There’s an arcade-themed bar near where I live in south London that has an original Monkey Ball cabinet. This classic 2001 Sega cab, which became a Nintendo GameCube launch game called Super Monkey Ball, features a single banana-shaped joystick before an angled screen. Players use the banana to guide AiAi,...
Why Spaceman’s director cast Adam Sandler in a heavy dramatic role: ‘This is about me, very much’
Watching Netflix’s cosmic philosophy movie Spaceman, the most obvious question is about the plot: Is that giant alien space spider real, or a hallucination? But the second most obvious question might be Why is Adam Sandler starring in this movie? Sandler has taken on a number of increasingly high-profile dramatic...
Mars Express’ fascinating vision of a robotic future was inspired by film noir and Big Tech
Mars Express is the best animated movie of the year you probably haven’t seen or heard about yet. Set in the 22nd century, the film follows a pair of private investigators on Mars hired to track down an elusive hacker on Earth who is jailbreaking robots. Their investigation quickly takes...
While D&D reckons with its racist past, this actual play is way ahead of the curve
It’s the final boss fight and everyone at the table is crying — but not because anyone has died. It’s because of how performer Sea Thomas is handling a game-changing moment between their character, a half-drow aasimar bloodhunter named Øka Hyen, and the season’s big bad. “Hitsagutan, after all of...
Inside Out 2’s Lance Slashblade was inspired by a real-life secret video game crush
Pixar Animation Studios’ Inside Out 2 takes the audience back inside the mind of a young girl named Riley, expanding beyond the scope of Pete Docter’s original 2015 movie. The sequel, directed by Onward’s Kelsey Mann, takes Riley into her teen years, adding new emotion characters and the physical manifestation...
Looking back at every Nintendo Switch controversy, doubt, and debate
In the seven years since its release, the Nintendo Switch has become a beloved piece of hardware. Not only is it Nintendo’s best-selling console, it’s one of the most popular consoles of all time. It’s also the console that boosted Nintendo’s reputation after the poor reception of Wii U. In...
Paul Reubens and Pee-wee’s Playhouse made it okay for TV to be weird
The world of Pee-wee’s Playhouse was a realm of kinetic fantasies. A home where your imaginary friends might live. Claymation dinosaurs resided in the walls. All the furniture was alive and chatty. There was an in-house band of puppet beatniks. The exterior of the Playhouse, a lush and ornamented brush...
The Boys songwriter behind Vought on Ice did the excruciating homework
There is no amount of sonic pain composer Christopher Lennertz won’t endure for his bud of 30 years Eric Kripke, the current showrunner of The Boys. Lennertz previously listened to endless amounts of boy band slop to pen the Super-Sweet single “Rock My Kiss” for season 3 and pushed himself...
VTubers have reached their inevitable conclusion
Twitch has always allowed for various forms of expression, so it was no surprise when VTubing found a home on the platform, quickly gaining popularity among English-speaking audiences in 2019. Since then, the novelty of avatar-based content may have worn off, but the format has stuck around. And VTubing agencies,...
Fallout 76 finally stands triumphant — and there’s more to come
It’s been a long, hard road for Fallout 76 — but one that has finally led to a triumphant peak. The game’s disastrous launch has been covered a thousand times from every angle; it was an intricate mess of overlapping problems that made the game difficult to play and extremely...