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Yesterday we learned that Amazon's mass layoffs have essentially killed the MMORPG New World, despite its recent Season 10 update bringing in a wave of fresh interest from players.  Personally speaking, I was an early adopter of New World . It released in the middle of the pandemic (September 2021 to be exact), and I remember looking forward to getting to experience a new big MMORPG at a time when in-person social interaction was still mostly restrictive. I bought it on release, even though I only had a laptop with a weak graphics card at the time.  Although I had to run the game at a stutter-filled 30-40fps on low settings, I enjoyed my time with it. Did it have its flaws? Certainly. I believe I've even described them earlier on this very site. Chief among the flaws were the lack of an endgame, the generic quests, and nonsensical lore.  But it did have a number of strengths, including its skill system, fun crafting, and action combat. My favorite aspect of the game was t...

Nintendo games are notorious for never going on sale. So if you buy one, you should know going into it whether it's your cup of tea. I enjoy many of Nintendo's games, from Mario Kart and Pokémon, to Fire Emblem, Xenoblade, and Animal Crossing. I've even enjoyed the two open world Zelda games (despite disliking the prior Zelda games). The only title in Nintendo's recent lineup that I didn't enjoy much was Super Mario Odyssey. Why? I'm not a platformer person. While it's fun in small doses, I don't really like entire games built around it. I also am not fond of puzzles. If I have to play a game with platforming and puzzles, then I want it to have good combat or quality voice acting with an engaging story. Super Mario Odyssey checks none of those boxes for me personally, although I acknowledge its strengths: slick gameplay, precise movement, and creative use of imagination.  I figured I would give Donkey Kong Bananza a try, despite having been lukewarm with...

  Editor's Note: This article reflects a talk given by then-Assistant Professor Caitlin Rosenthal in 2017. Her most recent work, including the book discussed below, can be found here . For UC Berkeley professor Caitlin Rosenthal, the history of capitalism will remain impenetrable as long as we continue to provide weak definitions for capitalism. Though countless scholars have tried to define capitalism, no clear definition has been settled on. In her new book Accounting for Slavery , Rosenthal hopes to change that, and argued as such in her talk. One of the premier historians of capitalism, Rosenthal fielded questions about the arguments at the center of her forthcoming book. Put simply, she contends that nineteenth century southern plantations need to be studied as businesses, much as northern factories are, in order to better understand capitalism. For Rosenthal, capitalism is about commodification. As such, she argues that the commodification of slaves allows us to better unders...

The original 3DS XL came out in 2012, following the release of the 3DS in 2011. In the age of PS5 and Switch 2 it can be easy to forget about the 3DS. Released in 2011 to replace the aging DS, the 3DS promised a new era of gaming featuring a glasses-less 3D screen. And yet, early on there was little promise of success. I remember thinking about buying a 3DS in 2011, only to decide against it after witnessing the thin lineup of games available, the limited 3D function, and how weak the system was graphically (about on par with the much older PSP). However, as time went on, I began to appreciate the 3DS more. I eventually was gifted one for my birthday, with my first games being Pokémon Black, Chrono Trigger, and Mario Kart 7. Over the years my collection of 3DS games grew to incorporate titles like Pokémon X and Pokémon Moon. Then in 2016 I put my 3DS into semi-retirement, where it gathered dust in a drawer most of the time, the exception being when I had the urge play Pokémon. I redisc...

It's been years since Bioware produced an industry-defining roleplaying game. I am one of the few who really enjoyed Mass Effect: Andromeda and Dragon Age: The Veilguard, but even I can admit that those two games paled in comparison to the trilogies that came before. It's a shame, because Bioware defined so many of our childhoods with games like Knights of the Old Republic, Jade Empire, Dragon Age: Origins, and Mass effect.  Through the years we have seen a number of studios attempt to take up the "Bioware mantle," which I would define as being "the best studio at creating high production value choice-based western role playing games."  Among the more famous contenders for that mantle are Larian, Owlcat Games, CD Projekt, and Obsidian. There's also the lesser known Spiders though, and it's their game, GreedFall, that is the subject of this review.  The old Bioware's strengths lied in its ability to craft engaging dialogue, complex companions, mem...

Photo credit: Amazon.com. Editor's Note: This review has some spoilers, but most of the important details are left intentionally vague. Vicious  by V.E. Schwab is a superhero story about Victor Vale and Eli Cardale, two college students who ostensibly have it all—both are handsome rich geniuses, so intellectually gifted that even their professors look to them for guidance. In reality, they are tortured by their compulsion to test the limits of reality. While researching their undergraduate thesis, Cardale and Vale discover that superpowers do exist, and that the key to unlocking them is to temporarily die. They soon succeed in their quest to gain powers for themselves, but things go drastically wrong, and former friends Victor and Eli become mortal enemies. As far as superhero origin stories go, this is perfect. Schwab is an excellent writer who employs short chapters and multiple perspectives to keep the reader interested. And if you're familiar with her  Shades of Magic...

Unbeknownst to me at the time, I began playing the Anno series as a kid way back in the 1990s. Back then I only knew it as "1602 A.D." given that is what it said on the $9.99 disc I got at Walmart (also, I clearly remember a British person saying "1602 AD" every time the game started). It's better known as Anno 1602, and as a seven year old it blew my mind with its complexity. I had always been a fan of real-time strategy games while growing up, and Anno 1602 was neat in that it made trading and maintaining an economy equal to warfare and fighting in importance.  My memories are hazy now, but I remember Anno 1602 being just a bit too complicated for me at the time. I managed to get surprisingly far into the game, but didn't get a handle on how to manage my soldiers while crafting a functioning economy with working supply chains. I would go on to play similar but slightly less complex games like the original Tropico, and from there the Anno games would recede...

Academia preaches diversity while at the same time  locking its doors to people of color . This problem has only become worse in recent years, with the academic job market crashing just as new cohorts of non-white PhD Candidates are beginning to seek tenure-track positions.  This has not been helped by the fact that universities have tried to tackle the issue of job scarcity with solutions that perpetuate academia's lack of diversity.  Indeed, in attempting to find solutions to the lack of available tenure-track positions, universities have barred people of color from the Ivory Tower and secured its status as a white institution. One example might be the growth of  "diversity" programs  adopted by several PhD-granting institutions — I put diversity in quotes because they are referring to  career  diversity rather than how the word is generally defined. These programs attempt to re-imagine the PhD, making them less about preparing students for academia ...

Editor's Note: This article was originally published in response to the release of NBA 2K22 back in 2021, but we feel it is still relevant today with the release of NBA 2K26. Thus, we have decided to re-release this archived content. Enjoy. --- I've been playing NBA 2K for years now, my first being 2K6 on the original Xbox. At the time, I thought it was a revelation compared to NBA Live. The movement, the shooting, the presentation, everything felt better and more realistic.  Flashforward to the present, and I think it's true that most people view NBA 2K as a stagnant franchise. It has no competition in the industry, and its yearly releases are glorified roster updates with a few boondoggles taped on here and there to encourage folks to spend money on microtransactions.  That said, at its core, the 2K series still deliverers a good basketball experience. This is primarily true of its offline singleplayer modes, like MyNBA, or what is usually called "Franchise Mode...