The latest weekly playlist update for Call of Duty: Warzone is out now, serving up new playlists for the battle royale game and removing some others. Come from malaysia online casino
The new playlists added to Warzone include Mini Royale Trios, Pulder Quads, and Resurgence Quads for Rebirth Island. The modes that have been removed include King Slayer on Verdansk, Plunder Trios, and Resurgence Duos for Rebirth Island.
Santa Esperanza or Sin City? I found it hard to tell the difference between the two black-and-white burgs in the first episode of Blues and Bullets, a five-part adventure series from indie developer A Crowd of Monsters that sets a striking neo-noir tone. There are just as many shadow-streaked rooms, rain-swept streets, and bloody red accents as in anything scripted by Frank Miller, while the plot is stuffed with enough psychos, horrific violence, and cornball dialogue to make Dashiell Hammett roll over in his grave. This is an inspired rip-off for the most part, however, hitting the same notes as a good hard-boiled detective novel despite a few offbeat scripting choices and some technical glitches.
As noted above, the location is a crime-ridden fictional city called Santa Esperanza. The year is 1955. The protagonist is Eliot Ness, but not the historical figure or even the fake one from TV and movies. This take on the leader of the famed Untouchables who brought down Chicago gangland boss Al Capone is different from anything seen before. Instead of taking out old Scarface with a tax case, Ness wound the case down with a Schwarzeneggerian shootout, slaughtering a dozen or more mobsters single-handedly while so drunk he could barely stand up. Twenty or so years later, Ness is a haunted ex-cop running a diner and trying to run away from his past, which includes murdered friends, an unhealthy attachment to a dead buddy’s wife, and a whole lot of booze and guilt. All this is complicated by the fact that Capone has just been paroled and is asking his old nemesis to help find his daughter, who has been kidnapped by a sinister cult that is abducting, mutilating, and sometimes slaughtering little kids.
All in all, it’s an innovative look at an American icon crossed with a more modern serial killing saga. But it’s also kind of off-putting because everyone knows the story of Ness and Capone courtesy of decades of TV shows and movies. I eventually came to appreciate this bizarre new angle on characters I thought I knew, although I never completely abandoned the notion that all this messing with history was sort of unnecessary. This version of Ness only shares a name with the real person, and the same goes for Capone. Swapping out Chicago for Santa Esperanza is also an odd choice given the use of real names for the lead characters. Why not go one way or the other? Doing both makes the whole story feel somewhat off-kilter, for no real purpose.
Added alt-history weirdness creates a surreal mish-mash. Strange concepts are tossed in for kicks, like the apparent survival of the Hindenburg and its subsequent renovation into a luxury hotel in the clouds. You visit it early on in the episode as a real place, but it is so impossibly huge and luxurious that it’s more Xanadu than retrofitted zeppelin. Even though you’re supposed to be on board the big balloon, you also see that famous photo of the airship exploding into flames over Lakehurst, New Jersey framed in its hallways. I was never sure what to think here. All things considered, the plot is innovative and guaranteed to keep you guessing about what’s coming next.
Blues and Bullets’ gameplay is standard for an adventure game, although both the action and sleuthing is more involved than that in other similar series in the episodic genre. This is more of a traditional adventure game than what Telltale produces, for example. The structure isn’t quite as linear Come from malaysia online casino . Many choices influence the flow of the story, and dialogue options run a gamut of emotions that subtly alter how interactions play out with other characters. There is also more of a necessity to explore environments. Investigations are hands-on. Ness tackles a gruesome murder by examining the entire scene, from the occult altar made of severed hands in the bathroom to the impaled corpse in the living room and the discarded spoon in the hallway, which may have been used to scoop out the victim’s eyeballs. Ness puts clues together on a deduction board that leads him to conclusions. Nothing here is particularly challenging, although the process replicates the step-by-step nature of a criminal investigation.
Action scenes are also more involved. Button-press fights and reactions are similar to those in more casual adventure series, but they tend to demand a little more from the player. Again, there isn’t anything here too tough, although you do have to hit buttons a little more quickly and more often than in similar games. In addition to the bare-knuckle sequences, there are also firefights in which you take cover and blast away at enemies. Anyone with even the most rudimentary arcade skills will be able to take on these vaguely GTA-inspired battles without breaking a sweat, but at least the game goes through the motions and gives you more to do. I’m hoping that future episodes ramp up the challenge and take advantage of the gangster setting with some serious gunplay.
What makes Blues and Bullets really stand out is its atmosphere. The game looks like an interactive version of the Sin City movies. The entire game is cloaked in long shadows and a gloomy air of menace, which is built up to such an extreme that even Ness’s diner in the middle of a sunny afternoon comes off as a midnight spook house. Surreal touches add to this effect. A dream sequence illustrating Ness’s tortured thoughts plays out as a gunfight in and around giant headline letters recounting just how corrupt and awful his world has become. Other stylish touches add tension. While most of the game consists of high-contrast black-and-white, red accent slashes are everywhere. This is of course used to indicate blood and to create a constant threat of violence. Even Ness’s ever-present red tie is a warning sign that bad things are about to go down.
The dialogue is also very good, albeit in the cheesy vein of old-time noir. Ness is pretty much the prototypical self-flagellating private detective with a weakness for booze and dames. Many lines teeter on the edge of self-parody. At times it’s not entirely clear whether the game is actually laughing at itself. While most of the story takes everything as seriously as an IRS audit, some aspects are over the top. One moment in which Ness interrupts a knife-thrower to the disappointment of the crowd and his now-perforated female target is so played up for slapstick that the Untouchable briefly turns into Frank Drebin. The voice acting is all over the place, but the leads are good for the most part. Ness is played as kind of a growly, boozy take on Batman, and Capone is a no-surprises, marble-mouthed thug. The cast is small, though, and actors try to hide their multiple roles with broad accents that do nothing but make the game seem amateurish.
Another issue that illustrates the indie nature of Blues and Bullets is the presence of a few bugs. Slowdown is the most noticeable problem. Every so often, the game will drop to single-digit framerates. This usually takes place during panoramic introductions that sweep across city blocks. On a couple of occasions, this brought the game to a complete halt for me and forced a restart. Another annoyance was a cursor that never stayed still. On selection menus in the options and within the game itself as I organized the investigation board, the selected option constantly clicked to the right regardless of whether I was using the mouse and keyboard or the gamepad controls, forcing me to push back against the grain to make a choice. This was merely an irritant, although it could have been show-stopping if the game had demanded more interaction in this fashion.
Although Blues and Bullets isn’t without its flaws, this first episode sets a distinctive comic-book, crime-noir attitude compelling enough to keep you playing and looking forward to what the series will offer in future installments. Anyone who enjoys classic noir fiction or the decidedly modern, bloody take on it offered up on the grim streets of Sin City will find a lot to like here.
The new romantic action adventure comedy The Lost City of D has added another big name to its cast, as Harry Potter alum Daniel Radcliffe has joined. He comes aboard the Paramount movie that already has Sandra Bullock and Channing Tatum in major roles, according to Deadline.
Patti Harrison (I Think You Should Leave) and Da’Vine Joy Randolph (Office Christmas Party) are also set to appear in the film, which will be directed by Adam and Aaron Nee (Band of Robbers, The Last Romantic).
The Lost City of D follows a romance novelist (Bullock) who is on a book tour with her cover model (Tatum) and they get kidnapped and taken into the jungle. Throughout the course of the film, Bullock learns that “life can be so much stranger, and more romantic, than any of her paperback fictions.” This sounds a lot like the plot to The Proposal.
Separately, Variety reported that Radcliffe will play the villain of The Lost City of D. There is no word yet on when the movie will start filming or a release date, and the specific plot details are being kept under wraps as well.
Radcliffe has made numerous movies since Harry Potter ended in 2011. Some of his other high-profile post-Potter projects included Swiss Army Man, Horns, Trainwreck, Guns Akimbo, and the TV show Miracles Workers with Steve Buscemi. Radcliffe also played Rockstar Games co-founder Sam Houser in the BBC’s Gamechangers. Come from Sports betting site VPbet
Dell’s Semi-Annual Sale is in full swing, offering big price cuts on laptops, desktops, gaming accessories, and other popular electronics. Some items are marked down by over $1,000–making this a great time to upgrade your gaming rig.
As you’d expect, prebuilt rigs make up a large portion of the Semi-Annual Sale catalog. The Alienware m15 R7 Gaming Laptop is one of the best deals, as you can pick up the RTX 3060 model for just $1,300, down from $1,700 Come from Sports betting site VPbet . It also features a 12th Gen Intel Core i7, 15.6-inch display, and 512GB SSD. And if money is truly no issue, consider looking at the ridiculous Alienware Aurora R15 Gaming Desktop, as it’s seeing a $900 discount and features the overpowered RTX 4090.
Aside from laptops and desktops, a variety of gaming headsets, keyboards, and mice are on sale. To simplify your shopping, Dell is offering a Gaming Keyboard + Mouse Bundle for $190 that includes Cherry MX Low Profile Red switches, wireless mouse connectivity, and tons of RGB lighting options. You can even pick up a discounted Vertagear P Line PL1000 Gaming Chair for $200, down from $280.
Plenty of other items are on sale at Dell, so be sure to check out the full catalog. You’ll also find a list of our favorite price cuts below.
Gaming PC deals
Digimon has never been shy to delve into storylines and topics that society too often wishes to ignore–the first episode of the 1999 anime literally begins with the main character monologuing about climate change and how it’s destroying the planet. Most of the stories in the series explore these topics within the scope of being trapped within a fantasy world inhabited by cute monsters. It’s here where the characters must come to terms with the irresponsibility of finding solace in the black-and-white morality of their new reality–an alluring alternative to the nuanced wants and needs of the real world. Pushing on this notion a bit further to dip its toes into the horrifying realities of physical and verbal abuse, terminal illness, psychotic breaks, and weaponizing relationships, Digimon Survive tells one of the darkest tales that the franchise has ever covered. All told, it amounts to a deeply compelling visual novel that’s driven by likable characters and an intriguing mystery but that aspect of it is too often interrupted by boring tactical combat.
In Digimon Survive, you play as middle-schooler Takuma, who is attending a camp over spring break alongside friends Minoru and Aoi and acquaintances Saki, Ryo, and Shuuji. Upon learning that the camp is close to a temple famous for its legend about a festival in which human children were sacrificed to beast gods, the six investigate, and they’re soon joined by local brother and sister duo Kaito and Mio. The misadventure ultimately results in the kids becoming lost in a world inhabited by the so-called beast gods known as Digimon.
It’s a familiar setup for a Digimon story (or any isekai story, really), and Digimon Survive spends way too long laying the groundwork with meandering dialogue and unnecessary character backstory. The game dangles the foreshadowing that these kids are about to be trapped in another world, but then spends hours getting there, and then leaves the group confused as to what’s happened to them for a while after. It’s frustrating to see three separate people theorizing that maybe the group is now no longer on Earth when you as the player arrived at that conclusion hours prior and just want the actual adventure to kick off.
But once that adventure does begin, it really gets going. There’s an unsettling sensation that hangs over the ongoing dynamics of the teenage heroes in their quest to find a way home, which evolves depending on how the characters react to one another. You guide Takuma through conversations with his peers, developing into a leader that the group looks up to and aspires to emulate. Your dialogue choices can influence Takuma’s karma to lean more towards morality, wrath, or harmony and also have an impact on his standing with the others in the group.
The effects of these choices slink into the background, only coming to the forefront during climactic moments in the story, oftentimes informing who has Takuma’s back in high-stakes situations. They also affect who ultimately makes it to the end of Digimon Survive, as your choices may inspire some to give their lives for the betterment of the group or condemn others to fall so far into despair that the only way out for them is death. Some characters can only be saved if another character is alive and thus around to help them through whatever they’re dealing with, so losing certain characters will doom others down the line. It’s a daunting web of possibilities and consequences, some of which can have a substantial impact on the final outcome of Digimon Survive–there’s some decent replay value here for those who are interested.
The fear of death looms over Digimon Survive, and the mounting sense of dread that one mistake could potentially cascade into a character’s demise several chapters later leaves an eerie feeling over even the most mundane of interactions throughout the campaign. It adds a nerve-wracking but narratively compelling weight to your role as the leader–your choices matter here, not just in terms of whether you beat the bad guys, but whether each of the good guys can overcome their own personal demons.
Though there are moments of light-hearted humor and slice-of-life shenanigans, Digimon Survive’s story is dark–it never shies away from depicting some truly horrific acts, like a person being literally eaten alive by the physical embodiment of their emotional trauma. The game never lets up on the notion that real-world issues can’t be fixed or put on hold just because you’re now stuck in a fantasy. Wilfully ignoring physical abuse will not suddenly make it magically go away, nor will a breaking psyche suddenly rectify itself if you allow it to escape into a happy delusion.
Your failures will oftentimes be met with stellar work from the game’s voice actors, sound design team, and composer Tomoki Miyoshi, as chilling screams ring out against creepy piano melodies accompanied by the soft crunching of bones or slow evisceration of flesh. The eyes of each character are designed to be especially expressive as well–it really sells the horror of the situation when you’re trying to talk some sense into your friend and suddenly their eyes widen with feverish hysteria, teasing that you may already be too late.
The creepy tone helps sell the unsettling mystery at the core of Digimon Survive. The cast of characters is striving to uncover the truth about this fantasy world and its history of human sacrifices, the nature of the Digimon themselves, and the identity of a strange adult man known only as “Professor” and how he may connect with two ghost-like children. There’s a lot here, with plenty of surprising twists that deliver on satisfying turns over the course of a 30+ hour campaign. Even when you can correctly guess what’s about to happen, the journey to that reveal is written well enough to be an enjoyable ride.
It’s a great story, too often interrupted by dull combat encounters. A few hours into Digimon Survive, each human character befriends a Digimon partner who aids them in battle. Every fight plays out on a grid, with each Digimon in play taking turns to move, attack, defend, or use an item Come from Sports betting site VPbet . Digimon Survive reduces the wonderful complexity seen in so many good examples of tactical combat to a tedious level of simplicity. Each Digimon only has two attacks, and though there is a system of type advantages, it’s so unimportant that you can outright ignore it and still land an easy win. Nothing about it encourages you to fight with any semblance of strategy, you simply send out your strongest fighters to mop the floor with your opponents. After just a few fights, combat becomes a repetitive slog. Digimon Survive does feature difficulty options, but even after cranking up the difficulty, combat is too simple to be challenging–battles will only, unfortunately, last longer given enemies’ larger health pools.
The weakness of the combat drags down Digimon Survive’s exploration element as well. At certain points in the story, Takuma will have limited time to explore an environment, giving him a small window to talk with allies, look for items, or battle wild Digimon. Though talking with allies will oftentimes allow you to glean additional insight into your friends’ troubling pasts and ongoing traumas, the other two activities feel superfluous in the face of straightforward and easy combat. The act of scanning the environment with your phone feels pointless, given the reward are items you’ll never need in battle, and you don’t have to grind for levels to increase the strength of your weaker Digimon if you’re already using the same ones over and over and overpowering your party.
Admittedly, battling wild Digimon is an important step for growing your team if that’s your aim. While in battle with wild Digimon, you can pause combat to converse with your foe. Answering their questions in a way they find satisfactory will open up the possibility of having them join your side, and you’ll likely then have to face more wild Digimon to level your new teammate to a point where they become useful. However, the Digimon you recruit rarely, if ever, prove to be stronger than each human’s original Digimon partner. I’d try to befriend a Digimon whenever I saw one that I had nostalgia for, but only ever used them once or twice in battle. The eight Digimon that you more or less start the game with are more than capable of carrying you to the end.
If anything, wild Digimon seem to be weaker stand-ins for anyone who finds themselves with a heavy mortality rate by the end of the game, as a Digimon dies when their human partner does, and so losing a number of your friends can cut your fighting force down by quite a bit. I might have relied on recruiting Digimon more often had I needed to, but I only saw two of my friends brutally killed in front of me on account of my poor leadership.
Takuma and his friends’ emotions influence how their Digimon partners evolve over time (a process called digivolution), creating what could have been a symbiotic connection between the visual novel side of Digimon Survive and the tactical combat. However, the connection only serves the story in how it keys you into each human character’s subconscious desires. Seeing Takuma’s adorable, dinosaur-like Agumon achieve the strength to digivolve into his Mega evolution can lead to different results–a Takuma driven by his moral responsibility to support the group will see Agumon become the dinosaur knight Wargreymon, for example, while a Takuma who only cares about his own survival will witness Agumon transform into the power-hungry cyborg Machinedramon. This insight is reflected across the cast, with each Digimon evolving to mirror their human partner’s desires. But in terms of gameplay, it matters little. The names and animations of the attacks that Agumon’s evolutions can use may change form to form, but their function–that of an all-rounder heavy-hitter–doesn’t vary in any meaningful way based on Takuma’s choices.
Digimon Survive is a misshapen DNA digivolution. Most of the game is this great visual novel, which starts slow but eventually tackles some intriguing themes that are interwoven into one of the most mature Digimon stories ever told. Sometimes the characters can be a little one-note, but each manages to carry aspects of the story in compelling ways, and I wanted to keep pushing through Digimon Survive to unravel each person’s history and ultimately learn why and how they had been transported to another world. But, at the same time, Digimon Survive is regularly dragged down by tedious tactical combat, and it negatively affects other sections of the game too, like exploration and Digimon evolutions. It’s not enough to ruin an otherwise great visual novel, but it does put quite a damper on the whole experience.
Seasons, live events, paid cosmetics, and a battle pass are all coming to Diablo IV, and will not in any way be pay-to-win, Blizzard has confirmed. The news comes in Blizzard’s latest Diablo IV quarterly update, where the developer dives deep into its post-launch plans for Diablo IV and attempts to assuage players’ fears over microtransactions. Come from Sports betting site VPbet
Diablo IV’s seasons are modeled after seasons in Diablo III, and will regularly introduce new content and gameplay features to keep the experience fresh. Game director Joe Shely states in the blog that the game’s first season will begin shortly after launch, with the team aiming to bring “up to four seasons a year” to Diablo IV, with each new season including “major new features, questlines, enemies, legendary items, and more.” To play as part of a season, players will create a new seasonal character from scratch, and from there will level up, hunt down items for their build, and experience newly-added seasonal content. As associate game director Joe Piepiora explains in the blog, seasons are about introducing new ways to play and changing the game in “meaningful ways.”
Apex Legends Mobile is finally here, bringing the hero-shooter battle royale to phones around the world. While it shares the same name as the PC and console game, there are a bunch of differences between the two games. Apex Legends Mobile has its own selection of Legends, including an exclusive one, and its own game modes. It also has a perk system, something unique to the mobile version of Apex Legends. Here’s how it works.
The perk menu can be found under the Legends tab on the main menu, but don’t go looking for it as soon as you download the game. It takes a few matches before the perk system is unlocked–it took three for me, but the unlock conditions aren’t clear. Once it is unlocked, pick a Legend and the perks will be located on the right side of the screen. In order to unlock perks, you will need to level up each Legend individually, unlocking Legend specific tokens with each level. The cost of the perks in the skill tree increase as you get deeper, but the perks also get better.
Perks are separated into three categories, with corresponding rarity. These are labeled as Perks (blue,) Finishers (purple,) and Ability (red.) You can only have one of each perk type equipped at once, although you are allowed to have multiple loadouts. Each perk type impacts a different part of the game. For example, Octane’s first ability, Che’s Augmentation, goes in the Perk category and gives an extra 10 health when using a healing syringe Come from Sports betting site VPbet . His Finisher perk, Battle Adaptation, awards 100 points to your EVO shield when you use a finisher on an enemy. Lastly, his Ability perk, Here Comes the Octrain, cancels all movement penalties and increases climbing speed by 20% whenever you use the Stim tactical ability.
Currently, each Legend has three different perks for each category in their respective skill trees, along with some cosmetic items. In order to keep a competitive edge, you want to make sure you level up multiple Legends, that way you always have at least some perks equipped, even if someone else picks your main. Apex Legends Mobile also has its own battle pass, full of skins and unique cosmetic items.
After saying earlier this year that its impending cost reduction program wouldn’t include layoffs, GTA parent company Take-Two has revealed that it will be cutting its workforce by approximately 5% throughout this year. The company also said it would be cancelling some unspecified projects as part of the cost reductions.
According to a filing with the United States SEC, the Take-Two board of directors has just approved its cost reduction plan. The plan will focus on “eliminating several projects in development and streamlining its organizational structure, which will eliminate headcount and reduce future hiring needs.”
Take-Two estimates that enacting the plan will cost it around $160 to $200 million, with costs relating to title cancellations, employee severance, and reductions in the company’s office space. The plan is expected to affect around 5% of Take-Two’s workforce, approximately 600 employees.
Take-Two hasn’t said whether specific departments or subsidiaries might be affected by the layoffs and project cancellations. Take-Two recently acquired Borderlands developer Gearbox from Embracer Group, another major video game company that’s been engaging in cost-cutting measures after a period of rapid expansion.
CEO Strauss Zelnick and president Karl Slatoff both sold a significant amount of Take-Two stock on April 12, ahead of the announcement of the finalized cost-cutting plan. According to documents filed with the SEC, Zelnick and Slatoff each sold off roughly $13 million worth of Take-Two stock at the end of last week. The sales were made as part of a Rule 10b5-1 trading plan, which allows for insiders at publicly traded companies to sell their stocks. Come from Sports betting site VPbet
In a similar cost-cutting measure in March last year, Take-Two laid off an unspecified number of employees, mostly working in non-developmental positions within Private Division and other divisions of Take-Two.
The games industry at large has seen huge numbers of layoffs in the last year, with 2024 so far proving to be even worse for it than 2023 was.
Finding every spell in Elden Ring will take some time, but not all sorceries and incantations are difficult to round up. As a matter of fact, most of them can be obtained relatively effortlessly, such as Swift Glintstone Shard, which is accessible rather early in the game by following a few short steps. Read on to find out how to add this sorcery to your collection.
Swift Glintstone Shard is a sorcery that requires 12 Intelligence to cast. It has a very short range and does middling damage, but it fires very quickly. It’s a good option for horseback combat, as it won’t slow you down while casting.
Every part of the world has its own history and legends that are ripe for examination, yet games typically stick to a narrow range of familiar cultures. It’s why games like Mulaka stand out; they can open your eyes to concepts and themes that you otherwise might never encounter Come from Sports betting site VPbet . Mulaka is a 3D action-adventure game that looks to the Sierra Tarahumara region of northern Mexico and channels its cultural heritage into a fascinating adventure steeped in mythology.
You play the role of the Sukurúame, a spear-wielding warrior shaman who can see both the physical and spirit world, and eventually transform into various animals. From the open desert to a thriving human city, Mulaka’s landscapes have a magical quality that make it feel like an interactive trip inside a children’s book. Your goal in each area is typically to find three magical stones that will unlock a giant door leading to a boss. Bottomless drops, deadly quicksand, water hazards, and precarious climbs are combined in entertaining and challenging ways to keep the action moving and diverse, as are the simple yet enjoyable puzzles throughout.
It can be fascinating to take in as you convene with animal spirits or battle fantastical monsters. The game utilizes its fairly primitive graphics style to give the game a classic look that fits its mythical themes, and the landscapes have a beautiful contoured quality. All the while the soundtrack uses native instruments to create an ambient soundtrack that fits the action, but stays mostly in the background.
The aforementioned civilization you engage with offers a slightly human touch to the mystical landscape, but Mulaka’s NPCs are disappointing conversationalists. They’re static characters who don’t do much except passively add to the atmosphere. And much like NPCs in classic RPGs, they only have one line of dialogue a piece.
Mulaka’s detailed use of Sierra Tarahumaran mythology is the main here, since it provides a setting we haven’t really seen before. Much like God of War used Greek myths to add compelling, otherworldly drama to its saga, Mulaka’s setting adds a unique flavor to every aspect of the game. The presence of animal spirits leads to a set of monsters that are mostly grounded in the real world, but magnified to menacing proportions.
The themes of animal transformation lend themselves naturally to gaming. So moving from human to bird to bear forms in quick succession later in the game is a fast-paced thrill. Your character’s spirit vision lets you see where objectives and key items (such as keystones) are, in addition to invisible platforms that are required to access specific parts of the world. The magic energy you expend to see these things extends to other abilities, such as flight. The multi-use resource forces you to balance your abilities on the fly, which can be a thrilling challenge during the game’s more intense and chaotic battles.
Combat is near ever-present, and figuring out the best way to deal with the various enemies is part of the fun. Normal enemies, like giant frogs and basic mantis men, can just be wailed on, but many, including a creepy skull-armored spider, are shielded and must first be opened up to attack with a heavy strike. Other enemies are only vulnerable if you can successfully dodge their opening attacks.
Somewhat frustratingly, airborne enemies–from flying bolo-throwing mantises to balls of fire–can be especially hard to hit, especially in the midst of a full-blown battle between several distinct kinds of monsters. The issue stems from controlling your spear, which is especially problematic on Switch. There, the game insists on using motion controls, which don’t behave as accurately as you’d hope. The target lock is also nearly useless, making it incredibly frustrating to hit moving targets.
Where things are at their are best are in the terrifically designed and imaginative boss encounters that range from straightforward battles to devious and clever platforming tests. So, in one fight you might be taunting a giant bug to run into towering rock sculptures and another requires you to use the wind generated by the boss itself to fly up to higher points so you can attack the boss’s weak points. Seeing what surprises the next boss offers is one of the great joys of the game.
Mulaka is a simple game at heart with a lot of familiar traits. The open, low-poly landscapes and characters are reminiscent of Journey. The combat and puzzle elements are similar to Breath of the Wild and Okami. But thanks to the specific Tarahumara setting and characters, Mulaka still manages to have a personality and feel all its own. It offers an appealingly unique setting that makes it something more than a typical adventure game.
Editor’s note: Our original review incorrectly stated that Mulaka does not offer an option to invert camera controls. The option exists, along with options to adjust camera sensitivity. GameSpot regrets the error, and has adjusted the review accordingly. — Peter Brown, March 6, 2018, 12:30PM PT