colorful and bright, but there's much more to a top-of-the-line TV for gaming, and Samsung's LCD offering is falling too far behind to recommend.

Setup, Design, and First Impressions

Unpacking, maneuvering, and assembling the stand for the 65” QN90F was relatively straightforward. Four screws hold the stand on the base plate and another four screws attach it to the TV. The stand itself is a hefty chunk of metal, satisfying to hold and reassuringly sturdy, and it does a good job of minimizing wobble.

It’s hard for manufacturers to differentiate their TVs via their physical design, especially from the front – they’re all big gray rectangles – but I love the look, feel, and weight of the QN90F. It’s sleek and thin without being OLED-dangerously-thin. The first thing that caught my eye (and not my fingerprints), though, was the matte screen coating, unusual for a TV, which I’ll touch on later in the review.

The power cable is closer to the center of the TV, which is a great change from every other TV having power and IO on completely different sides of the display. I still think the power cable is a bit too short, especially once it's routed through the clever channels built into the back of the display. The rear of the TV is plastic, but it doesn't feel cheap.

IO is excellent, as it should be at this price point. Samsung includes 4 full-bandwidth HDMI 2.1 ports, all supporting 165 Hz at 4K. Great news if you’re hooking up multiple consoles. Additionally, there’s an optical audio out, Ethernet, and an RF connection for broadcast. No headphone jack, sadly, which is an omission becoming more and more common.

Samsung is using a common remote across multiple SKUs; this is the same remote (with a neat little solar cell on the rear) that shipped with the S90F. Annoyingly, like LG’s remote, an input selection button is nowhere to be found. Switching inputs means going back to the Home/Start screen, moving left and then down to “Connected Devices,” and waiting for Tizen to catch up to you. Speaking of Tizen…

Tizen: “Preparing. Please Try Again Later.”

"Preparing. Please Try Again Later." This is an actual error message that Tizen displayed when I tried to use the quick settings menu to adjust the QN90F's brightness. I thought I'd experienced it all – the slow navigation, laggy menus, loading throbbers (!) – (read my S90F review for more), but Samsung keeps finding new ways to annoy me. Whether using the Home screen to load a streaming app, switching inputs, or diving into the settings menu, Tizen continues to feel like a low-end mobile phone or some off-brand tablet given away free as part of a promotion.

I may be old school, but I think all the fundamental, device control touch-points of a TV's menu should be as close to the metal as possible, and they should be fast. Backlight brightness, color temperature, local dimming, sound volume, the current input... these are things that shouldn't be knotted up and entangled with the same code that opens and closes your Samsung Motorized Smart Blinds. Yet, with Tizen, every should-be-easy adjustment brings up a loading throbber:

It’s unbelievably frustrating. Samsung needs to take a good look at the Google TV interface from something like the Hisense U8QG. Navigation there is fast and easy. Even Amazon’s FireTV on a lower end model like the U65QF is a joy to use compared to Tizen.

Setting all that aside, once the menu is actually loaded, Tizen behaves like you’d expect for a modern TV smart OS. The Home screen can be cleaned up and calmed down a bit after diving into the Advanced Features menu (turning off auto-playing video is a must!), but Samsung devotes a bit too much screen space to its TV “recommendations,” leaving the app list, which is what you’re likely looking for, as a small, horizontally scrolling band of icons. As a contrast, Google TV surfaces apps in a large format grid, which is much faster to navigate.

Sound

Sound quality on the QN90F is surprisingly good… for TV speakers. Of all the displays I’ve tested so far, I’ve been the most impressed with Samsung’s engineering effort here. Bass extends deep enough to be satisfying for movies and games without booming, mechanical noises, or distortion, and, importantly, speech intelligibility is good. A-OK for general use.

But for the best, engrossing audio experience, we still recommend a surround sound setup or soundbar. Our top pick happens to be Samsung’s own HW-Q990F, which includes a subwoofer for a good reason: TVs simply don’t have the form factor – no front facing drivers for stereo imaging – or enough chassis volume for deep bass.

Reflection Handling and Viewing Angles

Samsung takes the unusual path, certainly for a TV, of shipping the QN90F with a matte AR coating. For those that find the mirror-like reflections from glossy screens annoying, this is definitely a plus, but manufacturers have made great progress on their high-end models, especially in the last few years, at delivering really excellent glossy coatings.

The comparison image above shows the reflection of a compact fluorescent bulb in all of the screens I’ve tested so far, shot with the same exposure, and ranked generally in the order of quality. Samsung’s QD-OLED S90F (currently at the same price as the QN90F) takes the top spot with a truly incredible AR coating, followed closely by Hisense’s U8QG. For those that find the mirror-like reflections from glossy screens annoying, I think the QN90F offers a decent alternative to something like LG’s C5, which is a bit too reflective and a bit too purple.

The macro image above shows how the matte coating diffuses the light from the subpixels behind. This is a fairly coarse and aggressive coating, not my favorite, but the slight reduction in clarity is only visible very near the screen. At typical TV distances, it’s not an issue.

Also worth noting while looking at the macro is that the QN90F uses a BGR subpixel layout, rather than a traditional RGB stripe. If you’re using the Samsung as a PC display, you’ll want to adjust your ClearType settings to reduce color fringing on text. And like many VA panels, the pixels are dimmed in a one third on, two thirds off manner between rows, so the picture is susceptible to a “scanlines” effect.

Viewing angle performance is typical of most VA panels: loss of color and contrast off angle, and dark scenes are especially susceptible to a gamma shift on the periphery of the screen. This is one of the largest drawbacks of VA panels compared to the OLED competition, and Samsung’s own S90F is much better here.

This purple-blue shot, inspired by a fullscreen ad for Amazon Luna during the TV’s setup, shows the color shift off axis, although the photo doesn’t fully capture how it looks in person. I also noticed that the QN90F has a patchy appearance, but only when displaying blue. Otherwise, the matte coating does a good job handling the reflection of the flash.

Color, Calibration, and SDR

For every display I test, my calibration process begins by measuring the backlight spectrum for each of the individual RGB primaries along with a white spectrum. This allows for subsequent performance metrics to be accurately measured with my colorimeter. The color slide above shows three important aspects of the QN90F’s color performance:

1. White spectrum against a mercury reference
2. Individual, normalized RGB response
3. Subsequent chromaticity coordinates compared to the DCI-P3 reference

The peak wavelengths of the primaries, their shape, and their separation (or purity) define the corner coordinates of the gamut triangle. Samsung’s quantum dot backlight does an excellent job of covering (and over-covering) DCI-P3: the three primaries are smooth, separated, and distinct, giving the QN90F rich, vivid color.

In the Expert Settings menu, the default Color setting of 30 gives the best compromise of coverage and accuracy without clipping. Green is spot on, but red and blue do extend a bit past reference. While not perfectly accurate, I’m a sucker for colorful images, so I welcome a bit of over-coverage.

Before I get into the calibration, I need to mention that Samsung doesn’t allow local dimming to be turned off on the QN90F. This is a problem for me, as a reviewer, because I can’t fully disentangle the performance of the LCD panel itself from the behavior of the backlight, making my job quite a bit more difficult (or impossible in the case of lag measurements).

But it’s also a problem for you. Yes, local dimming is one of the reasons you’d buy a TV like the QN90F in the first place, but Samsung ships the TV with a 165 Hz mode, presumably for PC use. Not being able to disable local dimming when in Windows is a bit nuts, and I can’t think of a good reason why Samsung would omit the option altogether. I’ve done my best to mitigate the issue for all subsequent measurements, but I wanted to mention that up front.

Because I’m primarily looking at the TV as a gaming display, I test calibration in the display’s Game mode, making sure that the TV can deliver the same accuracy and performance as in its Film modes but without the processing that can cause input lag.

Out of the box, Samsung has tuned the QN90F extraordinarily well for SDR content. Grayscale tracking is excellent, hitting 6500K in the default Standard WB mode with low Delta E’s across the board. Great job here. BT 1886 gamma is the default, but setting gamma to 2.2 is the right move to better match most sRGB content. Once done, gamma nicely follows the 2.2 target throughout.

Brightness is one of the QN90F’s major strengths. With a 10% window on a black background, local dimming set to high, it’ll do an eye-searing 2370 nits. That’s extraordinarily bright, but still not quite as good as the U8QG, which’ll hit 4000. You’ll likely never see this in real content, though; a white test patch is really the best-case scenario for manufacturers to show off how hard they’re willing to drive (and cool) their backlight LEDs. With a more reasonable 5% gray background, the QN90F tops out around 1400 nits, tapering off to around 760 nits fullscreen. This is a great result, and very good for daytime viewing. 760 nits is roughly 3x what an OLED can deliver, so FALD LCDs are still superior for bright room viewing.

Samsung also does a very good job of keeping the gray background with the 5% slides roughly the same luminance. Other panels really struggle to maintain that 5% level, prioritizing the white patch and letting the background go dim.

HDR, Contrast, and Local Dimming

HDR on the QN90F varies depending on what you’re looking at. Bright content is very, very good: colorful, bright; but dark content is seriously let down by weak, splotchy local dimming performance.

My first impressions of the TV’s local dimming performance were watching Severance and The Gorge on Apple TV, where I saw egregious blooming on dark scenes. It was so bad, I had to double check to make sure the QN90F was actually a VA LCD rather than an IPS. The image above shows the ridiculously distracting, grid-like blooming around Miles Teller’s silhouette.

Checking the native contrast of the panel is very difficult because Samsung doesn’t allow local dimming to be completely turned off. When the TV is first powered on, there is a brief window where LD is disabled, so I was able to get a shot of the panel’s true uniformity:

A little splotchy, but that doesn’t explain the LD performance in The Gorge. The panel’s native contrast ratio is probably around 4600:1, much better than the 1000:1 typical of IPS, but in dark scenes, the QN90F might as well be an IPS.

Samsung’s LD algorithm seems to push near max brightness instead of using a more open LCD position with less backlight output. Exacerbating this is the very grid-like appearance of the zones, which I counted. The 65” version I have in for review uses a 40x18 grid, or 720 zones. In the comparison shot above, check out how blocky and unnatural the backlight zones look for the warning text, compared to something much smoother like Hisense’s U8QG. The U8QG, and other competitors like TCL’s QM8K, at the same price or lower, are offering 2K+ zones, with a smoother, less boxy transition between the neighboring zones.

Unacceptable performance at this price point.

All that said, bright HDR content is pretty impressive. Day racing in The Crew: Motorfest is vivid, colorful, and very bright. The sun in the image above measured at 1008 nits, and the splotchy blooming isn’t visible at all.

EOTF tracking is only OK. With a black background, Samsung does a good job of tracking target luminance all the way up to a peak of around 2200 nits, but tracking (and brightness) gets worse with a 10-nit background, more typical of real content. I’ve noted the 10 nit background peaks on the slides above, and both max out a little north of 1100 nits.

Real content brightness is excellent, nearly topping the chart, but tracking is generally too dark, leading to a fairly high error rate.

Gaming on the QN90F

I’ve been a fan of The Crew series for years, and testing the QN90F gave me a nice opportunity to dive back into Motorfest, a game which usually sees me completely lose track of time. As I mentioned in the previous section, cruising around during the day is awesome: bright (real bright!), and colorful. Dark scenes are still colorful, but Samsung’s LD algorithm leads to too much blooming.

The QN90F supports VRR with FreeSync Premium Pro, and it worked especially well with Motorfest, which is limited to 60 fps. I was using PC mode at 165 Hz, and gameplay was smooth with no stuttering or tearing. One small niggle I found was that 60 fps content in VRR causes the panel to exhibit a faint vertical jailbar effect. As crazy as it is to use a 65” TV as a desktop monitor, it does allow me to catch a few pixel quirks that you might otherwise miss at couch distances.

Another issue is that 60 fps content – a new frame every 16.7 ms – can do a lot to hide the effect of slow response times, which can get lost in the general sample-and-hold blur. Higher refresh rates, like 165 Hz (with a smaller 6 ms window), demand much faster response times, and the QN90F really falters here: its VA panel is the slowest I’ve tested so far, with gamma-corrected response times averaging out to over 22 milliseconds.

That 22 millisecond average comes from a mix of some relatively fast and some very slow gray-to-gray transitions. The slide above highlights (really low-lights!) the rising and falling behavior from RGB 31 to RGB 191. Rising takes 36 ms and falling an even slower 42 ms.

If Samsung implemented some amount of overdrive, like it does on its LCD gaming monitors, many of these could be dramatically sped up, reducing the amount of blurring and trailing behind objects in motion.

The TestUFO pursuit shot of the QN90F at 165 Hz shows off the smearing and trailing behavior behind each UFO, but very dark scenes in games can often be worse, since VA panels tend to have trouble with dark transitions. For example, the 0 to 31 transition takes 46 ms.

Check out the pursuit shot on my S90F review to see the type of motion clarity that can be achieved on an OLED, even at a slightly lower 144 Hz. For gaming, especially high refresh rate gaming, nothing beats OLED. The QN90F is a bit frustrating in two aspects: 1) Samsung could have closed the gap slightly with some overdrive tuning, and 2) Samsung is selling the QN90F at the same price as the far-superior S90F. For almost any scenario where gaming performance is a priority, outside of perhaps the very brightest rooms where the QN90F’s impressive max luminance could come in handy, OLED is the better choice, especially at price parity.

The latency chart is just here for reference. Because Samsung doesn’t allow local dimming to be turned off, I can’t get accurate click to photon times. My testing relies on measuring how long it takes before a USB input/keypress causes the screen to change from black to white, but the backlight behavior is delayed by several frames, so it doesn’t represent real-world latency.

To be sure, though, I spent a lot of time in Game Mode using the QN90F as a PC monitor, and I didn’t notice any particularly bad input lag. I’d expect latency numbers comparable to the other LCDs on the chart.

The Competition

In the LCD realm, Hisense’s U8QG and TCL’s QM8K are simply better than the QN90F. Both are cheaper. The U8QG is brighter, has better HDR EOTF tracking, and Hisense offers way more dimming zones for better control of blooming. The TCL might not be as bright, but, of the three, its response times are much better tuned so high refresh rate gaming will be clearer.

If you’re already looking for a TV at or around the $1300 mark, my suggestion would be to bite the bullet and take the small price jump for an OLED. Samsung’s own S90F OLED is the same price and thoroughly better: similar real scene HDR brightness, lower EOTF error, excellent AR coating, amazing contrast from the perfect blacks and individually controlled pixels, and top-tier motion performance for gaming. LG’s WOLED C5 is another option that won’t disappoint, but at the same price, the S90F is better.

When the original Nioh hit the scene back in 2017, it emerged as the very best soulslike outside of FromSoftware itself, with exemplary combat, thrilling bosses, and absurdly deep mechanics. Nioh 2 improved just about every aspect three years later, but didn’t change a whole lot overall, essentially making it “Nioh 1, but better.” Nioh 3, on the other hand, is far more than just an iterative sequel. This is a total transformation of the formula – one that trades out static overworld maps for enormous open fields covering multiple different eras of Japanese history. This shift, plus the addition of an entirely new Ninja Stance that changes the rules of Nioh’s combat and a litany of smaller quality of life adjustments, all amount to the most significant shake up the series has seen up to this point, and one of the best Soulslikes to date.

To get the bad out of the way first, one area that has not seen any sort of significant shake up is the storytelling, and that’s a shame because it has always been one of the weakest elements of the series. Like previous Nioh games, the story serves mostly as a means to guide you through a fictionalized retelling of significant battles and wars in Japanese history – one in which monstrous yokai, magical stones with corrupting influence, and Guardian Spirits are commonplace. You play as Takechiyo, the grandson of Ieyasu Tokugawa, and heir to the seat of Shogun, who must travel back in time to obtain a means of defeating an ancient evil that has corrupted the present.

The biggest issue with Nioh’s story is that it’s very dry and, to be frank, just kind of boring. Someone with a better knowledge of Japanese history may get more out of it thanks to knowing the context and significance of these historical figures and events, but for a layman like me, there’s just not enough work done to make you care about what’s going on in each of the eras that Nioh 3 took me to. Fortunately, cutscenes are short, the choreography is great, and these story shortfalls never get in the way of the action elements that otherwise make Nioh 3 one of the best soulslikes around.

I’ll say this right out of the gate: Nioh 3 has the best combat of any soulslike, past or present, end of story. It nails the feel and look of its weapons, the variety within those weapons, the depth of its mechanics, the challenging and aggressive enemy AI, the multitude of different approaches you can take in any given combat encounter, and the list just goes on-and-on. It’s all best-in-class quality at every level.

Nearly all of that was true about Nioh 2 as well, but what elevates Nioh 3 even further into the stratosphere is the split between two different combat modes: Samurai and Ninja. Samurai mode is the traditional Nioh combat experience, characterized by careful resource management through the usage of stamina-restoring Ki Pulses, the need to switch between low, medium, and high stances depending on the given encounter, and a careful balance of defensive techniques and offensive rushdown.

Ninja Mode, on the other hand, is a brand new style of Nioh combat that switches out the aforementioned Ki Pulses and stance switching, replacing them with much faster attacks that require far less stamina, allowing me to basically suffocate enemies with strikes without even giving them a chance to fight back. In addition, Ninja Mode also gives you access to three ninjutsu attacks – like shuriken, traps, and magical spells – which refill as you land attacks and are great for targeting enemy weaknesses or hitting annoying flying enemies.

The two modes can be swapped freely on the fly, and they even have their own equipment sets, letting you essentially build two different characters with different combat focuses and styles. Team Ninja smartly avoids falling into the trap of forcing you to use one stance over another in order to defeat a certain type of boss or enemy, which often stymies creative combat expression in other games. Instead, both stances are always viable, and the choice of whether one is better than the other for a particular type of encounter is always left up to your discretion and playstyle.

It was always a great feeling to return to a boss that I previously died against, and adjust my strategy by using either more or less of one of the modes. For example, in a fight against a boss with powerful but predictable attacks, I might stick to Samurai Stance so I can parry their attacks and have more stamina left over to counterattack. But in a fight against a faster and more erratic boss, I might focus on Ninja Stance and use my quick step mist ability to maneuver around to their more vulnerable backside and avoid having to block all together.

While I have a clear preference for the flexibility and speed of Ninja Stance, developer Team Ninja has done a great job of balancing the two stances to make them both worth swapping between regularly. Samurai Mode feels a little weaker at a base level, but is balanced by being much better defensively – it also has an additional mechanic called Arts Proficiency that rewards you with a powered up special or heavy attack if you’re able to fill up a meter by landing attacks and successfully blocking without taking hits. Meanwhile, Ninja Mode feels like Team Ninja finally taking off whatever limiters they might have placed on the combat in previous games in the service of balancing stamina management, lifting up their hands and saying, “you know what, just go wild.”

Perhaps the biggest departure from previous Nioh games is the shift from a mission structure to a series of open worlds. Over the course of Nioh 3’s 40+ hour campaign, you’ll be time traveling around from the Edo Period, to the Heian Era, to the Bakumatsu Era, and even to antiquity. Every period that you travel to comes with its own enormous battlefield to explore, with tons of points of interest all over the map, featuring optional bosses, challenging combat encounters, and worthwhile rewards.

That last bit is important because one of the few complaints I’ve historically had about the Nioh series has been a lack of satisfying rewards due to the random nature of loot drops. The loot is mostly still random in Nioh 3, but there are now other meaningful rewards for you to seek out. Clearing out Lesser Crucibles will power up your Guardian Spirits, granting you access to new Spirit Skills; defeating Masters will unlock new nodes on specific weapon skill trees; finding Jizo Statues will allow you to select from a variety of bonuses that will aid you when you’re inside a Crucible; sniping the weasel-like Chijinko demons out of the sky will get you elemental variations of techniques in your skill tree; you’ll find equippable skills in the many chests strewn all throughout the world; and all of this on top of the already existing Kodama and Scampus collectibles that existed in past Nioh games.

Doing these open world activities also adds to an Area Exploration rating, which itself comes with rewards, from stat bonuses, to skill points, to more areas of interest becoming pinpointed on the map. Rarely was I ever surprised while exploring any of the Nioh 3 open zones, but I at least was well rewarded for my time, which counts for a lot in a game where you need every advantage you can get.

But while exploration is well incentivized and the environmental design of these huge open landscapes is impressive, Nioh 3’s open worlds feel like they are missing a unique identity. Part of the problem stems from the fact that you’ll fight the same enemies in just about every zone. This was an issue with the previous Nioh games as well, and it is felt even more so when you’re wandering through visually distinct open worlds that all still feel the same. There are almost no enemies that feel unique to a time period. The cyclopes that appear in the Warring States Era are the same ones that appear in the icy Heian period, except instead of rocks, they throw snowballs.

There is at least a fairly wide assortment of enemies to face overall, and a large number of them are completely new to the series, but it is a little disappointing that the returning enemies don’t have any new tricks or attacks to keep me on my toes.

Not that you’ll really need anything extra to be kept on your toes. Nioh 3, like the previous two games, is very difficult, even by soulslike standards. Enemies and bosses are relentlessly aggressive, and if you’re not careful about your stamina management, you’ll find yourself regularly being stunned and vulnerable to high damage grabs that will kill you in just about one hit. But that difficulty is key to why the combat of Nioh 3 is so thrilling. Besides, even though the difficulty is high, checkpoints are well placed, shortcuts are abundant, and load times are super quick, so I rarely became frustrated despite dying 290 times over the course of the campaign.

Loot remains the most frustrating element of Nioh 3. The fact is, this is a loot system that exists for the benefit of New Game+ at the detriment of a first-time playthrough. For New Game+ and beyond, it’s great. You’re able to dig deep into your collection of gear, pick out useful sets and plan builds around their powerful set bonuses, and really get into the nitty gritty of gear customization. But until you get to that point, gear gets outdated so quickly that it just feels like a waste of time and resources to even bother with it. I’ve played enough of these games to know I shouldn’t sweat the loot on my first playthrough, instead just equipping the gear with the highest number and moving on. But my prayers go out to anyone tackling Nioh 3 for the first time, because poring over the literal thousands of pieces of gear on top of all of the equippable skills, skill tree, prestige points, guardian spirits, and soul cores that can be placed in either the yin or the yang position, it’s just… a lot.

Thankfully, there is now an auto-equip feature that allows you easily equip the most powerful gear you own with just the press of a button. What is especially nice about it is that you can set it to automatically equip based on weight. So, for example, you could just set it to equip all of the heaviest gear you have if you don’t care about having a bad dodge with just a few invulnerability frames, or you could set it for a balance of good gear and a good dodge. Or you could go toward the other extreme and set it to auto-equip the best gear that still lets you zip around the battlefield, even if it means leaving one or two gear slots completely empty.

Auto-equipping obviously has its limitations, as it doesn’t take into consideration the build-defining special effects of a weapon or set bonuses. But it does give you an option to dramatically reduce the amount of time spent playing the menu game of Nioh 3, without impacting those who enjoy the process of meticulously fine tuning their builds at every point of the campaign.

The Galleon 100 SD is the keyboard I’ve long wished Corsair would make: a full-fat gaming board crossed with a Stream Deck, the powerful macro box made by Corsair subsidiary Elgato. The result is a keyboard that takes up an inordinate amount of space – and costs as much as both products put together – but does exactly what it should.

You get all of the nice-to-haves you’d want from a great modern gaming keyboard, like 8000Hz polling, pre-lubricated mechanical switches and FPS-focused features like SOCD, plus that unparalleled control and customization that a Stream Deck provides, all in a chassis that is among the best Corsair’s ever built. Still, there’s also room to more fully realize the potential in a future design here, with magnetic switches being a curious omission and software improvements to be made.

Corsair Galleon 100 SD – Design and Features

The Galleon 100 SD continues the modern styling trend Corsair introduced with the Vanguard Pro 96, with textured knobs, thin fonts and a rounded black aluminium chassis. The MLX Pulse mechanical switches inside offer a smooth keypress, with moderate 45g actuation force and a linear action that is well-suited for gaming and pleasant enough for typing as well. The RGB-backlit PBT keycaps provide a bit of texture for the finger and a long lifetime versus ABS alternatives, while a gasket mount arrangement, the aluminium chassis, and layers of sound dampening provide a pleasantly deep sound signature. In short, the Galleon ticks all of the boxes I’d expect for a premium mechanical keyboard in 2026, without quite challenging more boutique typing-focused examples built for enthusiasts. Magnetic switches would unlock extra FPS-focused functionality, but it seems that Corsair is targeting a broader audience for this one.

The big change here is the addition of a 12-key Stream Deck into the right-hand side of the board, replacing the number pad from a full-size layout with a four-zone LCD display above and two chunky knobs at the top. The 5-inch 1280x720 display is vibrant and crisp, with text and icons that are readable (if not pin-sharp) from a normal viewing distance, and of course the keys are physically closer and more convenient to press than they would be on a separate Stream Deck unit.

Everything here is customisable in the Stream Deck software, which I’ll cover in detail later, but the default upper arrangement includes media information from Spotify, a weather forecast, volume levels and an app launcher. Holding down either knob will toggle between the two zones beneath it; with a regular press and rotation performing different functions depending on the widget selected. For example, the Spotify widget skips tracks and plays or pauses, while the weather widget lets you scroll through the weather of the day and see additional information for a certain time period.

The lower section is more standard Stream Deck fare, with each of the 12 keys displaying live information (like your CPU, RAM and GPU utilization) or serving as a static app shortcut. With folders, pages and profiles that can automatically activate in specific PC applications, there are few limits to the amount of control you can build out. As well as official integrations for Elgato products, games and so on, you can also find free and paid community-made options in an online marketplace or code your own.

If you don’t have the Stream Deck software running, you get a barebones arrangement that’s still fairly useful, packing in media controls, toggles for polling rates, profiles and game modes, and instructions for downloading the Stream Deck software.

The rest of the keyboard contains some good ideas, including an RGB-backlit strip along the top of the keyboard with a Corsair wordmark and tri-spoke elements; a similarly wordmarked palm rest made of a soft, squidgy material; flip-out legs to adjust the angle of the keyboard; and, somewhat unusually, two extra USB-C ports. You get two USB-C cables in the box, and the idea is that by running that extra cable and plugging it in the bottom of the keyboard, you can then plug in other USB-C accessories like mice or flash drives into a more easily accessible USB-C port behind the two knobs. Of course, you could just plug in whatever USB-C thing you wanted directly, without involving the keyboard, but the end result arguably looks cleaner by using the extra port.

I did worry that the Galleon would feel a bit cheap or flimsy with its Stream Deck addition, but Corsair’s designers have done well to integrate everything together into a robust and cohesive whole that feels as expensive as it actually is. If you’re a streamer or macro enthusiast, this is a very sleek way to keep the options you need within easy reach.

Corsair Galleon 100 SD – Software

As you might have guessed, the Galleon requires you to visit two places to control it: the Web Hub for changing the keyboard’s settings and Stream Deck for setting up that titular portion. Both are generally well-designed, though complex enough that finding your way around does take some time. I’d suggest starting with the Web Hub software first, updating your firmware if available, and then you can dig into the settings.

Here, you can set up the keyboard for gaming, including selecting polling rates up to 8000Hz (to fractionally reduce the delay between a key being pressed and registered) and enable SOCD, short for “Simultaneous Opposite Cardinal Direction” (letting a press of A override a press of D, for example, to aid counter-strafing in FPS titles). There are also more garden-variety controls for remapping keys, choosing lighting schemes and so on, though you won’t find features like adjustable actuation points, rapid trigger, or other common FPS-focused features due to the lack of magnetic switches. (The sockets here are hot-swappable, but only for other 3-pin or 5-pin mechanical switches, so you can’t change the core tech inside.)

The Stream Deck side of the equation is a bit more involved, with a live feed of what’s being shown on each dial area and button on the left and a menu of available widgets on the right. Adding or moving widgets is as simple as dragging and dropping, and all but the simplest widgets have further settings to customize their functionality and appearance. Icon packs make it easier to have a consistent appearance, but you’re free to go with custom icons, emojis, text and so on to suit your own preferences.

As mentioned earlier, the default set of widgets can be extended through the Elgato Marketplace, though relatively few third-party options are available for the new dial areas versus the original Stream Deck keys. Both of the third-party widgets I was hoping for did exist – YouTube Music and a calendar – but the latter was only available as a £5 or £10 purchase. I found that creating third-party widgets for the slim infobar on the Stream Deck Neo wasn’t even possible when I reviewed that device last year, so I hope that the dials here are easier to develop for.

In terms of what you can actually do with the Stream Deck, it’s a long list, including creating and playing macros, controlling music or audio devices, and supporting live streams. Controlling other parts of the Corsair ecosystem is especially well catered for, including adjusting Elgato lights, mics and cameras, Corsair peripherals, and now Fanatec sim racing gear.

Game integration feels like a bit of an afterthought, with no easy way to find what games on your system are supported by the keyboard – you have to search through all Galleon-compatible profiles or manually search by game title instead. Some third-party integrations are also expensive, with a Star Citizen profile pack costing £25 and Flight Simulator 2024 requiring an £18 investment. This feels like an area that could be improved substantially if Corsair intends to keep building out support for games, or incentivizing third-party developers to do so instead.

I did experience a few bugs in the Stream Deck software, most notably every installation of a new plugin requiring two attempts to successfully install – a pain when the default loadout for the Galleon requires eight or so plugins. Thankfully, the core functionality of assigning functions to each button and triggering them worked like a treat in the Stream Deck software, while the Web Hub provided all of the functionality I needed on the keyboard setup front.

Corsair Galleon 100 SD – Performance

The Galleon 100 SD is a strong option for gaming, with a particular alacrity for more complex simulation games where you benefit from having a large number of available keys. Throwing lesser-used (and easily forgotten) keys and key combos on the Stream Deck pad is handy, as is having an otherwise full layout to use as normal. The key action is well-tuned, with reasonable travel, good audible feedback, and a smooth action, so games like League of Legends or StarCraft 2 that can punish mispresses heavily are easier to play than they would be on a softer and shorter-travel keyboard.

I also found occasion to use the extra Stream Deck keys in FPS games like Counter-Strike 2 (for buying weapons), but I tend to prefer narrower keyboards without a number pad to ensure plenty of mousing space for the low-sensitivity gameplay that most players adopt. That led to a shade of frustration in Battlefield 6, as it wasn’t as comfortable to play with my arms spread wide across the desk. The inclusion of SOCD and a snappy 8000Hz polling rate was something of a salve, and I have no qualms about the keyboard’s overall performance for all but the most competitive FPS players. Still, I can’t help but dream about a Galleon 100 SD in a southpaw layout, with the macro pad on the left side of the keyboard.

For years, I've been singing the praises of the original Audeze Maxwell across my headset coverage here at IGN. So, when I caught wind of an updated version on the way with the Audeze Maxwell 2, I was as excited as I was curious – curious as to how the company could improve on the already stellar sound quality, and also for how it might address its few shortcomings. After using it as my primary headset for about two weeks, I'm a little disappointed that it didn't make any drastic changes, but that means it's at least still a fantastic headset. This means it's more accurate to look at the Maxwell 2 as a simple refresh rather than a brand-new headset. If you're still going strong with the original Maxwell or an equivalent high-end gaming headset, it won't be a major jump, but anyone in the market for a new top-tier option in the range of $300 and up, this is your new king.

Audeze Maxwell 2 – Design and Comfort

Audeze did not stray far from the original design; the Maxwell 2 still rocks the heavy-set earcups that house its 90mm planar magnetic drivers, although they come with some minor changes. They no longer swivel inward the full 90 degrees to lay flat and instead stop at a 45-degree angle, and it’s good enough to rest the headset around your neck comfortably. The earcup covers can pop out if you twist them, which allows for custom designs. It also means both the mute toggle and power button are no longer on the outside of the earcups. Those are now along the border of the right earcup, but the mute toggle is just a tad harder to switch on and off since it's wedged into a dip. The left earcup has the usual suspects: volume dial, chat/game mix, 3.5mm jack, USB-C port, microphone jack, and Bluetooth button.

I'm a bit surprised that the Maxwell 2 largely reused the original headband design, where the leatherette strap hooks into notches built into the frame. It's still more difficult to adjust the fit than I'd like since the holes on the strap are very rigid – at least you know it'll lock into place. The noticeable change, however, is the width of the strap itself, which now covers more surface area atop your head. It helps alleviate pressure, and it's better for keeping the headset in place when you're moving your head. That's important for a headset as heavy as this (560g, up from the original's 490g).

The earpads have a slimmer profile which makes the space within for your ears noticeably larger, and can help them fit easier (and theoretically, help with a more spacious audio experience). However, you can feel a little more jostling of the headset when turning or walking around with these (compounded by the fact it's slightly heavier) – although I can say that the new strap design offsets this by making sure the headset doesn’t slide off so easily. Regardless, I wore the Maxwell 2 for sessions upwards of four hours at a time and didn't experience much discomfort, if at all. That's because the pads are still dense and plushy, and thanks to the lighter-than-usual clamp force, there wasn't much pressure around my ears. They also limited the sweatiness I tend to get from leatherette material. And since the earpads are magnetically attached, I anticipate being able to swap them out for aftermarket ones if you wish.

Audeze Maxwell 2 – Features and Software

While there is no active noise cancelation (ANC) on this model, there is an ANC version planned in the future. Given this is a closed-back headset, it has decent noise isolation already. However, like the original, the microphone has active noise isolation to pick up your voice more accurately. While it's not an improvement, per se, it's leagues above what other gaming headsets do with either a higher noise gate or other forms of AI noise isolation, mainly because I didn't experience much clipping or digitization in my voice.

The Maxwell 2 also has simultaneous Bluetooth connectivity – well, sort of. Pairing to Bluetooth devices is straightforward and swapping to the 2.4GHz USB-C dongle is as well, but you can’t have them active simultaneously, which is a nice-to-have on high-end headsets. However, you can get audio through a wired USB-C connection and Bluetooth at the same time. Of course, it’s not as convenient as true simultaneous audio, but it is a decent option.

What is a notable improvement is the software. One of the odd things about the Maxwell was its Windows XP-era looking software that felt very outdated. While there isn't a whole lot to customize with the Maxwell 2, the updated app is easier to navigate visually, whether you're changing and saving EQ profiles or tweaking your microphone settings. At a time when software suites are getting increasingly bloated, I can appreciate how Audeze focuses on the essentials.

One of the big features of the original Maxwell is its long battery life, and I'm happy to report the Maxwell 2 is no slouch. Rated to last upward of 90 hours from a full charge, I used it as my primary headset for two full weeks about 8 hours a day, and only hit below 20% (according to the app) toward the end of week two. With all that weight, I sure hope it'd have a hefty battery at least, and it certainly does.

Audeze Maxwell 2 – Sound Quality

It's no surprise that the Maxwell 2 sounds absolutely fantastic, producing a similar sound profile to the original with its 90mm planar magnetic drivers. These remain some of the most sophisticated audio drivers for gaming headsets and set the foundation for its audiophile-type quality. The Maxwell 2 is tuned slightly differently, which was difficult to notice until multiple side-by-side listening tests – while the low-end bass isn't quite as prominent as the original Maxwell with the default EQ, you can simply replicate the more booming bass by bumping up the lower frequencies. It does highlight the clarity of the mids and highs, though, and they come out just a tad cleaner at louder volumes.

Like the original version, the Audeze Maxwell 2 puts audio quality above everything else.

As per usual, I tested the Maxwell 2 in a suite of games I normally play; namely Counter-Strike 2 and Final Fantasy XIV. For the former, positional audio is of utmost importance and the headset performed admirably for identifying actions like footsteps, opponents reloading, gunfire in certain directions with great detail. And catching up on the latest raid series in FFXIV, the busy nature of eight players casting spells, boss attacks going off, and the awesome soundtrack blasting all at the same time wasn't grating at all. That's expected of a high-end gaming headset, but I'm still impressed with how the Maxwell 2 handles all of that wonderfully.

I also gave the headset a spin on PlayStation 5, which is recognized natively if you flip the dongle to PS5 mode. There aren't many console-unique features here, even with the Audeze brand being under Sony this time around, but Tempest 3D audio and easily tuning the headset on PS5 are good enough for me. Replaying through The Last of Us Part 2 really put the cinematic capabilities of the Maxwell 2 into perspective, with dialogue coming through sharply contrasted with the punch of gunfire – it's a theater-like experience strapped to your head, and it surpasses even the Sony InZone H9 II that I reviewed recently.

This review contains spoilers for Fallout Season 2, Episode 8, “The Strip,” which is available to stream now on Prime Video.

“You bet on hope and you lost,” says a digital, wrist-mounted Robert House as The Ghoul peers into the empty cryopods he believed his wife and daughter would be contained in. That may be true for the irradiated Cooper Howard, but it’s not for us: we bet our hopes on Season 2 of Fallout finding a way to bring all of its wild ideas together. And it did. Well, mostly. As credits roll and our attention turns to what awaits us beyond the Rocky Mountains in Colorado, a few errant threads are left dangling without satisfying conclusions. Was the entire Vault 31 story just set up for a third season? And what became of the warring Brotherhood of Steel clans? Yet, despite not offering the true sense of closure that the very best season finales offer, “The Strip” remains a great episode of Fallout that creates connections, answers questions, and caps off all the most important aspects of this eccentric trip to New Vegas.

Stetson hats off to showrunners Graham Wagner and Geneva Robertson-Dworet, who really did make it through the entire season without ever confirming a canon ending to Fallout: New Vegas. There is a cheeky nod – “Over the years my body became a target for wandering travellers with something to prove” does suggest that House’s withered husk of a body that survived through the centuries of apocalypse may have been killed by the Courier, but I’m pleased the show stops short of invalidating any individual playthrough. However, I do think House’s return feels thinly examined. We know he’s a genius, but how exactly did he achieve this artificial form that’s dependent on Cold Fusion? I’m surprised that the game’s Platinum Chip didn’t come into play here, retconned into some kind of AI survival data drive. Perhaps answers await in Season 3, as that flicking screen in the episode’s final moments certainly suggests we haven’t seen the last of Robert House…

While House’s return is a significant moment for Fallout lore, his role in this finale is more or less as a navigation tool for The Ghoul, who’s finally given access to Vault-Tec’s management vault. I expect some viewers will be frustrated that the journey to find The Ghoul’s family, which has been unfolding for two whole seasons now, ends in nothing but a postcard pointing to Colorado. But that line – “You bet on hope and you lost” – really does make clear that The Ghoul is now closer to reclaiming his identity as Cooper Howard than ever before. Hope is a symptom of humanity, and even this setback can't break it. Barb and Janey may not be in Vegas, but they are alive. Where? Well, that’s hopefully a question Season 3 will answer.

Much of The Ghoul’s share of this episode examines his more emotional side, including the flashbacks, which show how Cooper took the fall for his and Barb’s involvement in “un-American activities” in an effort to keep his family safe. It’s a shame, then, that very little is made of his reunion with Lucy, who has been so responsible for restoring his humanity. While he saves her from being brainwashed by Hank, the pair are given no real space to reconcile earlier events. Regardless of how they feel – guilty or validated – the finale passes by the opportunity for an emotionally challenging conversation.

Thankfully, Lucy does get her emotional moment, but it's with her actual father, not her surrogate one. After triggering his own brainwashing to prevent himself from spilling the beans on what his mind-control project has really been about, Hank becomes the parent Lucy always thought he was: kind, gentle, loving. There’s a Black Mirror quality to this; a bittersweet moment made possible only via a sinister technology. Both Kyle MacLachlan and Ella Purnell have been wonderful throughout this season, but these precious few seconds are among their best turns on the show so far.

Such a sad moment is instantly contrasted by the arrival of Maximus. His and Lucy’s embrace is truly genuine; a healing antidote to the synthetic love that Hank offered in all his forms. The hug is equally important to Maximus, who by this point has spent most of the episode being beaten to a pulp by deathclaws in a battle that lives up to the promise made by that tease in the credits of Season 1’s finale. After numerous false starts, we got there in the end.

Missiles rupture flesh and jaws are torn from skulls in a gory fight that successfully communicates the exhaustion and overwhelming odds of going toe-to-toe with the wasteland’s biggest bruisers. It’s seeing Maximus out of the armour, though, armed with nothing but a pole and wielding a roulette table as a shield, that really showcases his growth. He doesn’t need steel plating to defend the needy, because he’s finally become the good man his dad said he would. Of course, a pole is no match for a deathclaw, so thankfully the NCR turns up, Avengers: Endgame style, to save the day. While it’s satisfying to see Maximus reunited with his people, decades after the Shady Sands bombing tore them apart, the real joy here is the recreation of the slow-motion sniper shot from Fallout: New Vegas’s opening cinematic – it’s pure fan service, but I can’t deny that I genuinely gasped with glee.

Beyond the Strip, we catch up with Caesar’s Legion, which hasn’t been seen since the season’s third episode. Releasing a long-held pause button, we finally get to see the aftermath of the battle The Ghoul initiated between the Legion’s rival groups. Macaulay Culkin’s Lacerta Legate, now falsely crowned the one true Caesar, gets to make an incredibly good joke about taking control of Vegas and building Caesar’s Palace atop it. The NCR may have rid the strip of the deathclaws, but it seems like an even meaner beast is on the way.

You’ll have noticed by now that several paragraphs of this review have ended by looking ahead to Season 3. This is a very forward-facing finale, and while it does a lot of good work to establish groundwork for the future, it often does so at the expense of closure. After playing important roles early in the season, the NCR and Legion were largely pushed to the sides, and so a conflict that should have been key to this region of Fallout’s world was held on ice. Now, at a point where our characters’ missions in Vegas are complete – Lucy has dealt with her father, The Ghoul has “found” his family – that war is only just gearing up again, which will either keep us shackled to the Strip, or see its violence spill out into the wider wasteland. I’d like to be proven wrong, but I feel like what happens in New Vegas should stay contained to the season about New Vegas.

The biggest offender, though, is the story of the Vaults, which have effectively been a multi-episode tease for what awaits next season. There have been no consequences for Reg’s ridiculous, snack-happy Inbreeding Support Group. No resolution for Norm’s discovery of the Forced Evolutionary Virus. No link between Steph’s Canadian roots and her plans for the Vaults. None of the characters have undergone any meaningful growth, and none of them have arrived at an exciting destination. While there have definitely been interesting revelations – Hank’s connections to the Enclave and Steph’s triggering of the shadowy faction’s mystery “Phase Two” certainly make it clear that this story hasn’t been worthless – it’s been the most frustrating material to watch, and suffers greatly from having limited definition and no conclusion.

It could also be said that the Brotherhood of Steel’s story has been left without any kind of closure, as the show completely abandoned the faction’s civil war just as it ignited. I’m less concerned about this, as the Brotherhood’s actions were always complimentary to Maximus’ journey rather than a key plot in their own right, and the complete breakdown of Quintus’ alliance ultimately felt like a conclusion to simmering tensions rather than the start of something bigger. However, this season’s post-credits scene does promise Quintus will be back with a bang: The reveal that he’s in possession of the blueprints to Liberty Prime no doubt had an army of Fallout fans leaping from their seats. Considering the show’s track record in bringing the games’ icons to life, I can’t wait to see this gargantuan robot stride across the battlefields of Season 3.

Within the first three missions of Menace, I am talking to my squads of snappy space marines as if they are action figures on my bedroom floor. "Fan out and move up. Good shooting! That was clean, girl." My roommates are probably used to me talking to myself when I'm playing video games at this point, but it speaks to how engrossed I got in this turn-based interplanetary war that I was already developing that kind of relationship with it. There's a lot still missing from the Early Access release. But the tactical, bug-blasting fun is already dialed in.

Probably the biggest way in which it's obvious that this is an Early Access game is the overall lack of context. I know that I'm a Major on a military ship that suffered some kind of FTL drive accident that destroyed many systems and most of the crew, leaving me as the senior commanding officer. I know that we've wound up in an area of space called the Wayback that is home to a handful of interesting, competing human factions and also a species of giant alien bugs. It's not all that difficult to get a grasp of the basics.

But I'm not actually sure why we're here, what the original mission was, what kind of faction we're representing, or what the Wayback even is. Why is it called that? How long have these other humans been here? There are references to some kind of in-game lore encyclopedia, but it doesn't seem to have been implemented yet. At the end of the day, none of this really gets in the way of my ability to shoot at things. But it does make the early game feel a bit aimless, and I find the setting interesting enough that I'd like to know more.

It's not like Menace completely doesn't care about story, either. There is clearly something brewing here, as unfinished as it is, with tension between the Wayback factions and the marines playing out in voice-acted cutscenes every few operations. It's just unclear where it's going or what I'm ultimately building up to other than harder missions, better gear, and upgrading my ship. In about 35 hours, I didn't run into anything that seemed especially like the main plot. There is a steady escalation of stakes and difficulty, though, which at least does a good job of helping me feel like I'm not just spinning my wheels.

Hit the Ground Running

As a squad-based tactics game, man, I really like Menace. The pacing and action economy are so cleverly crafted to encourage you to play in more active and interesting ways. You can't just set everyone on ov erwatch and creep forward, for example, which is a rut I tend to fall into in similar games. There aren't a lot of passive or reactive abilities, so victory comes from making proactive choices. Moving up the field requires thinking about who still has turns left to spend, and how you can make sure your advance elements have adequate support if they run into trouble.

Suppression is a huge deal, at least when fighting other humans, and this adds a feeling of authenticity to every firefight. In actual warfare, they say hundreds of rounds get fired for every one that hits a target, and that's exactly how Menace works. It's often far more important to keep every enemy in line-of-sight pinned down than it is to inflict casualties. That gives your second wave safety and freedom of movement to either charge in or flank and win the fight, and this creates a constantly engaging tactical loop. Your own squads who get suppressed will have their action points and accuracy penalized, but will also hunker down or hit the deck intelligently depending on the amount of heat they're under, further making them feel like real soldiers.

This blends nicely with the fact that every squad is led by a named character you can recruit, level up, and customize. They all have distinct personalities and backstories along with a unique ability that defines them. There's sort of an over-the-top Jagged Alliance vibe, though a bit less goofy. Jacques, a private security contractor I hired from the Wayback, can regain action points when he's under heavy fire, so he thrives at the tip of the spear. Marta begins every mission with a major debuff that turns into a strong buff the more turns that pass, making her a clutch asset for closing out a long mission.

And unlike in, say, XCOM, these flagship characters only die if their entire squad is wiped out and you can't get anyone over to them to render medical aid, so it doesn't feel like playing a little bit risky will rob you of your beloved blorbos. On the other hand, accompanying each of them (excluding vehicle drivers, which are their own thing) are up to eight renameable squadmates with no dialogue or special abilities. And these guys are… kind of expendable.

Manpower is a limited resource you have to manage on the strategic level, so you can't just go throwing background extras into the meat grinder all the time. But especially as you get more advanced medical facilities online that can rehabilitate casualties, the grunts kind of become a wager you can afford to risk by making aggressive plays. And this is such a clever way of getting me to command more actively and break out of my usual, turtle playstyle.

Alien Menace

Encountering the alien bugs changes things up quite a bit. They're much harder to suppress, though heavy losses can force them to flee. And especially later on, some of them are so heavily-armored that your standard assault rifles are all but useless. They don't really take cover, and a lot of them only have melee attacks. But simply holding your ground and grinding them down at range isn't always an option. Having to switch up my gear and my thinking depending on what I was fighting, in addition to the wide variety of mission types, made me come up with new tactics constantly.

Squad customization is also deep and satisfying. There is no standard currency in the Wayback, so all gear is either a mission reward or purchased using the barter system on the black market. But even once you do build up enough scrap bombs and alien guts to trade for the best stuff available, there's a supply budget on each mission that takes into account every piece of equipment and keeps you from simply buying your way to victory. I think this could use some tuning, since it currently feels like the missions are getting harder a bit faster than my supply budget is increasing. It's almost there. Maybe just a nudge is all it needs.

It seems like a lot of thought has gone into the various veterancy upgrades squads can earn from promotions, as well. They're pretty well-balanced, feeling powerful enough to be meaningful but not so game-changing as to trivialize combat on their own, like increasing evasion based on how many tiles you moved. Each has a clear role in mind, and almost none feel like they wouldn't be at least situationally useful. It's an area of progression where I can really tell developer Overhype Studios has a strong footing in what works and what doesn't about this genre.

The strategic layer is not quite as well-developed yet. There are a few different things you can buy with the components gained from completing each multi-mission operation. You have ship upgrades like the med bay and the recruiting office for managing manpower, along with armaments that can be deployed from orbit a limited number of times per mission. Then you have loyalty tracks with each of the three major Wayback factions that can unlock their unique buildings, which can do things like give you an extra chance at post-mission loot or allow you to call in supplies in the middle of a mission.

They can be neat, but still feel a bit limited in both scope and depth. It's a good first iteration, but this is for sure somewhere I'd like to see more love given to over the course of Early Access. There are also only three planets so far, which can start to feel a little samey after a while. More are in the works. Technical bugs have been relatively sparse, though my main file is afflicted by a fairly annoying one right now where my manpower counter seems to be permanently broken.

Dracula will be released in theaters on February 6.

At last, they’ve done it! They’ve made a movie based on Dracula! Oh, wait, what’s that? They are making Dracula movies all the time? Almost constantly one might argue?

Look, Dracula is an all-time great story anchored by an all-time great horror villain that has given us a ton of memorable films and TV shows since it debuted in 1897. But lately, it feels like there was some sort of bet between studios and producers to see how many different versions we could get close together.

Since 2023 alone, we’ve had Renfield, The Last Voyage of the Demeter, Abigail, Nosferatu, and Abraham's Boys - all of which were derived from the original Dracula story to some capacity, whether it be using specific story elements or characters or by creating their own sequel scenarios. And now we have yet another film, which is going simple on the title level and leaving it at Dracula.

And the movie is… fine. But it feels like if you’re going to do this story again, especially right now, fine isn’t quite enough.

Written and directed by Luc Besson, this version is a more direct adaptation of the novel than other recent takes on the story (Nosferatu’s name-changed version aside), with Caleb Landry Jones starring as our not-so-good count. But where the credits only say the film is based on Bram Stoker’s novel, it sure seems like they should have thanked screenwriter James V. Hart and director Francis Ford Coppola as well, because wow does this version owe a lot to their 1992 film Bram Stoker’s Dracula.

It was Coppola’s movie that directly introduced the idea that Mina, the girl Dracula is targeting in Stoker’s original story, is the reincarnation of his great love from when he was human. Besson’s film uses that concept as its central conceit, even echoing some of the structure changes that movie added to the story, with a similar opening where a pre-vampire Vlad returns from war, only to find he’s lost Elizabeth (played here by Zoë Bleu, who also plays Mina) – albeit with the specifics changed up of how and why this occurred.

Also riding the line between loving homage and blatant copying is the look of the decrepit Dracula when Jonathan Harker (Ewens Abid) goes to his castle, which is very clearly modeled after Gary Oldman’s memorable makeup and white wig in the 1992 version, which at the time was a very new spin on Dracula. All of which makes this a Dracula movie with an uphill battle, because on the surface, rather than justifying its existence with an interesting new take on Dracula, it’s mimicking someone else’s interesting take on Dracula.

And yet there are points where the movie was winning me over. This is an aggressively weird film at times, which leans into comedy more than you might expect, and some of it is legitimately strangely funny. That includes the scenes between Jonathan and Dracula, in which the unaware lawyer is fumbling with his papers and keeps missing “You’re with a vampire!” red flags like the Count killing a mouse and draining its blood into a cup to drink or using the telekinesis powers he leans heavily on in this movie to rid himself of a potential weapon that could be used against him. There’s also a moment where a vampire is decapitated that includes a rather hysterical physical comedy beat that felt like it was out of a Sam Raimi/Bruce Campbell Evil Dead movie in terms of bonkers, cartoon-style zaniness mixed with gore.

If the movie had just fully committed to this sort of tone, it probably would have been for the best, but it also seems like we’re meant to take its central love story – and how Dracula’s adoration for Elizabeth has kept him going for hundreds of years until he meets Mina – and be truly invested in it. But that never really clicks in, because it’s all too heightened and plays too silly from the start. This goes for an opening montage of Vlad and Elizabeth in their oh-so happy days before he’s sent to war that has so much grinning and frolicing – they’re gleefully jumping around! They’re having a playful food fight! – that it feels like it’s from The Naked Gun.

One of the most curious yet intriguing elements of the movie is its choice of lead actor. Caleb Landry Jones is extremely talented, as proven in projects like Get Out, Twin Peaks: The Return, and Nitram. But as much as it’s great to see actors stretch themselves in different types of roles, there’s a reason Landry’s been cast as so many quirky characters – whether they be troubled, outright villains, or goodhearted – and that’s because there’s a certain aura he projects and excels at.

Little about his presence or physicality is a great fit for the early scenes in Dracula where we’re meant to believe he’s the greatest, most skilled warrior on the battlefield in his prior human life. And despite being in his mid-30s, Jones also still looks quite boyish, which makes him an odd fit for the would-be debonair, sophisticated version of Dracula who seeks to woo Mina. Still, Jones is always compelling on screen, and he excels in offbeat scenes like the ones in which Dracula is toying with Jonathan – including when he lets out one hell of an amazing wild and wheezing extended laugh when the lawyer manages to amuse him.

What’s funny is that Besson has basically said this version of Dracula exists because, after working with him on 2023’s Dogman, he was so taken with Jones that he crafted his script with the actor in mind. Besson has had a lot of misfires and duds in recent years, and he’s never been able to consistently recapture the strength of his early output in the 1990s when he was delivering films like La Femme Nikita, The Professional and The Fifth Element. With Dracula, he shows he still has a good eye and, while the movie strains within what is clearly a restricted budget, often looking smaller than you feel it’s meant to, there are some clever visual flourishes, such as the image of an army standing across a burning horizon. But then there are the little CGI gargoyles who serve as Dracula’s minions, which are among a few baffling additions.

Perhaps the oddest addition to the Dracula lore here is that rather than simply giving him the power to enthrall, he uses a special perfume that magically puts women under his sway, which is represented by a full blown dance number montage of women adoring him. That sequence is sort of fun, but it’s also kind of dumb, and it feels rather random like much of the film. I suspect its randomness will work better for some than others, because there is something to be said for going this wacky at times. But it never feels all that cohesive and never truly takes off.

The supporting cast are all solid, led by the great Christoph Waltz as this film’s version of the vampire hunter Van Helsing – here reimagined as a never-named priest who’s seen it all. It’s not exactly a challenging role, as Waltz is given plenty of semi-snarky comedic throwaway lines, the likes of which he can deliver in his sleep at this point, although it is funny that the actor has now appeared in new versions of both Frankenstein and Dracula within just a few months of each other.

It never ceases to amaze me all the different types of games that designers can create from the same source material. One property that exemplifies that in recent years is The Lord of the Rings. Last year, we took a look at The Fellowship of the Ring Trick-Taking Game, and now the adventure continues with the next entry, The Two Towers Trick-Taking Game, designed by Bryan Bornmueller and published by Asmodee. Whether you played the previous game or not, it’s time to don your leather armor, because The Two Towers is well worth picking up.

As the name implies, The Two Towers Trick-Taking Game plays like your typical trick-taking game, with players competing to win hands of cards – referred to as tricks – by playing and following a special suit that is led at the start of each round. What makes The Two Towers (and its predecessor) unique is that it's a purely cooperative game.

While I knew this going in, having not played The Fellowship of the Ring, I wasn’t entirely sure how this was going to work – but in a few moments, it quickly became clear, and I found it rather clever. In order to progress, each character has to succeed in their respective goals, such as the Gimli player being required to win six mountain-suited cards or Boromir winning two tricks before the Black Tower card is played, and no more afterwards. What makes The Two Towers (and the previous game) a cooperative experience is that, while you are still competing against other players to take the tricks, the team is working to complete every one of the active characters’ goals.

Included in the small box are 19 chapters to play through, though “scenarios” would be a more apt term to describe them. Each of the chapters gives you a number of options. You have different playable characters to choose from. You can play either a short or long version of the chapter. You can even add in new characters or objectives. With short missions, you only need to complete a single game with all players successfully completing their goals. Long missions require you and your friends to play through multiple games back-to-back in order to complete all the possible characters' objectives, with losing scrapping any progress you'd made so far (though you can just opt to replay those characters too).

What makes The Two Towers (and its predecessor) unique is that it's a purely cooperative game.

The Two Towers is billed as a standalone expansion, but a standalone “continuation” may be more appropriate, which would make sense considering the source material. If you played The Fellowship, The Two Towers will feel incredibly similar. There are a couple of new types of cards, including the Orcs, which can only be played when you can’t follow, can never win a trick; worst of all, if you are forced to lead with an Orc, you all lose the chapter.

The White and Black Tower cards are also new, with each one always winning the trick they are played during but canceling each other out if played during the same one. The White Tower also fills in for the One Ring from the previous game, with whoever is dealt the card assuming the role of Aragorn and the first hand’s leader.

Individual games are pretty quick, with a typical short mission only taking up maybe 10–15 minutes. The length of longer missions, since they are composed of multiple full games to complete, fluctuate depending on how many games you end up needing to play. The short turnaround makes this a great option to bust out whether you only have time for a quick-playing game, or you want to do a marathon and get through a bunch of chapters in a single go over the course of an afternoon.

I appreciate when games offer that sort of flexibility. These short game times are helped along with the overall small footprint the game takes up, both in terms of its box and tablespace. As someone who loves to frequent my local tavern much like a hobbit, the fact that the box can easily fit into a backpack or purse is a nice touch.

My experience with the trick-taking genre has been mostly with straightforward, competitive games like Euchre, where I’ve only had to deal with navigating around a trump suit. I've found myself enamored with The Two Towers and its cooperative approach. Celebrating a shared victory with the entire table thanks to a clutch trump on the last hand to secure the win has a vastly different feeling than pulling a surprise trick in Euchre that wins a game for just your team. There is also no feeling quite like being forced to play an Orc card and losing it all in Euchre, either.

From a visual standpoint, I adore the stained glass aesthetic of all of the cards and artwork, and busting this game out at my local brewery, its visuals have caused more than a couple of fellow tavern visitors to stop and ask, “What’s that?!”. The cards themselves almost garnered more glances than our random outbursts cursing orcs (but only just).

There is a solo and a two-player mode, and while I only dabbled in the solo mode, my wife and I enjoyed the two-player variation. This variant features a third game-controlled player whose hand of cards is placed in a reveal pyramid, with only cards that aren’t covered up able to be played. It reminded me a lot of 7 Wonders Duel, but I enjoyed it more than managing multiple hands in solo mode. To be fair, though, I’m not much of a solo board game player in the first place.

As much as I have enjoyed actually playing The Two Towers Trick-Taking Game, my favorite part of the game has surprisingly been the moment each new chapter scenario is revealed. As someone who loves fantasy books, and especially The Lord of the Rings, I always get a kick out of seeing how the next moments of the book will be represented, what new character cards are pulled, and what we have to do next. Much like Fellowship, once all of the chapters are complete, a repeatable mode rule is there to let you and your group play afterwards, coming up with challenging character combinations and goals as you want. And for those who own Fellowship, there are rules to mix the two games’ characters together once the campaign is done, though both games’ cards have unique backs so you will always be able to separate them back out again.

For those who own Fellowship, there are rules to mix the two games’ characters together.

My main critique, and a minor one at that, is that I would have appreciated heavier strategic elements. Even with the various goals of the characters and twists of the chapters to keep things interesting, I would have loved some aspect that lends itself more to strategy than the more luck-based nature these sorts of games lean toward. But even this complaint is more a “wouldn’t it be neat if…” sort of wish.

After playing The Two Towers Trick-Taking Game, I was instantly searching online to get myself the Fellowship version, as I just wanted more. The cooperative take on the trick-taking genre, mixed with beloved characters and the stories of J.R.R. Tolkien, meshes wonderfully into a solid and replayable package. Seeing as it's a cooperative game makes this a solid choice to introduce the genre to new folks , but if you aren’t a fan of trick takers at a mechanical level, I’m not sure this will win you over. Still, thanks to its small footprint and easy setup, The Two Towers Trick-Taking Game is an easy recommendation, and a must-get if you loved the Fellowship version.

Where to Buy

The Two Towers Trick-Taking Game

Any game built around gacha mechanics needs to have a certain hook to keep things interesting in the long term, especially if there’s potential to invest your hard-earned dollars into it. For all their systemic sins, Game of Thrones: Kingsroad and Persona 5: The Phantom X at least piqued my interest by expanding on already-revered lore, allowing me to entwine myself in their beloved worlds. The much more enjoyable Zenless Zone Zero, on the other hand, pulled me in with a mix of high-octane combat, endearing character development, and Y2K flair. Arknights: Endfield is the latest competitor in this genre’s fierce attention economy, offering not only an engrossing sci-fi open world to explore, but another mechanically moreish addition: base building and automation. It’s a clever combination that keeps you pushing, but, after 38 hours of grinding, I’ve found that Arknights leans a little too heavily on the tropes of the genre, and stops it just short of feeling like anything more than another solid gacha option to consider for your rotation.

You play as the Endministrator (or Endmin for short) who, after a 10-year absence and an unfortunate case of amnesia, returns to the world of the living to rebuild society on the planet of Talos-II and usher in a new era of safety for its inhabitants. Taming the wilds is no small task, though, and on top of trying to remember who you were before your big sleep, you’ll also face off against a range of evil entities, including leather-clad maurauders, shifting zoomorphic creatures, and other mythic, well-dressed baddies. It’s an intriguing premise framed in a collapsing cyberpunk world, unfortunately dulled by an exposition-heavy opening with awkward stop-and-start pacing. Thankfully, this dialogue-dense beginning does eventually open up somewhat, giving you the freedom to seek out battles across the planet’s atmospheric landscape.

With a set of companions in tow, you’ll venture to the surface of Talos-II to hunt for resources, solve simple environmental platforming puzzles, and clear out zones that you can then access in a larger metagame to construct and automate machinery. To do this, you’ll build a team of up to four Operators who fight and collect items alongside you to push the lengthy story ever onwards. Early on, you’ll have a limited pool of story-specific characters to play as, like the masked Endmin, the empathetic and mission-oriented Perlica, and the spirited Chen Qianyu, though eventually you’ll be able to use a gacha currency to randomly pull new pals, too. Endfield doesn’t have the most imaginative gameplay in the genre – most puzzles involve finding and pressing a few buttons, and you’ll soon tire of trawling through the same few groups of bad guys to dominate an area. The striking cyberpunk setting does much of the heavy lifting here, especially as you transform the oppressive industrial areas into machinery-filled green spaces.

While I’d like to say the story-related issues dry up after the early game, pacing problems do come back to haunt this otherwise compelling experience, particularly as you start to wrestle with the mid-to-late game. The gap between thoughtfully designed missions and filler expeditions is far more obvious, and while some jaunts do well to provide snippets of lore, the lion’s share are monotonous fetch quests. This split is especially frustrating, as there are genuinely interesting story threads to pull at, not only about the Endmin themself but the precarious political situations surrounding their organisation.

Throughout my playthrough, I enjoyed meeting a growing cast of triumphant heroes and elegant villains, like the leather-clad matriarch Nefarith, whose malevolent tone is as enthralling as it is threatening. New locations, like the bamboo-filled Wuling, also appear just in time to liven things up as the angular design of the opening areas starts to wane. Spirited vocal performances and sporadic helpings of humorous writing certainly add personality to the otherwise jargon-heavy story, too, which helped alleviate fatigue as I bashed my head against the same few mission types.

It goes without saying that there is an eye-watering array of currencies to consider here – a painful staple of gacha games. On top of the usual lottery-style pulls, which allows you to randomly unlock unique characters and weapons, there’s also a paid Battle Pass that rewards you with resources that can be filtered into systems that help speed up progression. You can find items to upgrade your weapon skills, as well as bolster your combat stats, with variant currencies offering specific amounts of level-boosting potency – it’s a monetary mouthful to say the least. If you aren’t keen on buying them, you can still find most currencies on the map or by completing daily challenges, but this is, as you can imagine, like wading through treacle. As costs rise and resources become more scarce, there’s an obvious incentive to pay to skip the hassle of hunting for yourself. It’s not entirely egregious, and I found that I could resist the credit card's call in this case. But that speaks more to my own stubbornness than Arknights' balance, which is inconsistent at best.

It’s not all bad, though, and one area Arknights makes a mark is in its character designs. In the early hours, I was more than happy with my humble team of hardworking warriors, but my feelings began to shift once I’d earned the currency needed to try out the character lottery. Every character you meet throws out a handful of quippy one-liners and flashy moves that are effective enough to tug on the heartstrings. There’s the cute peak-shredding Snowshine, whose fuzzy bear shoes and jumbo buster sword are immediately endearing. Another favorite is Arclight, a cyberpunk rendition of the Energizer bunny who dazzles with sparks and sharp movements. There’s plenty of variety available in the roster, and it’s clear developer Hypergryph has taken care to make each character stand out – so it doesn’t feel too bad when you don’t pull your dream bias.

It’s also handy that if, or more likely when, you pull multiples of the same character, you’ll earn tokens that can be used to update their “Potential,” boosting their battle stats and earning some cute art cards to boot. No matter how lucky you think you are, you’ll always pull the less desirable characters more often, and this system does well to soften the pain of seeing the same face pop up time and time again. Think of it like psychological warfare, but adorable!

Beyond their appearance, I also enjoy how a character’s personality tends to shape how they move in battle, and the flashy, if simple, combat quickly became my favourite aspect of Arknights. Connecting hits are delivered with vibrant visual payoff, so much so that even my silly mistakes looked like intentional moves. As you explore, you’ll encounter groups of various enemies camped out, like sedimentary spiders or sword-wielding bandits, all of which feature level indicators hovering above their heads. Once ready to engage, you run directly at them, weapons brandished, and start violently mashing buttons to begin your assault.

Instead of controlling the Edmin alone, you can switch between all the members of your team in battle, applying flashy combos that feel engaging in motion and extremely easy to pull off. Each character has a dodge, a light attack, and a special attack that string together nicely, delivering well-choreographed synergies. Once you knock back an enemy and start to juggle them, you can also call in your compatriots to deliver electrifying blows that feel slick in motion – the Endmin flips around in style, while Perlica shoots volts through her opposition. As with the Arknights' story, this too can lose its lustre as you push deeper into it and realize there’s only so much to find. That said, there is some meditative comfort to be found in the repetition.

Outside of combat, the rest of your time is spent investing in the infrastructure of your base. Unlike the complex, automation-based gameplay of beloved factory management simulators Factorio and Satisfactory, Arknights’ base building is much more tame. And, thanks to lengthy explanations delivered by NPCs and the option to import handy prefabricated designs, it’s a process that ensures even the most build-averse players can create a functioning base of operations. Paying attention to this system may seem unimportant at first, but these buildings are key to delivering all-important resources. Investing in them early is important if you want to avoid the draw of the easily clickable shop.

First, you’ll plant electric pylons and connect them with relay towers to supply electricity to the area. Though soon enough, you’ll also be able to implement mining as well as machinery that can refine and process raw materials, grinding them and cooking them into new, more useful shapes. Where you choose to implement your power also filters into the platforming challenges in the open world, and you’ll need to find and power hungry machinery and unlock broken-down bases to solve puzzles and unlock more loot. As someone who hasn’t always enjoyed the intense, efficiency-focused approach of similar automation games, Arknights provides a friendly alternative that’s ripe for community collaboration and experimentation, and it does well to fuel exploration in the open-world setting.

The Muppet Show debuts on Disney+ on February 4.

This year marks 50 years since The Muppet Show debuted in syndication on US television, making a frog, a pig, a bear, a Gonzo, and the rest of the show’s felt menagerie into global superstars. In the most full circle of full circle examples, ABC and Disney+ have put the band back together in a special test pilot for a Seth Rogen revival of The Muppet Show.

A lot of the words in that last sentence are whiplash inducing, but the thing to cling onto is that it’s a revival of The Muppet Show. Fans of Jim Henson’s puppet creations have long been begging someone in the entertainment industry who loves the Muppets to just make a new Muppet Show; bless Rogen for heeding the call and ending our decade’s-long whining.

If you’re not familiar with the recent history of The Muppets: In 1990, Jim Henson tragically passed away from toxic shock syndrome, and in 2004, the Muppets IP was bought by the Walt Disney Company. That’s been a disappointing baton pass, because Disney has been incredibly inconsistent in knowing what to do with Kermit and his pals, banishing them to viral shorts or trying to force them into weird high-concept ideas like 2015’s mockumentary series, The Muppets.

While trying new ideas and not getting stuck in a taciturn nostalgia loop is always encouraged, the problem with many Disney-era Muppet projects is that they often reek of an executive mandate to “update the Muppets and make them cool and hip for today.” The problem with that thinking is that it proves they’re being played with by creatives who fundamentally do not understand why the Muppets work – they’re timeless. Kermit and his family of weirdos don’t belong in any era, because their brand of silly lives eternally in the relationships between the characters and their relentless desire to make audiences happy; it’s their True North.

Thankfully, Rogen gets that with his very soul, as does director Alex Timbers. Together, they’ve resurrected the variety show format, the classic Muppet theater set, and the stock cast of classic Muppet characters to make The Muppet Show in 2026, not for 2026.

From the moment Kermit’s felt hand turns the theater’s house lights on, I defy any viewer to resist the huge smile that will spontaneously bloom. If you’re of a certain age, the opening is like a time travel machine back to your childhood, and if you’re a kid, the comedic chaos of the show is attuned to your sensibilities as well.

Like the original variety show, the episode has a special guest star in Sabrina Carpenter (also an executive producer), who shows up with the exact energy needed to match the insanity around her. She gets to sing in two different numbers and banter backstage with the Muppet players like she’s been doing it her whole life.

Unlike some revivals, The Muppet Show has a lived-in quality to it, likely because the primary performers are long-time Muppeteers like Bill Barretta, Dave Goelz, Eric Jacobson, Peter Linz, David Rudman, and Matt Vogel. They’ve lived their characters for at least a decade each and give pitch-perfect performances across the board…and if you don’t like the slight change in some character voices, get over it; the alternative is them getting moldy in an archive somewhere.

Kudos to ​​pilot writers Albertina Rizzo, Kelly Younger, Gabe Liedman, and Andrew Williams for honoring the past with faithful sketch revivals and character temperaments while making this episode feel fresh and genuinely funny. Their new material, including a new Muppet, some novel camera framing, and cameo bits all add to the scale and scope of the world without trying too hard.

Hopefully, the heart and hilarity featured in The Muppet Show will be more than enough proof to give it a series order, because the world really needs Kermit and his pals more than ever.

Full spoilers follow for Primal Season 3, Episode 4, “Prey for the Wicked,” which is available on Adult Swim and HBO Max now.

Wow, I didn’t see this coming so soon. Fang is back! And so are her babies and Mira, all of whom we last saw in the Primal Season 2 finale back in 2022. Not only has our favorite T. rex returned, but by the end of this episode she’s been reunited with Spear… or what’s left of him, anyway.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. The first three episodes of this season have taken their time just getting us acquainted with the zombie version of Spear, and while it was clear that our undead hero was looking for his lost family – and specifically for Fang – even if he wasn’t entirely conscious of it, it didn’t seem like series creator Genndy Tartakovsky was in any rush to reunite them. Yes, Tartakovsky hinted that the beautiful girl would return eventually, and a trailer gave us a glimpse of her too, but so far Primal Season 3 has very much been centered on zombie Spear, so much so that it wasn’t even clear how much time had passed since his death – er, “death” – in the Season 2 finale.

So I was a bit surprised to find that this episode opens with a flashback, and not just any flashback, but one to Spear’s funeral. How heartbreaking is it when, among the array of villagers mourning Spear, we see Mira intensely dancing in her grief? And even more touching, there’s Fang off in the distance, watching the ceremony with her babes. She might not fully understand the nature of the funeral, but she knows well enough what it means.

Months later, Fang and her (growing) offspring are living harmoniously with Mira’s people, though when a child playfully winds up straddling one of the little dinos and raises a spear a la Spear, Fang reacts badly to the sight. But it’s in this moment that she realizes that Mira is pregnant with Spear’s child, and damn if we don’t have our second tears-worthy moment in the episode as Fang starts digging a nest for Mira.

Of course, Mira and Fang are both heartbroken over the loss of Spear, and they’ve formed a close bond in the months since his death. As usual, Tartakovsky and his team of artists convey these emotions wordlessly, if not silently – never underestimate how many different meanings a growl from Fang can carry. The scenes between the two also raise the question of how exactly Mira and Fang will react when they meet the zombie version of Spear.

But first, there’s this week’s action, which involves a swarm of hateful hog-like creatures that invade Mira’s village. That they don’t straight-up kill their prey, but instead take them back to their even more horrible queen hog-like creature so that she can feast on the villagers while she nurses her giant baby-hog things… well, it’s all just a reminder of the bloody cycle of life that permeates the world of Primal.

But one of the themes of Primal has always been that friendship and love are stronger than any, well, primal instincts to survive. What purpose was left in Spear’s life, or Fang’s, after they lost their original families if they hadn’t found each other? So when Fang’s offspring make it clear that they want to be part of the search party that will attempt to rescue the missing villagers because they want to save their little human friend, you can basically see that very notion written on Mira’s face. This is what it’s all about.

So while it seemed at the start of this season as if Spear’s revival as a zombie could’ve taken place years – or many years – after his death, possibly even after the epilogue of Season 2’s finale when we met Mira and Spear’s young daughter, we now know that it’s only been a matter of months. And beyond the question of what will happen next, now that this unlikely family is finally reunited, there’s also the matter of where – and what condition – Spear will be in by the time that Season 2 epilogue comes to pass years from now. The way the scene played, Spear was gone from their lives. So now we must ask ourselves: Will Fang and Mira lose him again?

Questions and Notes From Anachronistic History

• Man, I missed Fang. Even just the way she sleeps is so cool.
• Primal’s third season has been pretty heavy so far, and while this episode is full of emotion, action, and gore, it’s also got several welcome lightweight moments, mostly courtesy of Fang’s li'l ones and the kid from Mira’s tribe who’s always getting into trouble.
• It’s great seeing the dino pups get some chomping action themselves against the pig creatures.
• And speaking of those two, they really need names at this point…
• I confess to being a little bit confused about how the old shaman from the season opener who revived Spear could’ve seen his people slaughtered prior to that episode without Mira and her crew knowing about it. No cell phones, I guess.
• Cool effect when Mira’s fellow warrior snuffs out the campfire so that they can see better in the dark, with the scene then changing from mostly blacks to shades of blue.
• What was that ritual those two village people performed on the old shaman’s staff? Hmmm…

I’m a sucker for nostalgia, so I have yet to tire of the enhanced ports, remasters, and remakes that are all the rage these days. I love revisiting games from simpler times, sporting fresh graphics and handy new features, but I also enjoy completely new takes on them I would never have expected. Dragon Quest VII already got the latter treatment on 3DS a decade ago, and now Dragon Quest VII Reimagined is ringing in the 40th anniversary of the series with a fine third iteration, though it’s not one without sacrifices. This time around, there is a clear focus on improving the pacing of one of Dragon Quest’s most notorious entries, and Square Enix has succeeded in that regard – but some of the other adjustments Reimagined makes in an effort to appeal to newer players have come at the expense of longtime fans.

Alone on a small island in a vast ocean, Dragon Quest VII Reimagined tells the tale of a humble fisherman’s son (your main character) and his childhood friends, the outspoken Maribelle and the rebellious and brotherly Prince Keifer, as they seek out fragments of 17 magical tablets in an effort to restore the world. Their quest takes them to the pits of volcanoes, under the sea, high into the sky, and even through time itself, meeting new allies and uncovering dark secrets from history along the way. I’ve always thought Dragon Quest VII stands out among the series, approaching its storytelling in a different and engaging way thanks to those time-travel elements and how it reveals the overarching story over the course of the adventure.

Instead of a single sprawling plot that grows increasingly complex, Dragon Quest VII weaves a tapestry from many seemingly independent strands into a final work of art – a grand story the Dragon Quest games are known for, but one that’s hidden at the start. That really helps drive home its themes of isolation, with the oddly disconnected nature of each island’s tale being lessened as you literally rebuild the world. Add in that you get to see how your actions in the past echo through into the present, and this still remains one of my favorite stories of the Dragon Quest series.

Bringing the world of Dragon Quest VII into the modern era of high-definition graphics, Reimagined sports a brand-new art style inspired by a puppet-and-diorama aesthetic that does a really good job of depicting Akira Toriyama’s original cast of characters. The proportions of these particular heroes have always been a bit more chibi compared to others in the franchise, but here muted tones and being able to see the fabric materials of hats and clothing have replaced the vivid colors and dramatic, anime-inspired outlines that I usually adore about Dragon Quest. The fact that Reimagined removed the 3DS version’s outfit changes for the different vocations saddens me as well. I admittedly found myself growing more accustomed to the puppet-y look as I went, and both my wife and my two-year-old loved to point out how cute everything was as I played, but I’d still be fine if this art style ended up being a “one and done” affair.

Thankfully, Reimagined retains much of the same classic RPG goodness that the Dragon Quest series has held onto these long decades, but it also introduces more goodies than just a facelift to mix up the adventure. New Monster Heart accessories impart unique aspects to the character they are equipped to, such as reducing your MP to zero but doubling your strength or increasing the damage you dish out with each subsequent attack. You can now take out weaker enemies in the field without ever entering combat as well, cutting them down from the world map itself. As nifty as both of these additions are, they are just the tip of the iceberg.

What I found more fun to mess around with and build my team around were the powerful Let Loose attacks, which are super moves that act as Reimagined’s take on the Square staple Limit Break concept, and the ability to have characters equip two vocations at a time. Both of these can result in some deliciously broken combos that feel great to pull off. Anyone currently equipped with the Priest vocation will be able to fully heal and revive the entire party with its Born Again action, while the Troubadour's Encore ability will temporarily reduce the party’s MP costs to zero. My personal favorites were the Champion’s Divide and Monk’s Critical Stance, with the former causing three copies to appear and perform whatever action you pick that turn, and the latter guaranteeing your next physical attack to be a critical hit – a particularly devastating option when using the Monk’s Multifist attack that hits seven times.

It’s nice that the new Moonlighting feature that allows each party member to have two vocations at a time provides both their specific stat buffs and access to their toolkit of spells and abilities. Accessible a few hours after unlocking the vocation system itself, I appreciate the flexibility that Moonlighting offers in adjusting how you want your team to run. What I like even more is that there are no downsides or restrictions with whatever you pick for that Moonlighting spot – both vocations earn the same amount of experience points after combat, and it just speeds up the whole process of unlocking the especially good advanced vocations that require you to have mastered multiple other ones already. Keeping one of those mastered vocations equipped even gives the non-mastered role a boost with extra vocation experience.

The previous versions of Dragon Quest VII, especially the original PlayStation release, were known – almost notoriously so – for how long they could take to play through or get to the cool stuff, like combat or unlocking character classes for your party of heroes. Addressing those pacing issues was a core principle behind Dragon Quest VII Reimagined, and some of those changes are more welcome than others, but the pursuit has been a success overall. You’ll get to swing your sword (or sticks, in this case) at some monsters for the first time within 30 minutes of starting Reimagined, and I was able to get to Alltrades Abbey to unlock the vocation system, the crux of your party customization, around 11 hours later. To put the difference here into perspective, at one point I booted up a save from my 3DS version of Dragon Quest VII that was at roughly the same spot: not only was I five levels higher in Reimagined with twice as many vocations mastered, I had also done all that in half the time. When I rolled credits in Reimagined, I clocked in at just over 46 hours, with my party hovering right around level 50, which is much shorter than both previous versions – although that time doesn’t include either of the post-game dungeons or going for 100%, which will likely put you up to the 70+ hour mark.

It’s no secret that this adjusted pacing has come at the cost of some parts of the original game being removed, with producer Takeshi Ichikawa being transparent about how locations such as El Ciclo, Gröndal, and Providence were left on the cutting room floor. Certain areas and dungeons have been reduced in size, too, with the boat the main character’s father departs on right out of the gate now being only a single level instead of two. The Sunken Citadel in the Wetlock region is another such example, with the dungeon being basically removed altogether and replaced with a short, straight-shot corridor. Losses like that are certainly disappointing, but outside of the occasional dungeon feeling a bit small, I actually really enjoyed how the story flows now, and I never felt an obvious gap or awkward break caused by “missing” content.

What I think has had a more noticeable negative impact on the pacing, though, is how Reimagined has seemingly smoothed over nearly every aspect of the original that could potentially cause even the smallest bit of discomfort or aggravation. That may sound fine on the surface, but it has resulted in the removal of things that have traditionally helped define this series, taking away much of that crucial sense of discovery. When I boot up a Dragon Quest game, I expect that the journey will take me into some headwinds and that there will be points where I struggle with a challenge to overcome. In Reimagined, I found none of that.

In any other Dragon Quest, managing your resources – be it your HP, your MP, or your consumables – is something you always need to keep in mind. For example, you have to weigh the benefits of an encounter with whether or not you can spare the MP to end that fight quickly, at the expense of not being able to cast your biggest spells as many times in the eventual boss fight. In contrast, Reimagined bombards you with free healing statues, respawning items that refill both health and magic are all over the place, characters fully heal whenever they level up, and party members that die during a fight even respawn with a single hit point afterwards, doing away with that classic Dragon Quest imagery of seeing your lone character leading around a parade of colorful coffins in a dreary dungeon. And if you do find yourself in a situation where everyone dies, the penalty is so minimal, forcing you to lose only 1,000 gold as opposed to half of your total, that even that threat is far from scary. The first time I actually had to pay this fee was in the very last dungeon, playing on hard difficulty, and at that point I was more just curious to see what would happen.

Individual carrying bags have been done away with in favor of a single shared inventory as well, making it so you don’t have to worry about strategically divvying up your items. (And you have no need to worry about accidentally equipping a cursed item you can’t get off – those are gone now.) There are some difficulty options you can toggle and adjust, such as lowering or raising the amount of experience, vocation points, or gold you earn after a fight (though, unfortunately, you can’t set them to zero), but none of the other stuff I mentioned is included in those settings. In fact, you can choose to make things even easier for yourself by fully restoring your party after every encounter.

This handholding approach, where you almost can’t fail, even extends into the main questline. So much of the sense of exploration and discovery has been removed, with enough information being fed to you that quests almost turn into a simple matter of glancing over your screen to find where the big icon is. Is there a tablet fragment in your location? You’ll see a marker on your map letting you know one is somewhere nearby, which turns the hunt for them into an almost mundane task to check off a list rather than the epic, world-saving mission it’s made out to be. You don’t even have to try spells out on enemies anymore to know how they might affect them, as an icon over the monster's head will show whether the one you have highlighted is weak or strong against it, or if they will resist it altogether.

Having recently played through last year's spectacular HD-2D remakes of Dragon Quests I & II, all of this smoothing gave me whiplash. That package added some solid accessibility options to help newer players, but it still retained – and in many cases expanded – the challenge of the originals. Dragon Quest VII Reimagined feels like it goes in the complete opposite direction, with the only real challenge coming from the last hour of the story and the post-game grind.

That all said, the more I played this new version, the more I eventually came to accept it for what it was, even if that wasn’t exactly what I was expecting or looking for. Between its faster pacing, toy-like aesthetic, and insistence on reducing pain points, this really is a literal reimagining of Dragon Quest VII as a sort of “My First Dragon Quest” entry point for new players. Once that realization clicked, I just let myself enjoy the ride as I soaked in a story and characters I still adored – I just also had to come to grips with the fact that it wasn’t going to deliver the challenge and discovery that I usually play Dragon Quest games for.

This review contains full spoilers for this week’s episode of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms.

“I think I could be quite happy in a place like this.” Aww, poor Egg. A tranquil life in the country doesn’t seem to be what fate has in store for him because, as we learn in the closing moments of this week’s episode (“The Squire”), Egg is actually Prince Aegon V Targaryen.

“Egg” (Dexter Sol Ansell) is the son of Prince Maekar (Sam Spruell) and kid brother of both major jackass Prince Aerion (Finn Bennett) and the elderly Maester Aemon of The Night’s Watch in Game of Thrones. (A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms is set roughly 90 years before the events of the flagship series.)

This revelation happens after Dunk (Peter Claffey) does what any good knight should do and come to the aid of a damsel in distress, in this case the puppeteer Tanselle (Tanzyn Crawford) who is being assaulted by Aerion for her puppet show depicting the slaying of a dragon. To Aerion, her show is tantamount to treason because it depicts a symbol of the ruling Targaryen family being killed. (Aerion isn’t completely wrong about that symbolism, mind you, if the vitriolic disdain towards the Targaryens by the likes of Raymun Fossoway is any indicator of public sentiment.) Dunk then unleashes a beating on Aerion up until Egg’s intervention saves him from the guards.

Dunk and the other non-Targaryens present are floored by the revelation that Egg, the squire to a lowly hedge knight, is actually a prince of the realm. Although Egg’s behavior has been slightly evasive and curious in the past two episodes, we now know why this kid’s bald (“I cut it off, brother. I don’t want to look like you.”) and knows so much about knights and the Great Houses.

Dunk’s growing disillusionment with knighthood is his overriding arc this season, and if his doubts about knights were planted in Episode 2, then seeing Aerion’s dastardly and purposeful cheating at the Ashford tourney and subsequent punishment of Tanselle were the final straws. (Oh, and he’s also asked to participate in a fixed fight!)

We’ll have to wait until next week’s episode to learn the ramifications of not only Dunk’s assaulting Aerion but also of Egg’s sudden reunion with the family he’d run away from (his eldest brother Prince Daeron remains MIA for now).

The big reveal of Egg’s true identity – which wasn’t shocking to readers of George R.R. Martin’s Tales of Dunk and Egg novellas – shattered the harmony of what had been up until that point a sweet and simple episode. Egg is worried about Dunk’s chances of surviving the tourney, so he singlehandedly trains Dunk’s horse, and later hilariously turns a song about a woman who pleasured men’s bums into a pep talk about hope.

These charming vignettes of Dunk and Egg just talking, helping or teasing each other, eating sandwiches – punctuated by Dan Romer’s melodic score – make them underdogs you love rooting for, and adds them to the ranks of Game of Thrones’ most compelling pairings (e.g., Arya and the Hound, Tyrion and Bronn, Brienne and Jaime, etc.).

This review is based on a screening from the Sundance Film Festival. In the Blink of an Eye will be available to stream on Hulu starting February 27.

For a film about disaster and how we deal with it, there is something tragic about how In the Blink of an Eye becomes such a frequently disastrous disappointment of its own making. Spanning thousands of years though somehow feeling painfully small in scope, it has plenty of big ideas about life, death, and how we endure. Unfortunately, this feeble sci-fi film does little with them, ensuring whatever thematic or philosophical ambition it has fades away into nothing. Just as the title refers to how fast time can pass, leaving us struggling to remember what came before, the film itself feels destined to be utterly forgotten the moment you finish watching.

This latest attempt at live-action sci-fi from Pixar veteran and John Carter director Andrew Stanton is one of sincere intentions, though woefully sporadic execution. At least John Carter, for all its flaws, felt like it was taking some bigger swings; no such luck here, as In the Blink of an Eye is much more modest and mundane, half-heartedly poking at the poetic existential realities of life without genuinely grappling with them. Stanton has been a key part of some of the more moving animated films of the 21st century, especially the sci-fi wonder that is WALL-E, but with In the Blink of an Eye, he can’t inject this robotic, rote, and reductive story with any life.

Written by Colby Day, who previously penned the similarly disappointing Adam Sandler-starring Spaceman, the film follows three storylines. The first, and weakest, follows a Neanderthal family trying to survive in a harsh world they can’t come close to comprehending. Sadly, we as the audience are not invited to comprehend anything they’re saying, as their grunts are not translated. This leaves us having to rely on already one-note performances that are further hampered by prosthetics, which mostly just bring to mind old GEICO cavemen commercials.

The second and strongest part takes place in the present day, where we get to know Claire (Rashida Jones). She’s an anthropologist who, wouldn't you know it, is studying ancient remains from the era in the first part. Without spoiling anything, these first two parts will soon connect in a way that’s less surprising than it is stiff and obligatory. For now, Claire is starting up a halting relationship with a sweet fellow student, Greg (Daveed Diggs). There's a sex joke that initially ties the first part to the second that’s cheeky yet broad, but the more the film goes on, the more the cutting between the different timelines starts to feel not just even broader, but forced and abrupt. The film never remotely trusts us as an audience, insisting on holding our hand through each and every “twist” just as it awkwardly tugs on the heartstrings, earning few of its emotional payoffs.

In the third and more middle-of-the-road part of the film, we observe a lonely space traveler named Coakley (Kate McKinnon), who is on a mission to a faraway planet. She’s meant to colonize it with babies she’ll grow with only the ship’s onboard AI-esque computer system to help her. But when a mysterious disease starts to kill off the ship's oxygen-producing plants, threatening the mission that may be humanity’s last hope, Coakley will begin to contemplate making the ultimate sacrifice to save it. At least, she’ll do so for a moment, but the film soon lets itself off the hook, writing its way out of what could’ve been a more complicated, compelling moral dilemma. After already feeling like it was in the shadow of a film like Duncan Jones’ magnificent Moon, In the Blink of an Eye just shrinks even further into a dull darkness.

As all these timelines start to connect, the film shifts from being merely superficial to downright insulting in one particular parallel it draws. In the present, Claire’s career and budding romance are disrupted by a looming loss that will require her to move back home; in the distant past, the poor Neanderthal family experiences loss after loss due to not having any medicine to treat the illnesses that befall them. These two are not the issue, as Jones makes what are increasingly rushed scenes into something more impactful. The insulting bit comes in the parallel drawn between these two pasts, where real lives are actually at risk. It’s something I not only didn’t feel anything for, but grew quite frustrated with, as it takes up far too much oxygen in an already empty story.

In the Blink of an Eye repeatedly insists that it’s doing something grand or profound; in actuality, it’s a sci-fi “epic” of little ambition and even less genuine wonder. Though it has drawn comparisons to something like the captivating yet divisive Cloud Atlas, those overly flatter what ultimately looks and feels more like a bad episode of a streaming show. More than anything, it ends up playing as one laborious montage of half-baked ideas and forced connections rather than a truly moving sci-fi film. Blink and you’ll miss it? Even if you’re watching, there’s just nothing to see here.

This review is based on a screening from the Sundance Film Festival.

Beth de Araújo’s Josephine — which won both the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance as well as the festival’s Audience Award — is as visceral as it is delicate. The story of an eight-year-old girl who witnesses a violent sexual assault, and her parents who don’t quite know how to help her cope, the movie’s difficult story, and its rough, raw aesthetic approach, create some of the most challenging parameters for a child actress in recent memory. However, the young performance at its center is as miraculous as the film that slowly coheres around it, resulting in a freight train of emotional impact.

Early one morning in San Francisco, when Josephine (Mason Reeves) and her father Damien (Channing Tatum) go running in Golden Gate Park, they’re briefly separated, and the second grader watches from afar as a mysterious assailant in a green t-shirt (Philip Ettinger) overpowers and assaults an unsuspecting jogger (Syra McCarthy). In a horrifying moment, both victim and perpetrator lock eyes with the young girl, before the attack is broken up and the man is chased and arrested. However, neither Damien nor his wife Claire (Gemma Chan) can decide on the right way to explain to Josephine what she saw, leaving her emotionally adrift as she grows more confused, more resentful of authority, and more violent towards her classmates. As the days go by, she even begins picturing the attacker in the spaces around her — even in the safety of her bedroom.

De Araújo’s frank, unflinching approach to this event stems from having witnessed exactly such an attack at a similar age, imbuing Josephine with an autobiographical quality. Its contours are gradually shaped by the parent characters, and their expertly rendered performances, which lean into Tatum and Chan’s broad types in pursuit of unexpected layers. Damien, although playful at times, is a tough-love kind of parent whose words fail him, but who demands a stiff upper lip from Josephine while trying to navigate the event and its legal aftermath (the victim moves away, leaving Josephine as the only eye witness). Tatum’s comedy has often tapped into a meathead, frat boy persona, and de Araújo’s film is no different, only it captures the difficult domestic eventuality of that masculine mode in the form of a father whose solution to helping his daughter understand the world is stern silence and self-defense classes.

Chan’s gracefulness, on the other hand, informs Claire’s approach in discomforting ways as well. A dancer and an artist, she searches for ways to talk Josephine through this trauma, but falls back on platitudes, and can’t find ways to answer her daughter when she inevitably asks if she’s ever been a victim of a similar assault. There’s no prescribed perfect age for sex education, and certainly none for explaining, to a pre-adolescent, the grey areas of human sexuality — the attacker’s defense attorneys claim the encounter was consensual non-consent — let alone the definition of “rape.” There’s certainly no handbook for what to do when the ideal time for this discussion slips into the past, for reasons beyond a parent’s control. But unlike Claire and Damien, who each fall back on their own parents’ imperfect, cyclical approaches to supposedly taboo topics, Josephine has the internet at her disposal, though the explanations she finds online only confuse her further.

Reeves, who de Araújo discovered at a farmer’s market a few months before filming, brings a shocking naturalism to the part. Josephine is the masculine “Jo” to her father, and the cutesy “JoJo” to her mother, roles which the character and the actress alike effortlessly oscillate between, as they try to find a sense of stability while the floor is pulled out from under them. Josephine’s growing unease is reflected in daring fashion by the young newcomer, whose growing uncertainty — surrounding both human sexuality and human morality — seeps into her mood in the form of subdued frustrations. Reeves holds these close to the chest, until they eventually boil over. She’s practically a ticking time bomb; it’s as magnificent a debut performance as you’ll ever see.

These emotional pieces are all fitted into place by de Araújo’s deft and careful hand, yielding a film with a psychological complexity (surrounding issues of childhood sexual trauma) on the level of Gregg Araki’s Mysterious Skin. The director’s conception of San Francisco adds to the imposing nature of the story, between its winding streets and the crisscrossing power lines and metal bridge beams that seem to press down on the characters from above. The camera weaves in and out of Josephine’s point of view as though the young girl were being pulled outside herself before being pushed back in, an emotional whiplash further stoked by the use of space. For the most part, de Araújo and cinematographer Greta Zozula place us at eye level and employ telephoto lenses to blur the details of the larger, more imposing adult world in unbroken takes that build in pressure, as though Josephine’s purview were slowly being enveloped by fog. The color green begins to enter her field of view more and more, and eventually, the filmmakers break from their aforementioned blurry approach — with wide lenses that expand space and warp movement — during brief, imaginative moments when Josephine starts to picture the green-shirted attacker in her bedroom, as a specter of the confusion growing in her mind.

Ettinger plays this imagined version of the character with care and caution. He is, at times, an imposing presence, but he can also be ghostly and melancholic, almost sympathetic. He raises questions of what his eyes meeting with Josephine’s in the park may have done to her, and the ways in which her interpretation of the event — and of what led to it — might be forced to change over time as well, when her parents can’t seem to figure out how to connect with her long enough to comfort her. This moment of primal identification with the rapist causes her to turn inward, and to wonder whether she herself has the capacity for evil. That she begins to wear green nail polish goes unremarked upon, but it’s one of the film’s many stark, unmissable details that might cause you to squirm in your seat.

The movie nestles broad philosophical questions within the perspective of a child, which — in tandem with Miles Ross’ brilliantly breathy and propulsive score — inject a terrifying undercurrent into moments of dramatic simplicity. This is centered around the magic of a young performer guiding us through the story’s silent developments by getting lost in thought and self-loathing, and the adult characters who aren’t emotionally equipped to meet her gaze. All this combined makes Josephine one of the most powerful, shattering works of drama to emerge from the modern American independent scene.

This review is based on a screening from the Sundance Film Festival.

In The Only Living Pickpocket in New York, writer and director Noah Segan yearns for a bygone Big Apple. The film, set in modern times, is a jazzy, sentimental ode to the New York City of yesteryear; it's sappy and starry-eyed, but also tenderly humorous in bursts. At other times, the story becomes a sad glimpse into the lost art of pickpocketing – not that the production advocates for thievery, but Segan uses a slick aging swindler to reminisce about an American hub that's been digitized by tech magnates and overrun with nepotism babies.

John Turturro is magnificent as Harry, an old-school pickpocket who's keeping the outdated art form alive. He has to; it's the only way he can caretake for his non-responsive, invalid wife, Rosie (Karina Arroyave). One night, he swipes a wallet and gym bag from an especially prickish dudebro using only a penny; what he finds is a gun, wads of cash, and a doohickey that plugs into a computer. Harry trashes the gun and sells the credit-card-looking object with a USB plug, which turns out to be very, very important. Soon enough, thugs come looking for the revealed crypto key. Either Harry retrieves the stolen item, or he's facing harsh consequences.

Segan's maturation as a filmmaker from Blood Relatives to The Only Living Pickpocket in New York is like the difference between Staten Island and Manhattan; it's so intrinsically ‘New Yawk’ in both commemoration and adoration. There's a song-and-dance about Harry's remembrance of the good times, and spot-on comedy as Harry tries to catch up with civilization. Segan roasts the entitled youth who have brought their sour attitudes and pretension to the East Coast’s bustling metropolis, as he interacts with elder characters like Steve Buscemi’s pawn-star Ben about how no one's word means a damn anymore. At times, The Only Living Pickpocket in New York plays like a lively stoop conversation between neighborhood elders who've seen their block change over decades (a compliment).

Turturro is, as ever, a gift to audiences. His portrayal of Harry is that of a lovable hustler whose movements are smoother than butter. He's a man of the people, whether jawing about the golden days of pickpocketing with Detective Warren (Giancarlo Esposito) like retirement home buddies, or treating Rosie like a princess (carrying her up staircases, reading her corny romance novels). Turturro's slippery maneuvers sell Harry as this masterclassman of his illegal profession, but once he's in over his head, his desperation hits like a semi-truck. Is there any actor more charming, too suave, and yet vulnerable once the deck is stacked against him? If you need one more reason to classify Turturro as a multigenerational talent, it's The Only Living Pickpocket in New York.

As for the pickpocketry, Segan treats Harry's lifestyle like a dying art; either you adapt, or you fade away. Scores have dwindled because no one carries cash anymore – just trackable cards and smartphone wallets. Harry's execution is flawless, snatching wallets like he's invisible, wearing overcoats with tactical pockets to ensure the shortest path from removal to hiding spot. There's something romantic about the way Harry scoffs at the cyberthieves of younger generations – Victoria Moroles' whippersnapper Eve roasts the fogey right back – but mentors up-and-comers who need guidance. Weirdly enough, the death of pickpockets in New York signals this changing of the times, which Segan treats with warm reverence.

Segan and his team succeed in authentically recreating the nooks and crannies of New York City. Cinematographer Sam Levy squeezes the camera into the confined spaces of corner pawn shops, barren vape bodegas, and humble Bronx apartments while still capturing the city's grandness. Composer Gary Lionelli honors the jazz-esque tempo with which Harry operates by delivering a bouncy, fleet-of-foot score. Impressively, Segan's representation of New York, New York smacks of Woody Allen or Martin Scorsese; the way he navigates the one-of-a-kind sights and sounds evokes nostalgia for my years in Brooklyn, a testament to the connection Segan strikes with the city.

Plain and simple, The Only Living Pickpocket in New York features veteran performers chewing up concrete scenery and strutting through a thrilling and wholesome caper. It's a "one last hurrah" type of flick with a niche appeal that lets the ensemble shine. The faux confidence, the spoiled gangsters, the tired seniors who pray that newbies can learn an ounce of respect along the way – it's all so memorably old-fashioned. Even with all that – and as much as you'll laugh – Harry's arc still latches onto your soul in a pure and special way. That's the power of Turturro, but kudos also go to Segan's rich idiosyncrasies that draw us into Harry's gravitational pull.

Iron Lung is in theaters now.

The mere existence of Iron Lung is impressive. The highly successful, highly viewed YouTuber Mark Fischbach, better known as Markiplier, was so taken with the 2022 game Iron Lung that he decided to turn it into a movie, which he self-financed, wrote, directed, edited and stars in. And rather than debuting on Digital or YouTube, it’s getting a real deal wide theatrical release. That’s one hell of an accomplishment.

If only the passion Fischbach clearly has for the game and the world David Szymanski created with it translated into something far more interesting on screen. Because wow, is Iron Lung a slog to get through.

Fischbach stars as a character continually referred to as Convict, thanks to his status as a convicted criminal. Our Convict is part of a decidedly bleak future where all of the universe’s stars and planets have vanished, with humanity’s last hope presumably resting at the depths of a literal ocean of blood located on a remote moon that still remains.

For nearly the entirety of Iron Lung, Fischbach is the only person we see on screen, as his character embarks on his submarine mission. Though he does have radio communication with voices above, Convict is by himself on this mission and by himself as our sole focus for the film. And look, that is not inherently a bad thing. There have absolutely been plenty of good films in which we follow a character completely on their own.

But Iron Lung has terrible pacing and very low energy from the start. The scenarios that Fischbach has put his character in just aren’t compelling enough to watch unfold, with scenes that drag on and on. It was about 15 minutes into the movie that I started to think about how restless I was already… and then realized I had so much more time to go. Because this movie’s runtime is two full hours (and a couple of minutes on top of that) and it sure doesn’t earn that.

For far too long, we watch Fischbach turn knobs. We watch him look at screens. We watch him write down things. And sometimes, we watch him argue with voices on the other side of the radio. But it’s very rarely engaging. The movie has the tricky job of worldbuilding only through dialogue (and some narration at the top) to explain what is going on here and what life is like for the remnants of humanity. And though there are tiny slivers that feel intriguing – and I do love the game-derived term of “the Quiet Rapture” – little of it really takes hold or gives the audience enough to connect to. And too much of it is a guy yelling about something that hasn’t been properly explained in the first place.

As an actor, Fischbach is fine. As his YouTube audience knows, he has a genuine onscreen presence and his delivery is decent enough in his calmer moments. But his script and performance also have the tendency to lean into moments where he’s angry and gets really loud at the END OF A SENTENCE. And that gets old pretty quickly.

Off-screen voices are provided by a bevy of actors, including no less than Troy Baker. But it’s Caroline Rose Kaplan who gets the biggest secondary role as the most sympathetic of the voices the Convict speaks to. However, the attempt to sell any sort of genuine rapport between the two falls flat.

There is some good production design, which is based on the game itself of course, but which also owes a big debt – as do plenty of other films at this point – to Ridley Scott’s Alien with its dark, dingy take on a sci-fi setting. Like the game, there are old-school, analog-era digital screens, and the instruments on the sub (the Iron Lung of the title) all feel decades old, rather than from the far future. This is something we’ve seen cemented not just in the Alien franchise, as it continues a story first begun in the 1970s, but in all the stories influenced by it.

One sequence in particular feels reminiscent of Alien, as Convict needs to crawl through some tight ducts in a manner very similar to Tom Skerritt’s Dallas in that film. But imagine if that scene with Dallas removed any inherent stakes or tension or drama and you’d have this version. Just a guy moving through some ducts to do something, finish it, then crawl back to start doing something else.

Things pick up in the film’s final half hour when, well, stuff happens! There are a couple of solid makeup effects introduced at this point, and it’s also when we get to see the massive amounts of blood Fischbach has promised for Iron Lung (he wanted to outdo 2013’s blood-drenched Evil Dead sequel). But suddenly adding a bit of gore and a lot of blood so late in the story doesn’t retroactively justify how long it took to get there, nor does the film actually suddenly grab you more. Honestly, it just underlines how Iron Lung feels like it would have all been much better served as a short, rather than a feature film, where we got to this point so much sooner.

Video game composer Andrew Hulshult (Doom Eternal) provides a solid score, with he and sound editor Brad Engleking having the amusingly odd shared credit “Adrenaline Provided By” - which kind of feels like an admission that without some of the music and sound to slightly prop things up, Iron Lung could have felt even more ponderous.