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Exploration and video games go hand in hand in many ways. While a lot of really great games push the player along a linear path, many of our favorites, and ones that we all talk about well after the credits roll, are the games that allow us to venture out into a unique world and create own experiences through exploration. It’s a tried and true method, but one that really feels amazing when it’s perfected. So far in 2022 we have three very distinct examples of exactly that.

This isn’t meant to be a theme of the year type post, but instead a chance to look back on a few games that have really left an impact by giving players something they really want. A chance to explore and discover on their own. Each game has done so in its own unique way and all of them have come from a different developer so everyone out there should be able to play at least one of these games.

Elden Ring

Elden Ring is not a particularly approachable game by any means because of its difficulty, but that hasn’t stopped it being a game where millions of players went into a notoriously difficult genre, bashed their head into a wall, and forced their way through its challenges. Why did they do that? Because they wanted to explore the world that From Soft had created. A world where over every hill there is something new for the player to discover.

The sense of wonder that Elden Ring creates is really unmatched. There is always something for the player to do, always a new place to explore, and always a new boss to take on. Despite the world being inexplicably huge, there is no part of it that felt empty. It’s extremely dense and what this created was a world where players all felt like they were discovering new things on their own and they would then rush to the internet to talk about it with others. Being on places like Twitter was really fun for Elden Ring when it first came out because everyone was discovering something new for the first time, and then there would be discussion around it.

Is this kind of exploration new? Not really. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild did something similar where it made the fun of the game be less about the plot and more about the exploration, but Elden Ring took that concept, threw some Dark Souls paint on it, and made one of the most beloved games of the year through exploration.

Tunic

There are many different ways that games try to have players explore, but the most common one is to put something interesting somewhere and make the player interested to go look at it. Tunic meanwhile approached exploration from an entirely different standpoint. It threw the player on a beach, started playing some music, and then told them to go figure it out themself. There is very little guidance in Tunic, forcing the player to explore not out of curiosity but instead to learn about the world they’re in. What is their mission? What are they trying to accomplish? All of that is learned through exploration.

Of course, throwing the player in a world without at least a tiny bit of guidance would leave them frustrated so it does need to create the curiosity to learn. Tunic manages to create curiosity through its NES style guidebook. Very little of it is readable to the player because it’s written in a language none of us can understand, but as the player collects pieces of it they learn more about everything. They’re completing the puzzle. Eventually, with every piece of the guide in hand, the player can unlock the true ending to the game in one of the most extravagant puzzles we’ve personally ever seen.

Tunic’s inspirations are obvious. The Legend of Zelda and FEZ are the most obvious ones, but few games perfect the idea of exploration in this way. When you explore the world of Tunic you’re not doing so to clear some achievement, or fill out a map, but just because you want to. Like we said about Elden Ring, the fun of Tunic is in the discovery.

Xenoblade Chronicles 3

Xenoblade Chronicles 3 came out for the Switch back in July and it has not taken over the world of video games. It has a very dedicated niche audience and that audience really loves this game. You can include the person writing these words in that audience, but it’s kind of a shame that the game hasn’t caught on more because the world of Xenoblade Chronicles 3 is marvelous. On the surface, it doesn’t do anything different from the previous games of the franchise. It rewards the player for exploring, completing side quests, and finding new places. It removes irritants like grinding by showing the player that if they just play the game naturally they will find all they need, and if they walk off the beaten path then they’ll receive extra goodies because of it.

The way Xenoblade Chronicles 3 is different from its predecessors though is not only how its streamlined many aspects of the previous games, but how it drip drops in new things for the player as they explore this massive world. They can’t immediately climb because they haven’t learned how yet, or they don’t have the skills necessary to go to that new place because they haven’t completed a specific quest yet. This may sound annoying to people who want to just go out and explore everything they can from the start, but by forcing the player to wait to explore every facet of every area they’re also giving the player reason to explore them again later on. When you return to these new areas there is no longer just new quests to do, but new places to explore as well. It makes returning to areas feel less like backtracking and more like a new opportunity.

Xenoblade Chronicles 3 takes a proven and successful formula for exploration and makes it better than it ever was before. Not only does it continue to reward players for choosing to explore, but it’s now given them the opportunity to treat each return to a previous area like it’s a new experience. Discovery and exploration should be fun and it makes sure that the feeling of fun never leaves.

On Monday morning, The View tackled Donald Trump’s recent racist attack on Mitch McConnell’s wife, which involved the former president referring to the former Secretary of Transportation as “Coco Chow” in a post on Truth Social. It was as racially charged as it gets, but as Alyssa Farah Griffin revealed, it’s nothing compared to what Trump is like behind closed doors.

As co-host Ana Navarro ripped Trump for being “a racist before he was president,” Griffin owned up to the fact that she should’ve known better before joining his administration as White House communications director. Griffin, who’s now permanently filling Meghan McCain’s old seat, said she hoped to see a better version of Trump when she agreed to work for him. That obviously did not happen.

Via Mediaite:

“I’m guilty as somebody who hoped to see the best in him, hoped he had a vision, and he wasn’t as bad as the worst of what we saw,” she replied.

She then revealed Trump is far worse behind closed doors: “But I’m here to tell you guys at home, like, he is worse than you what see. He is worse than when he tweets out — or truths out — on social media. This is not what our country deserves. We are too divided.”

Griffin then dropped another shocker by revealing that she didn’t vote for Trump in 2016 because of his attacks on the Gold Star family of Khzir Kahn. However, that didn’t stop Griffin from joining his administration, which she now clearly regrets.

(Via Mediaite)

Danny Ocean revealed that he will be embarking on his first major tour of the US early next year. On Friday (September 30), the Venezuelan singer-songwriter also released the music video for his new single “Bebe.”

Ocean has become the biggest artist in reggaeton music to emerge from Venezuela. In 2016, he uploaded his breakthrough single “Me Rehúso” to YouTube, which has become one of the genre’s biggest hits. In 2019, the song was certified 13-times Platinum, which goes beyond the Diamond certification. On Spotify, “Me Rehúso” has amassed over 1.3 billion streams. In the past few years, he’s collaborated with acts like Tokischa, Karol G, and María Becerra.

With his album @DannOcean earlier this year, Ocean started to flex his versatility as an artist beyond the reggaeton genre with influences of electronica and alternative rock. His new single “Bebe” is further testament to his ability to sound great in any genre. Backed by hip-hop beats with an atmospheric soundscape, Ocean sweetly serenades the woman that he’s interested with sexy lyrics.

“The song is dedicated to those who don’t want to have a serious relationship but at the same time enjoy sex,” he said in a statement. He stays true to his word by singing in Spanish, “Let’s make a baby.”

The video for “Bebe” stars Mexican actress Azul Guaita, one of the stars of the Netflix Rebelde reboot. She grabs the mic and sings the words to Ocean’s song for most of the sultry visual. Ocean later pops in by the end of the video to share a playful moment with Guaita.

“Bebe” will be included on his upcoming album @DannOcean By Danny Ocean Part 2. Early next year, Ocean will tour the US in support of both albums. The Danny Ocean Tour 2023 kicks off February 2 in San Francisco. Tickets for the tour are on-sale now and you can buy yours here.

02/02/2023 — San Francisco, CA @ The Fillmore
02/03/2023 — Los Angeles @ The Wiltern
02/04/2023 — San Diego, CA @ House of Blues
02/05/2023 — Phoenix, AZ @ The Van Buren
02/07/2023 — El Paso, TX @ Plaza Theatre
02/09/2023 — Dallas, TX @ House of Blues
02/10/2023 — San Antonio, TX @ The Aztec
02/11/2023 — Hidalgo, TX @ Payne Arena
02/12/2023 — Houston, TX @ House of Blues
02/14/2023 — Chicago, IL @ House of Blues
02/17/2023 — New York, NY @ Irving Plaza
02/18/2023 — Washington, DC @ The Howard Theatre
02/19/2023 — Charlotte, NC @ The Fillmore
02/22/2023 — Atlanta, GA @ Buckhead
02/25/2023 — Lake Buena Vista, FL @ House of Blues
02/26/2023 — Miami, FL @ The Oasis

Danny Ocean is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Now that Nick Kroll has finished his promotional duties for Don’t Worry Darling, he can return to his day job: voicing the proud father of a “sex monster.”

In the trailer for Big Mouth season six, Maury (one of many characters voiced by the Kroll Show comedian, along with Nick, Lola, and Coach Steve) gives birth to a baby hormone monster. When Matthews (Andrew Rannells) asks if it’s a boy or girl, Maury replies, “Don’t impose your fascist, cis-human gender norms on this perfect little sex monster.” The trailer also features Andrew (John Mulaney) dressing up like Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman; Jay (Jason Mantzoukas) learning he has a secret half-brother; Missy getting embarrassed by her dad at a daddy-daughter dance; and Jessi (Jessi Klein) feeling sibling rivalry for her father’s new daughter. The feeling is mutual. “This is my family now, and I don’t want a bitch sister,” the literal baby thinks.

Horny monsters, swearing babies, and Richard Kind? Missed you, Big Mouth.

Guest stars in season six include Adam Levine (is it too late to make a DM joke?), Annaleigh Ashford, Amber Ruffin, Brian Tyree Henry, Chris O’Dowd, Cole Escola, Ed Helms, Ira Glass, Jeff Goldblum, Peter Capaldi, Steve-O, and Tyler the Creator.

Big Mouth returns to Netflix on October 28.

As Sorry inch closer to the release of their brand new album Anywhere But Here this Friday (October 7), the North London indie rockers shared a new single, “Closer.” The diaristic song’s arrival is accompanied by an equally introspective visual, directed by Asha Lorenz, Sorry’s lead vocalist, and Flo Webb (FLASHA).

“The lyrics in ‘Closer’ came quickly in one gulp,” Sorry said in a statement about the track. “It felt as if I was talking through quite a few people that had hurt me and me hurting people too. It’s about the person that we are made into sometimes by experiences or desire, and the shame that comes with that. It also is about addiction and the circular spiral of its pattern, rotating and returning. We wanted it to sound like a song from an NYC band in the noughties and the sound developed from there.”

In the music video, images are projected onto the walls of a small room that coincide with the lyrics. “Closer to the clock striking 12 again / Closer to my mother, closer to my friends / Closer to getting closer to getting further back again,” Lorenz sings with tints of lo-fi and grunge.

“Closer” follows Anywhere But Here singles “Let The Lights On” and “Key To The City.” The project is Sorry’s first since their 2020 debut 925, and they will celebrate by embarking on their first-ever headlining North American tour.

Anywhere But Here is out 10/7 via Domino. Pre-save it here.

Dominic Fike recently announced a North American tour, which kicks off this November. Still, Fike’s last album, What Could Possibly Go Wrong, was released in 2020. With new shows, many might be wondering about the chance of Fike having new music on the way. Here’s what we know so far.

In February of this year, Naples Daily News reported that Fike was heading to upstate New York to record songs for his sophomore project.

“Ever since the whole TV show thing, everyone really wants me to put new music out,” Fike said, referencing his role as Elliott in HBO’s Euphoria. “So I figure I’ll go record for a month, I’ll come back with however many songs I have, mix and master them and hand ’em over.”

“The last year and a half was kind of a rollercoaster, in a weird way,” he continued. “A lot happened in my personal life, I think. I took a break from music and whatnot. And eventually, I kind of hopped back on … and started working again.” During the same interview, Fike even said not to expect a tour anytime soon, so things seem to have changed in the months since.

By April, Fike appeared in a profile for GQ, where he touched further on his sophomore record, noting that it will be smoother and feature more rapping. “But now I know exactly what kind of sound I want and what kind of music I want to make,” Fike said. His friend and collaborator, Kenny Beats, appears as an extra voice in the piece as someone who has seemingly heard the new music. Another piece of potential evidence for new music is a Genius tracklist for Fike’s second album, although the titles being included are still unconfirmed.

For more information on Dominic Fike’s tour, visit here.

This article originally appeared on 09.08.16

92-year-old Norma had a strange and heartbreaking routine.

Every night around 5:30 p.m., she stood up and told the staff at her Ohio nursing home that she needed to leave. When they asked why, she said she needed to go home to take care of her mother. Her mom, of course, had long since passed away.

Behavior like Norma’s is quite common for older folks suffering from Alzheimer’s or other forms of dementia. Walter, another man in the same assisted living facility, demanded breakfast from the staff every night around 7:30.

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Jean Makesh, CEO of Lantern assisted living facilities, says he meets folks with stories like these every day. It’s their stories that inspired him to make some changes at Lantern.

“I thought I knew a lot about elderly care. The more and more time I was spending with my clients, that’s when I realized, ‘Oh my god, I have no clue.'”

Confusion is common in Alzheimer’s patients, but Makesh knew there had to be some way to minimize these conflicts.

A big believer in the idea that our environment has an enormous effect on us, he started thinking big — and way outside the box.

“What if we design an environment that looks like outside?” he said. “What if I can have a sunrise and sunset inside the building? What if I’m able to have the moon and stars come out? What if I build a unit that takes residents back to the ’30s and ’40s?”

And that was just the beginning. He also researched sound therapy. And aromatherapy. And carpet that looked like grass. No idea was off-limits.

What he came up with was a truly unique memory-care facility. And after testing the concept in Lantern’s Madison, Ohio, facility, Makesh is opening two new locations this year.

Instead of rooms or units, each resident gets a “home” on a quiet little indoor street reminiscent of the neighborhoods many of them grew up in.

Instead of a boring panel ceiling, residents look up and see a digital sky, which grows dimmer late in the day to help keep their biological clocks in tune.

Throughout the day, nature sounds and fresh aromas like peppermint or citrus are piped in.

Some studies have shown that this kind of aromatherapy may indeed have some merits for improving cognitive functioning in Alzheimer’s patients.

For Makesh, this isn’t just about making patients comfortable, though. He wants to change how we think about the endgame of severe dementia.

Makesh said one of the frustrating shortcomings of most nursing facilities is that they create conflicts with unnatural environments and schedules, and they try to solve them by throwing antipsychotic and anti-anxiety medications at patients. In other words, when someone has severe dementia, we often give up on them. From there, they stop getting the engagement their brain needs to thrive.

Of course, we’re a long way from a cure for Alzheimer’s.

But Makesh’s project shows that when we think strategically about altering the environment and focus on helping people relearn essential self-care and hygiene skills, the near-impossible becomes possible.

“In five years, we’re going to [be able to] rehabilitate our clients where they can live independently in our environment,” he said. “In 10 years, we’re going to be able to send them back home.”

He knows it’s a lofty goal. And whether he’ll meet it remains to be seen. But in the meantime, he’s proud to own one of the few places that offers something pretty rare in cases of severe dementia: hope.

It had honestly been so long since we had had a solid quote from Lena Dunham that it seemed like most of the internet had forgotten about her dicey past when it came to saying the wrong thing at the wrong time. Though some might remember when she defended her writer who was accused of sexual assault or the disastrous Odell Beckham debacle. It has been nearly three years since the infamous Brad Pitt kiss, and she has remained relatively silent. And yet…yesterday, on a gloomy fall morning, she took to Twitter to say….this.

This didn’t land well with just about everybody who collectively decided that Dunham needed to be put in her place. It’s ultimately unclear why exactly Dunham thought that she is “for” the LGBTQ community when she has been a controversial figure who once said she was “disappointed” that she was straight. Many social media users thought her comments to be unwanted and also just….very random?

The Girls writer/actress has been relatively quiet since the hit HBO show ended in 2017. She recently returned with Catherine Called Birdy, the upcoming movie adaptation of the classic 1994 novel. The movie stars Andrew Scott, Billie Piper, Joe Alwyn, Dean-Charles Chapman, Ralph Ineson, and Russell Brand and premieres on Amazon Prime this Friday. Perhaps that’s why she decided to log in to Twitter to stir up some drama. Looks like she will have to apologize again.

(SPOILERS for this week’s Power Book III: Raising Kanan will be found below.)

It’s been a couple of Power Book III: Raising Kanan episodes since we were introduced to Kanan’s new love interest, Corinne. It’s his first foray into romance since we saw him with Davina in season one. In only a short time, things quickly got complicated for Kanan as Corinne’s mother Palomar made a move for Kanan. Palomar is often confused for being Corinne’s older sister, and it’s a mistake that we see Kanan make when he meets Corinne and Palomar at Famous’ house party in episode four. In episode seven, Palomar makes her biggest move at Kanan and it ends with them sleeping together and Corinne walking in on them later on.

Who Plays Palomar On Power Book III: Raising Kanan? Meet KJ Smith

Palomar is played by KJ Smith who took on the recurring role last fall as revealed in an announcement from Deadline. Smith is known for her main role in Tyler Perry’s Sistas which completed its fourth season back in August. In an interview with Black Girl Nerds, Smith shared that the role is a “vast change” from anything else she’s done in her acting career.

“I’m not like this character in my real life,” she said. “I had to really pull to find who this woman was. I had to do a lot of research, make phone calls, and live in the city for a while to gauge how this person could be the way she is. I love her now because I was able to find women like this. I can sympathize with who she is and why she makes the choices that she makes. I definitely judged her in the beginning.”

New episodes of STARZ’s ‘Power Book III: Raising Kanan’ are available to watch on Sundays at 12:00am EST.

This post originally ran in 2016, but we like to re-post it again every few years when fall rolls around just to remind everyone about the points it makes. And also so Brian gets yelled at again a little bit for this ridiculous take. So, two reasons, really.

October is bad. There, I said it. I feel great about it, too. It’s almost liberating, really. I think… you know what? I’m going to say it again. October is bad. Okay, now let’s do one with italics. October is bad. Oooh. I liked that. That one felt good. I could ride the high I felt from that for hours. Days, maybe. It’s just so clean and pure.

And it feels even better because I hold so few of these kinds of blistering contrarian takes. I’m usually a very calm, reasonable person, to the degree that I can be occasionally infuriating to talk to. (“Ugh, can you even believe what this idiot said?” “Eh, doesn’t seem that bad.” “What do you mean, ‘eh’?”) In fact, now that I think about it, I really only have three major opinions that you could even classify as hot takes:

• You should put ketchup on your hot dog if you want to, regardless of what various food dorks say, because it is your hot dog and you should put anything on it that makes you happy
• The ocean is bad and is not to be trifled with by anyone who doesn’t have a faded tattoo of an anchor on their forearm
• October is bad

That’s it. So when I actually get to rear back and let one fly — something I truly believe, deeply, in my bones — it feels freeing, like I’m soaring through the air.

This isn’t the first time I’ve gone on my anti-October crusade, either. Once upon a time, I ranked the months of the year and slotted October in at number 10, ahead of only January and February. People still yell at me about that sometimes. That’s okay, though. People yelled at Galileo, too. But did Galileo back down? No! He kept speaking truth to power. (“The sun is the center of the solar system. Do not @ me.” — Galileo.) And that is what I will do here. Speak truth to power, just like Galileo. Exactly like Galileo. Except for the part where he went to prison instead of recanting. I will recant before this gets that far. I will super recant, assuming “super recanting” is a thing that exists. October is bad, sure. But prison is worse. I will give October that and that only.

Okay, here’s what we’re going to do: To prove that this is a real stance backed by hard evidence, and not just the rantings of some lunatic (they are definitely that, too, but not just that), let’s take all of your pro-October arguments and shoot them down one by one.

“Ah, the crisp Autumn air. Finally, a reprieve from the unbearable heat of summer. Time to break out the sweaters and windbreakers and head outside to enjoy this beautiful day.”

Well, two things about that. First of all, no, you will probably not enjoy the day very much, because October is that fun time of year when the temperature can range from the high 30s in the morning and evening to the mid-70s in the afternoon sun, making it impossible to dress appropriately. That sweater you were so excited about wearing outside on a brisk morning? Now it’s a suffocating sweat cocoon and you either need to grin and bear it or take it off and carry it around with you like some sweater-carrying weirdo, hoping that your undershirt hasn’t already developed the sort of sweat stain pattern that will make it look like an old treasure map.

And none of this even gets to the “Hey, do I need a jacket? Should I bring a jacket? What do you guys think? Jacket?” conversation that you will have 400 times during the month without ever making the correct decision, somehow.

Number two, even if I give you weather thing (which I will not), you can still get almost exactly the same weather conditions in April. April is better than October because April represents the first signs of life after another long, cold, dark winter. Flowers are blooming, birds are chirping, people are emerging from their disgusting pseudo-hibernation hermit lifestyles to let the sunshine kiss their skin. This is good. It’s practically life-affirming. Which brings us to strike two against October.

“Oh, but I love to watch the leaves change colors.”

That is the first step of the leaves losing their lives. The fresh, healthy greens turn to more rigid reds and yellows, followed shortly after by the piles of crunchy, goopy browns that you curse as you scoop out of your gutters. What looks like a pretty postcard is actually the annual mass death of millions of livings things, many of which you will be forced to clean up like some sort of amateur coroner.

“But it’s so pretty!”

You monster.

Okay, admittedly I took that a bit too far. But October is still a very depressing month. The days start getting noticeably shorter by the second week, and by the end of the month the sun is setting at 6:00 PM. It’s the first step toward the barren wasteland of winter, and it doesn’t even have the decency to have a real holiday like Thanksgiving or Christmas associated with it. Halloween doesn’t count. Any holiday that both encourages creepy clown activity and doesn’t include days off of work is a bad holiday.

“What about pumpkins, though?”

Pumpkins are not that great, in standard form, and most of the “pumpkin” things you like are actually “pumpkin pie” flavored. There’s no actual pumpkin in a pumpkin spice latte, for example. It’s just a regular coffee with a few handfuls of nutmeg. There’s nothing stopping Starbucks from giving you that year-round. They have the stuff in a warehouse, somewhere. Be angry at them about this, not me.

“Yeah, but that’s just the way th-…”

And that brings me to my next point: Most of the things you like about October don’t need to be “October things.” Like, the baseball playoffs and the beginning of football? We can just adjust the schedule. It’s not even that hard. We can run football from February through June. And baseball… I love baseball. I do. But we could cut 40 games out of the middle of the season and it would be fine. It would be fine. End the whole thing in mid-September. The purists would scream about it, but the purists are going to be screaming about something anyway. (“There are two many relievers these days! Pitchers used to stay in the game until their shoulders shredded apart like BBQ pork and everyone loved it!”) Might as well give them some ammo.

“Yeah, but what abou-…”

Wrong! Because of politics! Every two years we go through the process of electing new public officials and it turns the whole country into a cesspool. Especially during October, and especially if you live in a politically important swing state, like, say, Pennsylvania, where I live. Everyone commercial break in every damn Eagles game is wall-to-wall attack ads. Like five in a row, all with a scary-voiced man explaining who is and is not an apparent supervillain who is hellbent on ruining America. It’s unbearable. Give me 1000 consecutive 1-877-KARS4KIDS ads instead.

And social media is even worse. I mean, have you been on social media lately? It’s a sea of bad opinions. More than it usually is. You can’t post a simple picture of your dinner without igniting a flame war. (“That burger looks good, too bad you won’t be able to eat it anymore once THE LIBS MAKE VEGANISM THE LAW.”) It’s all completely, hopelessly out of hand. I’m just trying to eat and watch football. Please leave me alone.

And yet, every fall, I have to listen to people “ooo” and “ahh” about October and what a magical time it is, despite the cold, hard facts that prove otherwise. Open your eyes, people. Look around. Be honest with yourselves. And then, once you’ve done that, take a deep breath and say it with me…

October is bad.