The culture war between people who hope to spark systemic change that eliminates racism and sexism in society and those who think “cancel culture” is out of control entered a new chapter on Friday with the White House incorrectly mourning the cancelation of a cartoon about dogs who are cops. On Friday, White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany publicly claimed that President Donald Trump is upset that Paw Patrol has been canceled along with other shows detailing police activity.
At last someone willing to stand up for ‘Paw Patrol’
Fact check: The children’s show ‘Paw Patrol’ has not been canceled by Nickelodeon pic.twitter.com/Kd9AHSQCFQ
“He’s also appalled by cancel culture and cancel culture specifically as it pertains to cops. We saw a few weeks ago that Paw Patrol, a cartoon about cops, was canceled,” she said. “The show Cops was canceled. Live PD was canceled. LEGO halted the sales of their LEGO city police station. It’s unfortunate.”
The problem here is that only some of that was true. While LEGO did stop selling sets and both the long-running Cops and Live PD were canceled amid historic protests against police brutality, the first stated victim of cancel culture simply didn’t happen. The official Paw Patrol Twitter account did say last month that it would pause posting on social media amid the ongoing conversation about race and police relations in America, a pause that has continued into late July.
That’s a long way from taking the children’s cartoon off the air, however, and there’s no indication that Paw Patrol has been canceled despite the White House explicitly saying it was canceled “weeks ago.” A new video game based on the show is on the way, and despite COVID-19 cancelations its live show is still scheduling dates in the future. According to Snopes, it hasn’t left the television airways, despite some parents best wishes.
Snopes has some details about the people who either fell for some social media humor about the subject or simply are spreading misinformation to shock parents about the dangers of cancel culture. Anyway, here’s a coronavirus hand-washing PSA from the pups.
It’s yet another entry into the weird chronicle of experiencing pop culture in 2020. And it seems clear that some misinformation about Paw Patrol under attack made its way into the White House and was believed. Or, perhaps, it’s another case of satirical website The Onion being taken seriously.
Eleven years ago, Andi Bonura of Texas was told she wouldn’t be able to have any more children, now she has eight.
Her and her husband, Thomas’, oldest child Joey, 11, was born with a twin, Eli, but he passed away at just five months. Joey pulled through and has been living with cerebral palsy and visual impairment, but his mother told Good Morning America he’s the “happiest kid in this house.”
“When we lost Eli, we were told we couldn’t have any more children, and we were devastated,” Andi told CBS News. “And we actually started looking at adoption then, but for some amazing reason, we had two more daughters that were a complete shock.”
The daughters, Sadie and Daphne are now 10 and eight.
The Bonura family now had three children but they didn’t stop there. Knowing it would be risky to have any more biological children, they turned to fostering in 2017.
“Then they told us to come pick up our now 2-year-old Bryson,” who joined the family right out of the NICU. “We didn’t think we would have him forever or anything. We were there to love him for now. But we found out he had siblings,” she said.
Bryson has four siblings that had all been split up into different foster care homes. So Andi asked if she could foster some of the siblings, and was approved.
“We still weren’t thinking we were going to have them forever. We were just happy they were together,” she told CBS News.
Then, to the family’s surprise, they learned that all five children would be put up for adoption because their parents terminated their rights as guardians.
“We had already been meeting with the twins, who are now 8, and we just loved them. They were constantly asking when they were going to move into our house,” she said.
In May, after two years of going through the adoption process, they were granted the adoption via a Zoom call with through the DePelchin Children’s Center. Thomas, 8, Carter, 8, David, 6, Gabrielle, 4 and Bryson, 2 now had a forever family.
“The kids have been through a lot but they’re the sweetest. They’re amazing — and resilient,” Andi said.
Being a parent to eight children is no easy task and Andi gives a lot of the credit to the support she receives from other foster parents.
“The only reason I made it through all of this is because of the other foster moms and the support we have for each other,” she said. “Honestly, I’m nothing special. If anything, it’s the other moms who encouraged me.”
Andi says it feels like all eight siblings have been together their entire lives. “They love each other and they support each other and they look out for each other. They’re so proud to be brothers and sisters.”
The relationship between warm weather and agave spirits reaches its annual highpoint today — National Tequila Day. It’s summer, it’s hot, we all need a drink. And while we love a good agave-based cocktail, we’re dedicating today to slow sipping our tequilas chilled and neat (maybe with a side of lime, at most).
Since so many of our fans love whiskey above all spirits, we’re tailoring our picks to their palates this time around. Many techniques used by tequila and mezcal creators are borrowed from whiskey makers. This is especially the case when it comes to the maturation process and making use of special finishes. There are also similarities between the whiskey world and that of tequila and mezcal when it comes to classification. For example, though mezcal and tequila are both made from agave, they do have some disparities. One of the key differences is in the categorization of the two Mexican spirits. All tequilas are mezcals, but not all mezcals are tequilas (just like scotch and bourbon are types of whiskey, tequila is a type of mezcal).
Whether you’re savoring it solo or virtually with friends and family across the country, there’s a tequila that best suits your whiskey-loving palate to enjoy today. We gathered a handful of our favorites below.
1800 Añejo
SRP: $34.99
The story: 1800 Tequila has been around for over 200 years, so you know they’ve put in the reps when it comes to the art of tequila making. Although we’re a sucker for their most recent release, 1800 Coconut, the true gem is their añejo – especially when it comes to pleasing whiskey-centric palates.
The taste: Throw out the notion that tequila is only made for shooters and mixed drinks. Using 100 percent Weber blue agave piñas, harvested at their peak – anywhere from 8-12 years old – this añejo is aged in French oak barrels for a minimum of 14 months, resulting in a spirit that’s perfect for summertime sipping. The añejo has a spicy-sweet nose, with a rich flavor profile consisting of toasted oak and butterscotch. The lingering, spicy finish that will have you going in for more.
Buy it if: You’re craving something outside your portfolio of whiskeys that still maintains a degree of oak and smoothness.
Greenbar Distillery’s IXÁ Reposado Tequila
SRP: $47.99
The story: Husband and wife duo Melkon Khosrovian and Litty Matthew created Los Angeles’ first distillery since Prohibition, Greenbar Distillery. It has the largest portfolio of organic spirits in the world and also strives to function as a sustainable company (they plant a tree for every bottle of spirit and case of highballs sold).
The taste: Aged in both new toasted oak and charred rye whiskey barrels, this golden-hued spirit balances the ripe agave with a hint of vanilla and caramel notes from the barrelling. Aged for nearly one year, this tequila also has spice in the finish to give your palate some subtle heat, but without a “burn.”
Buy it if: You’re wanting a summertime treat that beats the heat as opposed to the beloved warmth of whiskey neat. Best served in a chilled glass, no ice.
Convite Mezcal Esencial
SRP: $44.99
The story: Founded in 2013, but just launching in the American market this year, Convite is rooted in Oaxacan traditions. In fact, Oaxacan-born brand owner, Jorge Vera, alongside Convite producers, Daniel and Cosme Hernandez, have ties that go beyond business. Vera’s grandfather bought mezcal from the brothers’ own grandfather.
Convite is named for an Oaxacan term that roughly translates to “invitation to feast.”
The taste: This mezcal is produced from Espadín agaves with a maturity of eight years or more. It’s naturally fermented in wood vats and double distilled in a copper pot. The nose consists of smoke and stimulating citrus, while the palate is peppery with a lingering earthy finish. If you’re missing the sweet notes of whiskey, try this particular mezcal in a cocktail, such as the Honey & Smoke.
Buy it if: You like the smokiness of scotch, then this could very well be your next go-to spirit.
Casa Dragones Barrel Blend
SRP: $150
The story: For more than over a decade, small-batch producer, Tequila Casa Dragones has released a portfolio of award-winning tequilas. In 2009, Casa Dragones launched Joven — a tequila designed for sipping and pairing with food. Then, in 2014, they unveiled their signature Blanco expression as a pure silver tequila. The latest expression released just last month is the Casa Dragones Barrel Blend.
The taste: This 100 percent blue agave spirit is matured in both new French Oak and new American Oak. At the end of the aging process, Casa Dragones blends both barrel styles together resulting in an agave-forward añejo tequila. The aromatic nose gives you a whiff of agave and honey. This Barrel Blend shines through in the palate with subtle spice, cacao, and oaky notes, finishing with a hint of caramel (sounds whisk-ish, right?).
This one’s too good for a cocktail, so drink it neat.
Buy it if: You’re a purist when it comes to whiskey, but you’re feeling adventurous this evening.
Jose Cuervo Tradicional Añejo
SRP: $32.99
The story: In May, Jose Cuervo Tradicional launched its first añejo tequila, Tradicional Añejo. This premium tequila makes use of the original Cuervo family recipe dating back to 1795, is matured for over 12 months in new American oak barrels, and is finished for up to four months in Irish single malt whiskey barrels from the world’s oldest licensed whiskey distillery.
The taste: Bold and complex, this añejo is easily the best transitional spirit for a whiskey lover wanting to add tequila to their drink reservoir. Nutty and sweet nose, with a welcoming palate of vanilla, baking spices, and agave.
Buy it if: You love all the nuances of whiskey and its delicious cocktails but want to give these libations a tequila twist. Tequila Old Fashioned, anyone?
Few, if any, video games are hotter right now than Call of Duty: Warzone. Activision’s entry into the increasingly-popular genre has mixed all the elements of a battle royale game with the hyper-realistic feel of a CoD release. It’s been a smash hit — in its first month alone, more than 50 million gamers gave Warzone a spin. With no new Call of Duty releases on the horizon and this being a free-to-play game, we can safely assume that Warzone isn’t going anywhere any time soon.
There’s just one problem: If you’re new to the game, or if you don’t play it all that much, you might get overwhelmed by the players who are way, way better than you. Games like Warzone reward those who sink hours and hours into it, and if you’re not particularly good, it’s quite easy to get discouraged as you’re going through the various growing pains.
Warzone does offer up ways to get up to speed pretty quickly. There are a handful of practice modes for players to try out — “Warzone Orientation” gets you up to speed on controls and how things work in the game, while “Battle Royale Practice,” “Plunder Training,” and “Trials” all get newer gamers up to speed on combat against computers. But in the eyes of Nick “Happy” Suda, a member of the New York Subliners of the Call of Duty League and a frequent Warzone player, your best bet is to go with a more trial by fire approach.
“I, personally, would suggest just hopping right in with a buddy,” Suda, who has been a professional Call of Duty player since 2016, told Uproxx Gaming. “Someone who’s fairly at the same level of you, if not probably even better. It’ll be better for them to be better so he could help you. Just go straight forward, and no hesitation.”
We caught up with Suda to talk Warzone. Specifically, we wanted to get tips for people who want to get better at the game from a pro’s perspective. As with anything in life, Suda thinks there’s exactly one tried-and-true method for those who want to up their Warzone game: Spending a whole lot of time playing and getting used to the game, living with incremental progress, and accepting that you’re going to be bad until you improve.
Winning a game of Warzone isn’t just about kills, it’s about good decision-making. @OpSuda tells you how to play tactically from the minute you land, to the final circle.
There are, of course, some other things that could help. Suda mentioned watching streamers who sink hours into games on Twitch — unsurprisingly, he recommends checking out his fellow members of the Subliners — in an attempt to pick up on their habits and fold them into your own game, citing things like keeping a keen eye on where players like to land. Having an understanding of how both battle royale games and releases in the Call of Duty series work as a baseline isn’t the worst idea, either.
And as someone who prefers to play quads, Suda also stressed the importance of making sure you’re squadding up and sticking to a gameplan. In fact, in Suda’s eyes, someone deciding to break away from their team and play hero is “the most common mistake I see people make.”
“If you have four guys shooting one guy, he’s never going to stand a chance,” Suda points out.
While these more general pointers are useful for getting a feel for the game and having an understanding for what you’re getting yourself into, when it comes to playing like a pro, Suda has some ideas. Specifically, he wants you to grab your controller and tweak some of the settings so you’re making life a little easier on yourself. As he tells it, most, if not all, pros turn on contextual tap, automatic tactical sprint, and tap to slide. He also wants you to opt for a square mini-map and turn off all of motion blur, weapon motion blur, and world motion blur.
“Contextual tap will help you pick up loot much easier,” Suda says. “Instead of having to hold square, you just have to tap it once. So when you’re in a quick engagement and things are getting stressful and you have to make a quick play, you can pick up loot much easier. And automatic tactical sprint, this is negating the double sprint button that you have to press to engage with the automatic tactical sprint. And it’s just keeping you at full speed at every single time you sprint. And the tap to slide is tapping the slide button once, making your character slide instead of having to hold it.
“The square mini-map will make your peripherals bigger on the mini-map, therefore seeing more enemies on the map compared to a circle mini map,” Suda continues. “And the motion blur will take away from motion sickness that players might have while playing the game had its normal settings, if you turn it off it will make it run much more smoother.”
Picking weaponry and attachments that lets him take out an opponent from a distance or from close-range is big in Suda’s book — he uses the Kilo 141 or the Bruen MK9 with an MP5 and the EOD, Overkill, and Amped perks with lethal C4 and tactical heartbeat — while he opts for UAV and precision strike for when he gets on kill streaks and prefers dead silence as his field upgrade.
He also has a tip for loadouts, one that he does every time he plays and recommends everyone follows as long as they can make it to that point.
“You could buy a free loadout, or you could buy a loadout from the store from $10,000, which we all know,” Suda says. But there is a freeload out that comes in the game after the first circle closes at 13 seconds, every single game. So if you and your team don’t have enough money for a loadout, you can wait for the first circle to close. And at 13 seconds, the game will give you one. And that’s a big tip that I still use to this day. I preach to that. I stare at my clock in the game and once 13 seconds hit, we always make our way towards the loadout, making it easier to just get kills.”
When it comes to landing, Suda has a fun tip for racking up kills — just go to the very end of the map, when players are automatically kicked out of the plane and “AFK” (away from keyboard) players just stand there aimlessly. (This, as an aside, has my full recommendation, as I immediately did this after we hung up and it works as well as he predicted.) He also advises those who want to rack up kills to land at the TV station or the hospital, where helicopters are there for the taking.
On landing, Suda’s advice is pretty general — those who want to fight go along the plane’s route and in the circle, those who want to survive get away from everything and let everyone else go at it. He likes landing near the hangers at the circles outside the superstore, which is a hot zone, as are the TV station and boneyard. A general recommendation is landing near a store and to land in such a way that you can use the game’s free loadouts to your advantage.
“I like to land near scavenger packs and/or bounties,” Suda says. “If you start a scavenger pack in the beginning of the game, you could potentially be the first team in the game, or the first team in the lobby to have a free loadout. So landing your scavengers in stores are where you want to land near, and where I always land near.”
Money and armor plates are huge for any player to survive, and when you’re teaming up with friends, Suda recommends using that to your advantage. He notes that if an opposing player is facing shots from four different opponents at one time, they’re not going to have much of a chance, and even if a player is not playing quads, this is a helpful tip in any game mode that involves teams. And if you find yourself on the other side of this sort of thing, he wants you to have some tricks up your sleeve.
“The best tip to survive while being ambushed is definitely the most underrated tactical in the game, the smoke grenade,” Suda says. “So if your team has a dedicated smoke grenade player, you could always chuck up smokes and get your players out of sticky situations. Another tip I would say is always having a precision airstrike available, making it easier for you to quickly streak a team that has a better position on you, making them have to back down from that position and your team escaping.”
There is the situation everyone wants to avoid in Warzone: ending up in the Gulag. But there are ways to make sure that situation boils down to more than just getting lucky and seeing your opponent before you see them. Tacticals, for example, are your friend in that environment. Or, Suda says, you don’t need a metaphorical friend, because you could have your actual friend coaching you if you’re playing in a game with others.
“If you and your teammate die at the same time, the chances are you’re going to be in the same Gulag,” Suda says. “So your teammates spectating could call out for your teammate that’s in the Gulag, giving away what position he is, exactly where he is in the Gulag, making it an easier kill.”
Ultimately, the goal of any Warzone player — whether they’re a pro like Suda or a schmuck like the person who wrote this article — is to outlast everyone else and be the last person (or team) standing. All of these tips can help someone get to that point, and for some, it’ll happen sooner rather than later.
But in his last final bit of advice, Suda circled back to the one thing that is guaranteed to work: “Play with your friends, play with people you’re comfortable with and try to get better with them, and keep studying the game.”
As our own Brian Grubb pointed out earlier today, we’re about to hit a dry-spell for television shows, because even Netflix will run out of programming eventually. OK, that’s not true, Netflix will release 24 new shows you’ve never heard of every week until the end of time, but the well is getting dry for other streaming services and cable networks.
With one major exception: HBO’s Lovecraft Country.
The 1950s’-set horror-drama series, from showrunner Misha Green and producers Jordan Peele and J.J. Abrams, would be one of the pop culture events of the summer even in a “normal” summer. It’s not only timely, it also looks “really f*cking cool.”
Watch the new full-length trailer above. Here’s more.
Based on Matt Ruff’s novel of the same name, Lovecraft Country follows Atticus Freeman as he meets up with his friend Letitia and his Uncle George to embark on a road trip across 1950s Jim Crow America in search of his missing father. This begins a struggle to survive and overcome both the racist terrors of white America and the terrifying monsters that could be ripped from a Lovecraft paperback.
Lovecraft Country, which stars Jonathan Majors, Jurnee Smollett, Courtney B. Vance, and Michael Kenneth Williams, premieres on HBO on August 16.
One of John Mulaney’s more famous bits is his impression of Ice-T being shocked on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, specifically his confusion over sex addicts. “There is a scene in the episode where the other detectives are trying to teach Ice-T what sex addiction is, and it takes a couple of minutes,” Mulaney explains. “And finally, Ice-T gets it, and they cut to him in this close-up and he goes, ‘Oh, I get it. You mean like when someone drinks too much, or snorts cocaine, or bets the house on the ponies?’ I was like, ‘Yeah you got it, man.’” Mulaney then imagines Ice-T providing examples for other things, like when someone smokes too many cigarettes, or shops too much with credit cards, or plays too many scratchy lotteries. You get it (or just watch the bit here).
It’s unclear if Ice-T was aware of Mulaney’s impression before, but he definitely is now: a group of Sack Lunch Bunch fans came together to get the rapper-turned-actor to turn the bit into reality. “About a couple of days ago, I got a little high and thought it would be funny to buy a Cameo from Ice T, to fulfill John Mulaney’s wish to hear him just listing off examples of addiction,” YouTube user “hannah elizabeth” wrote. “With the help of my friends in John Mulaney Petuniaposting on Facebook, we were able to make it a reality.”
I love everything about this, including that there’s a “shitposting” internet group named after John Mulaney’s dog Petunia. The internet can be good. Not often, but sometimes.
Rising Chicago star King Von questions the loyalty of a onetime friend in the hair-raising video for his new single “Why He Told.” Von, a member of Lil Durk’s Only The Family clique, has only been active for around two years, but already, he’s one of the Windy City’s go-to artists for stark tales of street life as his profile grows from promising newcomer to certified star in-the-making.
The “Why He Told” video sees Von reminiscing on a former associate who couldn’t handle the pressure when the authorities came around asking questions. “Could’ve did that time,” he sighs on the chorus, condemning his partner-turned-snitch. The video tracks with the lyrics, opening on a female officer activating a tape recorder and rewinds through the guilty visions of the aforementioned snitch, who imagines Von pursuing him and wakes up in cold sweats from the guilt of turning his coat.
Earlier this year, Von released his second album, LeVon James, to a warm reception from both fans and critics, as well as a respectable No. 63 debut on the Billboard 200. The album featured appearances from G Herbo, Lil Durk, NLE Choppa, Tee Grizzley, YNW Melly, and Yungeen Ace. Von also recently appeared on Mozzy’s “Body Count.”
Despite having to move the entire event online due to unprecedented conditions, this year’s Comic-Con still managed to draw a significant about of eyeballs for its first day of virtual events and panels. But one of those virtual panels stood head and shoulders above the rest: The New Mutants.
As of this writing, The New Mutants panel has racked up over 110,000 YouTube views, which easily puts the long-delayed mutant movie far ahead of its competition for Thursday. Here were the heavy hitters for the day, and as you can see, not one of them reaches half of The New Mutants‘ numbers. Although, in fairness, the Star Trek panel did experience technical difficulties when Viacom forgot to whitelist Comic-Con’s YouTube channel causing the virtual panel to be temporarily pulled for copyright infringement. Whoops.
The appetite for The New Mutants is particularly impressive given the film’s numerous delays. The mutant horror movie bore the brunt of Disney’s massive acquisition of Fox, and for a long while, it looked like The New Mutants had vanished into the ether. But then director Josh Boone surprised X-Men fans by revealing that Disney had given him the opportunity to finish the movie, which only needed some editing and visual effects work. (Boone is adamant that the film didn’t require reshoots despite rumors.) Everything was moving along nicely for an April 2020 release date with Boone and the cast doing press in the weeks leading up to its release.
And then the pandemic happened.
The New Mutants found itself punted to an August release date, which is looking increasingly unlikely by the day and has sparked a renewed call for a streaming release. But while that approach is mired in uncertainty, one thing’s for sure, X-Men fans are here for The New Mutants, and they’re in it for the long haul.
There is a seemingly endless supply of songs devoted to new New York City, but there are decidedly fewer songs that praise the city’s sports teams. Then, of course, there’s The Strokes‘ “Ode To The Mets,” which arrives off their most recent record, The New Abnormal. While the song isn’t explicitly about baseball, the group shared a video accompanying the track on the same day The Mets are poised to play their first post-quarantine game.
Directed by longtime collaborator Warren Fu, the visual takes the viewer on a journey through time by combining old-school footage with futuristic CGI. According to DIY, the visual is “loosely inspired” by a conversation Fu and vocalist Julien Casablancas had about the intro to the TV show Cheers.
Ahead of the visual’s release, Casablancas opened up about not being able to tour behind the album due to the pandemic. While it’s true the tour has been put on hold, this wouldn’t actually be the first time the band has gone without touring behind a record. In a recent interview with The Guardian, Casablancas explained a conflict in the band led them to forgo a Comedown Machine tour. “People are like, ‘Oh man, you’re not able to tour!’ I’m like, ‘That’s a bad thing?’” he said. Additionally, Casablancas said the band nearly postponed The New Abnormal but eventually decided to go ahead with their original rollout. “The idea came up, I suppose because we can’t really promote it,” Casablancas said. “But it didn’t seem worth postponing.”
Microsoft’s Xbox Series X game event on Thursday was an opportunity to get gamers excited about the computing giant’s own next-gen console, starting with a very familiar protagonist in Halo‘s Master Chief. If you’re looking for differences between Sony and Microsoft in how they approach their latest consoles, you’ll have to look deeper than the events they’ve put on in recent weeks in lieu of the more traditional E3 and in-person showcases the industry has come to expect.
Both companies have already spent time teasing performance and instead focused on games, which ultimately may be what gets people to pick one console over another. But their approach to showcasing those games is also very similar. One of the biggest pieces of news from Thursday’s event was that Destiny 2 and its expansions would hit Game Pass on Xbox Series X. One can pretty easily make the connection to Sony giving away GTA V for the PS5, too. Old favorites are good, sure, but people want new games to make it worth shelling out for a new console. And Microsoft did show off at least glimpses at some considerable titles.
Here’s what we learned from Microsoft’s event.
Infinite Nostalgia
Halo Infinite led off the event, and for good reason. Master Chief has been with Xbox since the beginning, and we got both a cinematic showing the creation of Master Chief armor and some gameplay that looked pretty crisp, all things considered. The game looked less technologically impressive than others we’ve seen, but it did look like a good Halo game, if that makes sense.
The gameplay saw plenty of familiar weapons as Master Chief deftly took down Grunts, Brutes, and Elites to the familiar battle cries you’ve come to know and love of your Covenant enemies over the years. The Halo setting looked like the first few levels of the original game’s campaign. Everything was familiar and those who have played the series undoubtedly got a jolt of nostalgia watching Chief’s assault rifle-obstructed view of the Halo ring’s greenery and alien installations. Modern first-person shooters need a lot more than campaign nostalgia to be worth the squeeze, but Halo Infinite looked the part at first glance.
Here, Take This
Microsoft showed off a number of different games from its studios, and not to over-generalize, but there were a lot of shooters. Guns were everywhere, starting at the top with Halo and working down the rest of the hourlong show. Warhammer 40,000: Darktide, CrossfireX, S.T.A.L.K.E.R 2, and Destiny 2 all featured gunplay on top of Halo‘s alien killers. State of Decay 3 featured a bow, sure, but it’s weaponry all the same. A Phantasy Star Online sequel also made some Dreamcast shooter die hards very excited.
There’s nothing wrong with shooters, of course, but it was a theme of the day for sure.
Honey I Shrunk The Survival Game
One of the sillier titles was a backyard survival game that looks a lot like Honey I Shrunk The Kids called Grounded. It was a bit of an oddball: an Obsidian survival game that looks cartoony and features children trying to survive as tiny shrunken kids in an oversized backyard. No oatmeal cream pies in sight, but it was tough to think of anything else even while leaf homes were assembled and ants and spiders were getting after some very small children in the trailer for this one.
Jack Black, Psychonaut
I’m not sure if Jack Black was on your video game event bingo card, but you were probably a big winner on Thursday if you expected to see him doing a song for Psychonauts 2. Some extremely trippy gameplay video was paired with a brief behind-the-scenes of Black in the recording studio making a song for the sequel to the 2005 Double Fine hit. The song was actually pretty good, and the vibrant scenes from the game are intriguing, but it was definitely more of a music video than a gameplay video that lets us know how the sequel will actually play.
Sooner Than Later
One interesting note The Verge pointed out is that Microsoft’s initial promise that its next-gen console won’t be immediately necessary to get the latest games wasn’t backed up by its presentation Thursday. Games like Forza Motorspot, Fable, Avowed, As Dusk Falls, Everwild, and State of Decay 3 were revealed for the Series X and Windows PC, but not the existing Xbox One. Previous quotes from Microsoft had indicated the company doesn’t want gamers to feel they need to rush to buy a new console, at least right away. But there wasn’t any real clarification on when those games were coming out and whether Xbox One gamers will get to play them.
What We Didn’t Learn
Well, the price. Of anything, really. Much like the PlayStation 5 event last month, there wasn’t a console price to be found on Thursday. In fact, we only really got glimpses of the console itself during the event, mostly at the end in a flash of its recap video.
There’s still the question of how much next-gen games will cost, with NBA 2K21‘s $70 next-gen pricetag undefined as an outlier or the new industry standard price. Thursday was more about hype and hope than reality, of course, but “Holiday 2020” is rapidly approaching and there’s still a lot to learn about what the industry will be like come winter.
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