Tag: brilliant
ADRIAN THRILLS: Still crazy (but utterly brilliant) after all these years… it has to be Bjork
The Owl House NYCC panel eulogized a brilliant show cut short: ‘We did our best’
Creator Dana Terrace and the cast of the show take to the stage
Lego’s Atari 2600 is a brilliant bit of weaponized nostalgia – and we need a Sega console next
It’s now official, and irrefutable: Lego is no longer just for children. This has always been the case, of course, but in recent years the company itself has started to embrace this fact. First there was ‘Creator Expert’, a line of larger, more complicated and expensive sets. Then came adult-driven packaging, signaled by sleek black boxes and a marketing campaign that gleefully declares ‘Adults Welcome’. Like a lot of the best kids’ toys, Lego is for kids first – but is perfectly good for adults, too.
The Lego Group’s latest foray into the world of sets aimed at those hurtling towards their middle age at alarming speed is set 10306, the Atari 2600. This is exactly what you think it is – an almost but not quite real-life scale model of one of the most significant consoles in gaming history, dating all the way back to 1982.
Truth be told, the 2600 is quite a bit before my time (my first console was a Mega Drive), but I’m nevertheless definitely squarely in this set’s target audience: a video game nerd who also loves and collects complex-scale Lego, with an appreciation for the artistry of the older video game consoles. I mean, the machine has a wood grain finish, for goodness sake. You just don’t get that any more.
Minecraft Legends is full of character, oozes authenticity, looks brilliant… and is a bit like Brutal Legend
Credit where credit is due: Mojang has made some incredibly smart bets about ways to expand the Minecraft franchise. Back when Microsoft announced its purchase of the studio and its monolithic IP, I struggled to imagine exactly what could be done with Minecraft beyond the base game. Sure, that would continue to expand and grow – but did people really want to do anything else in that universe?
At the time, I reasoned that it didn’t matter if the universe could expand or not. Minecraft alone was big enough and important enough that it was worth every penny of the $2.5 billion Microsoft paid for it. But then, something magical happened: Mojang kept making smart partnerships that expanded the universe in brilliant and often unexpected ways.
Lego Minecraft went from a one-off set for nerds to a fully-fledged series of toys, beloved by children everywhere. Minecraft Story Mode released its first episode not long after the acquisition, and then 2019’s Minecraft Dungeons, which was a truly brilliant pairing of the established traditions of Minecraft with a kid-friendly Diablo clone. The Pokemon Go-like Minecraft Earth was a swing-and-a-miss – but that was an AR mobile game that launched right before a pandemic locked everybody indoors – so I’ll give them a pass.
Xbox Game Pass is losing some brilliant games soon
The latest titles to come to Xbox Game Pass have been announced, and while there’s some good titles on the way, it’s also that time of the month again where we commiserate the great games that are soon to be leaving.
Amongst the titles leaving is NBA 2K22, Two Point Hospital, and Elite: Dangerous. So, I’ve bad news for both avid space explorers, basketball pros, and hospital managers alike, as all three will be bidding farewell to Xbox Games Pass on August 31.
This isn’t all, either. There’s truly a cracking line-up of titles leaving in just a couple of weeks, which consists of a few quaint but enjoyable indie titles. These include Spiritfarer, Twelve Minutes, What Remains of Edith Finch, and Signs of the Sojourner.