On Playing ‘Wanted: Dead’ on PS5 at 2AM on Valentine’s Day

I wanted to play Wanted: Dead because there’s a woman protagonist speaking English in a Swiss accent, and that’s unusual in this space, and it’s a real cool accent, whether or not I know what a Swiss accent actually is.

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Botched Release of ‘Cyberpunk 2077’ Proves it May Not Have Been Worth All the Hype

I remember back in 2006 when our most pressing concern as gamers was the introduction of the now-infamous Horse Armor Pack for The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, a seemingly innocuous $2 cosmetic bundle for your mount that is known to many as the genesis of microtransactions. From in-game currencies and season passes, to multiple editions of games and their exorbitant expansion packs, the culture of “games as a live service” has dominated the last decade of gaming news.

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The Year of Keanu Reeves

If you have been a human being with an internet connection over the last several weeks, you may have noticed Keanu Reeves is kind of everywhere. From John Wick toppling the Avengers at the box office and a scene-stealing turn as Ali Wong’s lover in  Always Be My Maybe, to taking fans’ breaths away at E3, Keanu’s career is hotter than ever. Like a Keannussance, if you will. But why now? I’m going to attempt to retrace each milestone in the timeline of why 2019 is the year of Keanu.

This is your last chance. After this, there is no turning back. You take the blue pill — the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill — you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit-hole goes.

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VA-11 HALL-A: Cyberpunk Meets Anime Booze-Em-Up

As a person who writes and likes to people-watch, bars fascinate me. People from all sorts of different backgrounds gather in one area to have a drink or five. As a fellow customer, I would only overhear bits and pieces of other people’s lives and it all sounded really interesting. I always wondered what it would be like to be a bartender, the gateway to our alcoholic pleasure. It’s common knowledge that bartenders have the most interesting stories since they get to see and hear about everyone’s lives (whether you wanted to or not). I always wanted to see how that would be like.

VA-11 HALL-A gives me that opportunity.

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Lost in Translation: Scarlett Johansson and ‘Ghost in the Shell’

As our friend Angry Asian Man pointed out earlier this week, Scarlett Johansson has been offered the role of Major Motoko Kusanagi in Dreamworks’ live-action remake of Mamoru Oshii’s ground-breaking anime Ghost in the Shell. And well, she’s white. Which to many of us here certainly feels like more Hollywood whitewashing at first glance. Particularly to anyone following the on-again off-again plans for a live-action remake of Akira with an all white cast or M. Night Shymayalan’s tragic The Last Airbender.

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