Featured on the PAX 10 at the highly nerd-popular Penny Arcade Expo last month and recently Greenlit on Valve’s Steam service, “Escape Goat 2” is getting the hype its predecessor, “Escape Goat,” never got. Set to come out within the next month or two, it was created by the studio Read More…
Violence and conflict have always been fundamental in video games. As video games became defined by win and loss states, violence and death followed suit. Twenty years ago, early ultra-violent titles such as “Doom” and “Wolfenstein 3D” took a heavy share of the market. Even classic nonshooter games such as Read More…
If you enjoy a mixing of jazz, dance, personal storytelling, spoken-word poetry and visual media, Francis Wong’s performance for L@TE: Friday Nights at the Berkeley Art Museum is a perfect way to spend a Friday night. As with much performance art, expect Francis Wong to be a bit esoteric. But for a performance free for Cal students, it’s worth checking out. Read More…
Three years ago, The Weeknd was an elusive mystery. Aside from a couple of songs posted on a YouTube account under the name The Weeknd, which went viral through various music blogs and artists’ Twitters (such as Drake’s), no one exactly knew whom he was or when an album was Read More…
Fighting games have notoriously hard learning curves. Unless you and a friend are willing to spend time learning complicated systems, mastering perfectly-timed button combinations and constantly practicing against one another for weeks, most fighting game matches devolve into button-mashing and hoping that cool moves happen randomly. But “Divekick” removes all Read More…
Four installments in, “Saints Row” has come far from its roots as a “Grand Theft Auto” clone. Initially a “gang-warfare,” open-world third-person shooter, the franchise developed and embraced its lunacy, avoiding the path of providing “cinematic” experiences in favor of dumb, fun mayhem paired with hilarious writing and clever game-play Read More…
The “backlog,” in the context of video games, is the stack of games you’d like to play but just haven’t gotten around to yet. Because playing and beating games is a huge time commitment, backlogs tend to pile on and grow year after year, and having the time to catch Read More…
As an entry into the ever-expanding “coming-of-age” genre of film, “The Way, Way Back” takes a traditional approach to the tale of an introverted teen coming out of his shell. Set in an East Coast beach town during the hot days of summer — clearly evocative of an 1980s aesthetic Read More…
During the seven years after their appearance in “Clerks 2,” iconic stoner duo Jay and Silent Bob largely remained out of the spotlight. Since their inception as side characters in the cult classic 1994 film “Clerks,” Jay (Jason Mewes) and Silent Bob (Kevin Smith) remained only as background characters in Read More…
Summers at Cal present the perfect time to explore the Bay Area, but finding cool sites to visit that aren’t crowded with tourists can be a challenge. Read More…