Category: News

With the Mavericks exiting the first round in a loss to the Clippers for the second year in a row, there are ample questions about how they will approach this offseason to put a roster around Luka Doncic that can compete with the best teams in the West. Doncic was sensational in the series, as he was a year ago, but the Mavs were almost entirely reliant on the others hitting threes to win games. That’s part of life in the NBA in 2021, but the lack of secondary creation or a real pick-and-roll partner for Doncic reared its ugly head late in the series as the Clippers adjusted and went small against the Mavs.

The player getting the brunt of the frustration from Mavs fans is Kristaps Porzingis, who averaged a rather pedestrian 13.1 points and 5.4 rebounds per game in the series, often looking lost and disengaged offensively. For the player who is the only max player on the roster and the supposed second star, it simply wasn’t good enough and the questions about his fit with Doncic are now reaching a loud crescendo. ESPN’s Tim MacMahon dove into that relationship, one that is not particularly good on or off the court, and how Dallas is going to approach this offseason.

Among the nuggets of info MacMahon offers is the unsurprising report that many around the NBA view Porzingis’ contract as an “albatross,” one that isn’t likely to fetch much on the trade market.

Those injuries — and the resulting diminished mobility — made him a defensive liability, and they are among the reasons it would be difficult for Dallas to get value for Porzingis in a trade. He is owed $101.5 million over the next three seasons, a contract that executives and scouts around the league view as an albatross.

An albatross is not an untradeable contract, because we’ve learned in recent years no such thing exists — see: Westbrook-Wall. However, what it does mean is you aren’t going to be able to deal Porzingis for much in the way of an upgrade, and the best bet for Dallas is to find a team with a fellow disgruntled former star who’s hit a rough patch on a big contract that they think just needs a fresh start somewhere new. It’s not an impossible task, but it will be a difficult one for the Mavs front office as it seems clear that they need to shuffle the deck around Doncic.

Looking around the NBA, it’s hard to imagine a playoff contender jumping at the opportunity to add Porzingis to the mix, but if there were one it’s probably Boston, who might be looking to move Kemba Walker for frontcourt help and neither player has a particularly robust trade value at the moment due to their injury histories. It’s the kind of trade I’m not sure either fan base would be thrilled about, but sometimes that’s the only option in these situations.

If that’s not there, the Mavs will likely need to look at rebuilding teams for trade partners. Kevin Love in Cleveland and Al Horford in OKC each have two years remaining on big deals in situations where they are clearly not on the timeline of the rest of the team, and while it moves Porzingis to a non-winning situation, it also could be a chance for him to rehabilitate his value as a scorer and more leading offensive option compared to in Dallas where he finds himself lost as a secondary piece. Both the Thunder and Cavs would surely want some draft compensation, but Love and Horford, while likely overpaid at this point, would provide some of what the Mavs want without the belief they should be centerpieces with Doncic as seems to be an issue with Porzingis.

One of the most popular genres of fiction is the murder mystery. Movies, books, and, yes, even video games all love to enter the world of capturing a killer, but what if the roles were reversed? That is what Overboard! does for the player. It takes them and puts them in that classic murder situation, but instead of a scenario where you need to capture the killer you’re instead trying to get away with it.

The game opens with a simple enough premise. You have just thrown your husband overboard and now you need to make it through the rest of the day without being caught. From this point on it’s up to the player how they want to approach the situation. They can choose to play dumb and act like they have no idea where their husband is, or they can tell everyone they never came back to the room the night before. By 5 p.m. in game time a meeting will be called where everything will be brought to life. Depending on how you performed you may get away with it, but if you play your cards wrong, you could be on the way to jail.

https://twitter.com/ChrisBarnewall/status/1400501882154479616/photo/1

How the player gets through the day is through dialogue choices. They’re given a list of actions, words to say, and responses. They can travel the ship, talk to other passengers, and do whatever they can to make sure that they aren’t the one leaving in handcuffs. Where Overboard! shines brightest is the writing. It’s smart, intriguing, and best of all really funny. Each character has a personality that is believable but also absurd, and fans of Agatha Christie stories will find references or nods throughout their playthrough of the game. In fact if the player is able to successfully sneak into one room in particular they’ll be able to find some of Christie’s novels on the bookshelf.

While the story itself might sound fairly shallow, there’s a ton of depth in Overboard! beyond the premise. There are dozens of scenarios the player can go through to reach the different endings. Some of them comedic, others more in line with what the game intends, and a few that are just absurd. Want to go on a murderous rampage so nobody can rat you out? While not recommended, it’s certainly an option! Frame other passengers by any means necessary. Blackmail. Murder. Deceit. Lying. Anything the player can do to make sure they’re walking away free, but there is a catch.

It turns out that getting away with murder is actually one of the more simple aspects of the game. So the game adds extra goals to keep the player on their toes. For example, if you manage to convince everyone that your husband jumped off the boat themselves then you can walk away free, but the main character didn’t manage to collect on the life insurance. So much for living the lavish single life. Every playthrough, the game will give the player a checklist of scenarios they may want to try: Break into someone’s room, trick a passenger into helping you, find out another character’s deep dark secret. The game will not tell you what to do directly, but it will give you hints as to what you can do next. This increases replay value and creates more fun for trying out different scenarios.

Overboard! can also be quite challenging! The player will think they’re on the path they want, only to have another character do something they never saw coming and suddenly they’re on the defensive. This is where the challenge and thrill of being a murderer trying to escape comes from. Luckily there aren’t any Hercule Poirot’s on board so tricking these fellow passengers isn’t impossible, but it’s not as easy as just saying the right thing. Everyone has their own motivations as well and that’s why gathering as much information as possible is essential to success.

This game is great. Developer Inkle really out did themselves with this one and what’s most impressive is that it was apparently made in about five months time. According to Jon Ingold developer it was born January 6, 2021 and was just a game everyone wanted to make for fun. It turned into what is honestly an early game of the year contender. Any fan of visual novels, murder mysteries, detective shows, or just enjoyers of goofy humor should play this game. It is well worth their time.

A review code for the Nintendo Switch version of the game was supplied to UPROXX and played for this review.

Space Jam: A New Legacy has strangely become the most controversial movie of the year — and that was before we heard Lola Bunny speak.

On Sunday, ESPN released a Space Jam-inspired parody of its 30 For 30 series, “The Bunny & The GOAT,” featuring LeBron James, Bugs Bunny, and the rest of the Toon Squad, including Lola. Bugs’ “female merchandising counterpart” has a revised look in the sequel because she was “very sexualized” in the original film, according to director Malcolm D. Lee. He wanted to make her more “politically correct… This is a kids’ movie, why is she in a crop top? It just felt unnecessary, but at the same time there’s a long history of that in cartoons.” Surprisingly, the discussion around the “The Bunny & The GOAT” video has nothing to do with Lola’s appearance. It’s about the way she sounds.

This is emblematic of a larger discussion about animated movies shifting away from experienced voice actors in favor of big-name celebrities ever since Robin Williams played Genie in Aladdin; it was later solidified with Mike Myers, Eddie Murphy, and Cameron Diaz in Shrek. They all did a great job, and Zendaya, who rules, might kill it too, even if she’s no Kath Soucie. It’s unfair to make a judgement based on a six-minute YouTube video (there’s a tinniness to her VO that hopefully won’t be in the movie).

The Emmy-winning Euphoria star already has her defenders:

But what I find fascinating is how much of a hot button issue the freaking Space Jam sequel has become. First, it was about something something cancel culture; now it’s strangers getting mad at each other because a cartoon bunny doesn’t sound the way they think a cartoon bunny should sound. Maybe it’s good A New Legacy is being released on HBO Max — think of all the in-theater fights that will be prevented.

Space Jam: A New Legacy comes out on July 16.

After excoriating the Grammys for leaving him locked out this year, The Weeknd got some measure of redemption over the… ahem… weekend at his home country’s analogue awards ceremony, the Juno Awards. Sunday night, he was awarded two wins, Album and Artist Of The Year, after taking home awards for Contemporary R&B Recording Of The Year for After Hours, Single Of The Year for “Blinding Lights,” and Songwriter Of The Year. All told, he took five awards out of the six for which he was nominated, only missing out on the Juno Fan Choice Award, which Shawn Mendes won.

The Weeknd lashed out at the Grammys committee after the nominees were announced last year, revealing that he wasn’t nominated for any awards, astonishing fans who assumed he’d be a shoo-in with one of the biggest records of both the year and his career. The Weeknd himself accused the committee of corruption, a claim which the Recording Academy denied. However, that didn’t stop him from boycotting the show, proclaiming he’d no longer submit for consideration — even after the Academy worked to address some of the issues that caused him to be snubbed.

Meanwhile, he also led the nominations for the 2021 Billboard Music Awards, taking home ten, and has been teasing a new era, putting the controversy — for the most part — in the rear view.

In the middle of a media blitz around her new memoir, Rememberings, Sinead O’Connor announced her retirement in a series of tweets. “I’ve gotten older and I’m tired,” the eminently quotable singer wrote. “So it’s time for me to hang up my nipple tassels, having truly given my all.”

She added, “Apologies if any upset caused to booking agents or promoters or managers due to my tweeting about my retirement. I guess the book made me realise I’m my own boss. I didn’t wanna wait for permission from the men, as to when I could announce it. Also, I’d had a few whiskeys : ).”

O’Connor said that her forthcoming album, No Veteran Dies Alone, will be her last. She will perform the remainder of her rescheduled tour dates but said there won’t be any events to promote the next album. “It’s not sad news. It’s staggeringly beautiful news,” O’Connor continued. “A wise warrior knows when he or she should retreat … It’s been a forty-year journey. Time to put the feet up and make other dreams come true ; ).”

As O’Connor prepares to exit the industry, her musical contributions and legacy are getting a well-deserved reckoning. After releasing two landmark albums in the 1980s — plus the iconic, tear-strew “Nothing Compares 2 U” music video — O’Connor had a defining pop culture moment when she tore a picture of Pope John Paul II during her Saturday Night Live performance in 1992. The singer said it was an act of protest against the sexual abuse of children in the Catholic Church.

Somehow we’re already halfway through 2021 and the latest episode of Culture Quick Bites is here to remind you of that fact with host AJ Lodge and guest co-host Irene Walton recapping some of this year’s most fascinating bits of bite-sized pop-culture milestones — try saying that five times fast — before previewing the “fully vaccinated summer” we’re all about to have. So if you’re still laughing at those Suez Canal shipping container memes but you’re also curious about the recently announced summer music festival lineup; if you want to geek out over all of the comic book movies and TV shows we watched from home but you’re also interested in heading to a theater to catch Vin Diesel drift in space while belting a Lin Manuel-Miranda penned musical number — wow, do we have a show for you!

Okay fine, we just made up that dream crossover event, but hey, it’s 2021. Anything goes.

Our hosts are also hyped for the return of Tom Hiddleston’s Loki in Marvel’s latest Disney+ series which promises to deliver a bunch of weird time-travel shenanigans — and an impressively suave silver mustache courtesy of Owen Wilson. And we can’t forget about the NBA Playoffs, aka the perfect opportunity for Irene and AJ to remind us of LeBron James’ Oscar-worthy performance in the 2015 hit comedy, Trainwreck. But mostly, we’re just here for the glow-up of AJ’s personal hero and the one-true Dunkin Donuts mascot, Ben Sadfleck.

Check out the latest episode of Culture Quick Bites for more.

If you’ve ever donated to a cause but worried that your contribution wasn’t really enough to drive real change, you’re not alone. As one person, it can be tough to feel like you’re making a
real difference, especially if you don’t have a lot to donate or if times are tough (aka there’s a worldwide pandemic going on.)

That’s why, for years, the idea of philanthropy felt a little bit like a rich person’s thing: if you had millions, you could donate and make change. The rest of us were just tossing pennies into a cup without really doing much.

But that’s a problem: the priorities of a wealthy few don’t represent the priorities of many, which means that good causes are often left underfunded, leading to a lack of meaningful action.

The thing is: it doesn’t have to be like this. We can
all make a difference, especially if we pool our money together.

Enter: Giving Circles. These are when groups of people with shared values come together to drive change. They do it by pooling their time and money together, then deciding as a circle where it should go. That way, they can cause a real targeted change in one place quickly in a very people-powered way by giving what they can, whether that’s volunteer hours, money, or a mix of both. Best of all, Giving Circles are a social experience — you get to work together as a community to make sure you do the most good you can.

In other words, giving circles are a way to democratize philanthropy, making it more accessible regardless of your age, income, gender, or race.

That’s why this year, The Elevate Prize, a nonprofit founded in 2019, is launching a
new pop-up “Giving Circle” program so that problem solvers, budding philanthropists, and anyone that wants to do good can come together and drive real impact at a large scale. And you can do it all in just 90 minutes.

All you have to do is join one of the Elevate Giving Circles online. Learn about organizations doing good for the world, then pool your money together, and as a group, direct it where you think that donation could make the most difference.

But that’s not all: every single donation made is matched by the Elevate Prize Foundation — basically guaranteeing that you double your impact for good. The theme for the first cycle is education, and Elevate Giving will match up to $75,000 in total donations for each cycle.

Ready to get involved?
Elevate Giving experiences start June 26th, so sign up now for your spot to make a difference. There’s no minimum fee to join either — so get involved no matter what you have to give. Now that’s philanthropy for all.

If you’re a cryptocurrency investor and a fan of Donald Trump, you might want to sit down for this one. On Monday morning, the former president caused the price of Bitcoin to fall after criticizing the digital currency and demanding that it be extremely regulated to prevent it from competing with the U.S. dollar.

Trump made the remarks during a wide-ranging interview with Fox Business Network’s Varney & Co. where he flat out called Bitcoin a scam after being asked if he’d ever invest in crypto. “Bitcoin, it just seems like a scam,” Trump said. “I don’t like it because it’s another currency competing against the dollar … I want the dollar to be the currency of the world. That’s what I’ve always said.”

He also said that the government regulations on crypto should be “very very high.” Following the interview, Forbes reported that Bitcoin prices experienced yet another dip:

Trump’s comments appeared to drive a dip in Bitcoin’s value as its price fell by over 1.3% (from $36,472 to $35,973) in the hour after the interview.

Trump has voiced his concerns with Bitcoin before. In 2019, he revealed that he’s not a fan of cryptocurrency after it’s price fell roughly $10,000. It also marks a tumultuous time for Bitcoin, which recently saw Elon Musk announce he was “breaking up” with crypto. However, while Musk distancing himself from Bitcoin caused the price to dip, it also caused a run on semen-based coins because the crypto market will never not be weird as hell.

But while the run on ejaculatory-themed coins was funny at the time, Musk’s seeming manipulation of the Bitcoin market has put him in the crosshairs of Anonymous, which called out the Tesla CEO for his “clear disregard for the average working person.” This, in a way, puts Donald Trump and Anonymous on the same side? Have we mentioned crypto is weird?

(Via Fox News, Forbes)

In the era of battle royale games, it can be difficult to make one that stands out from the crowd. Everything is a battle royale now from, the classic shooters like Call of Duty, to the less conventional like Tetris or Mario. So when it was announced that Bomberman would be getting its own 64 player battle royale there wasn’t a huge surprise. It made sense, to be honest. Bomberman has always been chaotic and adding more players into the mix only lends itself to that chaotic nature.

Super Bomberman R Online is similar, but not the same, as Super Bomberman R that came out back in 2017. Except, Super Bomberman R Online is free to play and available for download on Steam, Switch, Xbox, and PlayStation. Super Bomberman R is still a standalone game that can be purchased for about $40 for anyone interested in a more classic Bomberman experience. This may be what some fans of the series want to do because while Super Bomberman R Online is a fun enough game, the shallow nature of it will leave most players wanting more.

Gameplay is simple enough. Four players are dropped onto a classic Bomberman map with blocks and power ups, and their goal is to eliminate each other with bombs. Each player has two lives, so if they get caught in a flurry of bombs, and are unable to escape, they’ll at least get a second chance. Some players upon death will also drop a heart that gives a player an extra life when it’s picked up. Extremely valuable in a game like this, because if someone even grazes an explosion that’s a loss of life. It’s all very standard Bomberman gameplay. Where it starts to get different is the battle royale aspects.

All 64 players are spread across multiple maps. In traditional Bomberman, if players take too long it will start shrinking the map forcing everyone to get closer until a winner is decided. In Super Bomberman R Online players are instead forced to move to different maps. Forcing everyone closer to each other and there’s no limit to how many players can be on a map together. It can be two all alone or it can be a chaotic mess of eight people trying to gain control. This might sound like the play is to just survive until the end and let the map do your dirty work for you. That is certainly a strategy, but if anyone successfully clears out a map before the time limit then powerups pour into the map for the player to pick up. There’s far more incentive to eliminate players than there is to play the waiting game. That is Bomberman at its best. Players running around in a chaos of bombs and power-ups trying to outsmart the other one. Except now it’s 64 people all trying to survive to the end. It’s a really fun game that can be extremely addicting, often creating that “just one more match” feeling.

Unfortunately, the good times will not last forever. The game came out on May 26 and it is really lacking in extra features. There are the typical free-to-play extras like costumes and skins, which actually work really well in this game because every character is unique. They all have their own stats and some of the special characters have special power-ups. Konami even dips into their history with Contra, Silent Hill, and Metal Gear Solid characters all making an appearance as bombers. Unfortunately, most of these skins are hidden behind a paywall as premium characters. There is a game pass that players can steadily unlock skins, music, and other collectibles with by playing the game but that is not recommended, because getting into games is unnecessarily challenging.

A game like this is at its best when the player can jump into games quickly, but the servers struggle to do this. There have been times where a game has been started after only a minute of setup, but there are times where it has taken five minutes. There was one particular time where it took multiple minutes to get the game started, and then the game froze for a few minutes with everyone standing in place waiting for the server to let us play. On average, it can take two to three minutes for a game to start once a match has been found and searches can only be started from the main menu.

The best part of any battle royale game is how quickly the player can jump into another game. For something as fast-paced as Bomberman is, a player’s match can be over as soon as five minutes. They then have to go back to the main menu, start a new search, and wait the standard three minutes for the game to begin. This leaves the player spending more time in menus than playing the game, and while premium players can set up their own private matches, there just isn’t enough in the main game to justify waiting around that long. That feeling of “Just one more” is instead replaced with “Do I want to wait to die early again.”

Super Bomberman R Online is an inoffensive game, but while fans of the Bomberman series will love it, most people are going to be frustrated by the lack of features and long wait times between matches. Which is disappointing because this feels like it had the potential to be a really fun game.

Jensen Ackles is the king of incremental teases when it comes to his The Boys third-season character, Soldier Boy, and each reveal is proving to be surprisingly significant. He first showed off fresh-out-of-quarantine photo, which revealed a heavily unkempt beard, which put him at odds with the character’s clean-shaven look in the comics. Showrunner Eric Kripke later confirmed that Ackles’ mountain-man look would stay for the series, which is an interesting twist on a character who’s a twist on the sometimes-bearded (at least, as portrayed by Chris Evans) Captain America.

The Supernatural star recently showed off a video of him getting jacked (and feeling exhausted) while training for camera time. And over the weekend, he tweeted a photo of Soldier Boy’s shield (“Every dent, every scratch, every mark tells a story. A story that ends with me, winning,” read the caption) while promising a full reveal on Monday.

Well, as promised, here’s Amazon’s tweeted reveal with another clever play on words: “He’s the f’n Captain now, America.”

In case you’d like to scroll on Soldier Boy, here’s the full-length version via Amazon:

In a press release, costume designer Laura Jean Shannon declared, “Soldier Boy is the original bad ass. Our goal was to highlight a bygone era of overt masculinity and grit. With that pedigree we dove headfirst into baking in an all-American quality grounded in a military soldier’s practicality with a heavy dose of old school cowboy swagger.” She added, “We knew that the actor had to have Steve McQueen looks and chops with a John Wayne attitude, luckily Jensen Ackles embodies all of that.” Kripke noted, “And if you think the photos are cool, just wait till you see Jensen in action. It’s one of my very favorite suits. Also, now you can quit clogging my Twitter notifications with demands to see it.”

The Boys knows how to ratchet up the excitement factor, so here’s to hoping for more reveals on that “Herogasm” episode. Also, it’s still worth crossing fingers for more Supernatural cast members hopping on the Vought International train, maybe not for the next season, but possibly in the future? Jim Beaver has already appeared as Robert Singer, and no one (and I mean no one) will be mad to see Jeffrey Dean Morgan. He’ll end his The Walking Dead run soon, so why the heck not?

The Boys Season 3 has been shooting all year. Fingers crossed for a late 2021 release.