Posted by: xSicKxBot - 10-22-2018, 06:24 AM - Forum: Lounge
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Review: Halloween (2018) -- Welcome Home Michael
2018's new Halloween is now in theaters. The movie screened at the Toronto International Film Festival in September, and the reviews are in; find out what we thought in our review below. Beyond that, we've got a look at the series' most brutal kills, and we've ranked every Halloween film. But does the new Halloween hold a candle to the original? Read on.
Remember when fans were worried that Danny McBride and David Gordon Green--the guys behind HBO comedy series Eastbound & Down--would ruin the Halloween franchise by trying to make it funny? Well, the newest chapter in the Michael Myers saga--which is technically only the second, since it ignores all other sequels--is definitely the funniest film in the franchise. But surprisingly, it's also the perfect continuation to the story begun in the original Halloween 40 years ago.
Yes, it’s been 40 years since Michael Myers put on a mask and terrorized the town of Haddonfield, Illinois as "The Shape," and he hasn’t done much since then. Played by the original actor Nick Castle, as well as newcomer James Jude Courtney, Myers hasn’t spoken a word in the 40 years he's apparently been incarcerated at the movie's start. Not even when two podcasters--or “investigative journalists,” as they refer to themselves--present him with the iconic mask in an attempt to get a reaction does Michael stir. This is a return to form (or shape) for Michael. No longer the brother of Laurie Strode, as was established in sequels to the original, he is back to being a force of pure evil who commits random acts of violence with no cause or reason. Green, who directs with co-writer McBride, treats the character with utmost respect, like a larger-than-life force that deserves your complete attention and fear.
Castle and Courtney, who seamlessly share the role of The Shape, don’t miss a beat with their performances, as this is the most terrifying Michael has been since 1978. It helps that Green and McBride have made this one mean and nasty Halloween movie. It surpasses the body count of John Carpenter’s original even before Michael gets to Haddonfield, and we see kills involving knives going through throats, lethal headbutts, and more.
Meanwhile, the core of the story focuses on Laurie Strode. Jamie Lee Curtis gives what is perhaps the best performance of her career in the role that first gave her the spotlight. She effortlessly steps back into Laurie’s shoes, evolving the trauma and psychological damage Myers inflicted on her all those years ago. Yes, she is a complete and absolute badass in this film, as she is now the hunter and no longer the hunted. However, she is no Sarah Connor. She is a broken woman who hasn’t been able to let go of that fateful Halloween night.
Strode now lives in a fortified house in the middle of the woods and spends every day shooting at target dummies, preparing for the day when her paranoia finally bears fruit. Of course, it doesn’t take long before Myers escapes and finds his way to Haddonfield, where he obsesses over finishing the job he started 40 years earlier.
Despite the gravity of Halloween's themes, and the gory and violent fun audiences expect from a slasher, McBride and Green infuse the script with their signature sense of humor, and surprisingly, it actually works. Every side character gets a moment to shine, and the jokes never feel out of place, especially when coming from soon-to-be breakout star Jibrail Nantambu. Nantambu plays the only character who has any idea what’s going on in the film--he never makes a stupid choice (it's a slasher, so naturally, characters make a lot of stupid choices) and provides insightful meta commentary about the horror tropes on display.
Speaking of meta, Halloween pokes fun at every single film in the franchise, all while paying homage to its predecessors. There are references to Silver Shamrock, tributes to Halloween 2, and a fun cameo or two. The film also comments on this being a pseudo remake of the original, but in modern times. For example, when discussing the original babysitter killings from the first film, a character remarks that five dead people isn’t too much "by today’s standards." Green has fun with the idea of Laurie being prepared for Michael by playing with role reversal throughout the film. One instance in particular got the audience at the world premiere cheering so hard, the next three lines of dialogue were inaudible.
If there’s one problem with Halloween, it's that it never uses Laurie's granddaughter Allyson (Andi Matichak) and Allyson's mom Karen (Judy Greer) to their full potential. Thankfully, it isn’t a big issue, as Laurie’s story is compelling enough on its own. And those missing the magic Carpenter touch will be delighted to know that the film is keen on using silence to increase the tension, and there is a 5-minute-long single-shot sequence that is a marvel to watch, even if it’s quite brutal. Green may not have a ton of experience filming horror, but he sure knows how to create nail-biting tension at the right moments.
John Carpenter returns to score the film with the help of his son, Cody Carpenter, and Daniel Davies. Yes, you do hear the classic Halloween theme, and Carpenter even uses a slower version of the theme at several key moments. Carpenter also uses a whole new style of synth rock that pulsates and beats like a heart and will have everyone in the audience on the edge of their seat while also making them pre-order the soundtrack as soon as they leave the theater.
Halloween doesn’t reinvent the wheel or create a new subgenre of horror. What it does is take the best parts of all the films in the franchise, and deliver the ultimate companion piece to Carpenter’s 1978 masterpiece. It's a film that not only has something to say about trauma and PTSD, but also delivers a bloody, fun time at the theater. Will Michael Myers return again? Who knows, but we sure as hell welcome him home.
The Good
The Bad
Laurie Strode is a more complex character, yet a total badass
Side characters are slightly underused
Michael Myers is scarier than ever
The fantastic score that will get your heart beating
A much-welcomed sense of humor and meta commentary
Posted by: xSicKxBot - 10-22-2018, 06:24 AM - Forum: Windows
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Putting data and AI at the center of financial services transformation
The financial services industry is at an inflection point. Fintechs and challengers are entering rapidly as regulatory requirements are increasing. Consumers are expecting highly personalized experiences while security threats are evolving. The challenges for banks, insurers, payments tech providers and others are mounting high.
Transforming these challenges into business opportunities is an imperative for financial services firms and central to success. Many ambitious digital leaders are already discussing their transformation journey, or are well on the way. As a result, our teams are having new conversations, from ‘how can new cloud-enabled business models keep me competitive?’ to ‘help me optimize my data estate’ to ‘prove to me you’re a trusted partner who won’t undercut my business’.
At Microsoft, we’re at the intersection of these conversations in the financial services industry. We are laser-focused on building the best cloud for business, helping financial firms big and small enable intelligent industry transformation with data and artificial intelligence (AI). We’re doing so knowing that security, resiliency and regulatory compliance are vital, and we’re constantly thinking about how we can help institutions make the transition to modern innovations while still taking advantage of legacy investments.
With this in mind, I’d like to share Microsoft technology, partner solutions and industry contributions designed to help financial services businesses compete, innovate and succeed in the future. Here at Sibos 2018 in Sydney, Australia, and at the upcoming Money2020 in Las Vegas, Nevada, we will be on the ground showcasing this work and discussing how putting data and AI at the center of transformation is a formula for success.
New partnerships with the industry’s digital leaders
Building the leading cloud for financial services does not happen in a vacuum. We are proud to work side-by-side with transformational industry leaders who tell us the Microsoft business model aligns to their future. We are in the business of partnership and empowerment, not in the business of disintermediating financial services firms from their customers. This type of partnership is cleanly aligned to our company mission and something we stand by firmly.
Microsoft has announced a collaboration with SWIFT, the leader in secure financial messaging services. Together, we’re proving out a Microsoft Azure cloud-based solution for payments transfers conducted on the SWIFT network. Our intent is to enable the deployment of familiar SWIFT messaging solutions in the cloud, enabling faster, more cost effective, efficient and secure operations for banks, corporates and ecosystem technology providers.
Microsoft is also working with Interswitch, an impressive startup in West Africa. Interswitch is working with banks like GT and Zenith to bridge the supply chain financing gap between an existing corporate-focused infrastructure and a small entrepreneurial economy emerging in the region. Partnering with large banks and corporates in Nigeria, Interswitch has built a bank guarantee service on Azure that extends the reach of the banking system to non-traditional players, empowering bank lenders, corporate suppliers, and borrowers of all sizes to manage their supply-chain financing under objective terms and complete transparency.
New innovations for a data- and AI-powered future
The Microsoft Cloud – including Dynamics 365, Azure and Microsoft 365 – is already home to modern technology that industry-leading firms use to power their business today, including real-time payments infrastructure, seamless customer experience apps, risk management grids and fraud prevention tech. With more than $1 billion invested per year in security, a growing industry-leading data center footprint and an unmatched cloud regulatory compliance portfolio, we are fully vested in the financial services industry’s future.
Underscored by these investments, recent innovation across the Microsoft Cloud portfolio aims to make our platforms even more secure, efficient and intelligent, so together we unlock the power of data and AI for success.
Customer Lockbox for Microsoft Azure: Customer Lockbox for Microsoft Azure helps customers control and audit a Microsoft support engineer’s access to compute workloads on Azure that may contain customer data while resolving a support issue. Microsoft support does not have standing access to service operations. In some rare scenarios, to resolve a support issue, just-in-time access with limited and time bound authorization can be provided to Microsoft support engineers. Customer Lockbox helps ensure that Microsoft support engineers do not access customers’ content in the Azure portal without the customer’s explicit approval. It also helps improve the existing support ticket workflow by expediting the customer’s approval process. This capability enables customers to have more granular control, better visibility and enhanced audit over Microsoft’s support process.
Azure Confidential Computing: Azure Confidential Computing offers the possibility to keep data safe by isolating it while it is processed – a common method of data theft. Azure is the first cloud service to provide a secure platform for protecting the confidentiality and integrity of data in use using trusted execution environments (TEEs), and we’re rolling out a new family of virtual machines to ensure confidential computing is available to all Azure customers.
Microsoft Compliance Manager: Compliance Manager is a workflow-based risk assessment tool designed to help manage regulatory compliance within the shared responsibility model of the cloud. Compliance Manager provides a dashboard view of standards and regulations and assessments that enables organizations to track, assign and verify regulatory compliance activities related to Microsoft Professional Services and Microsoft cloud services, such as Microsoft Office 365, Microsoft Dynamics 365 and Microsoft Azure.
Microsoft Proposal Manager: Proposal Manager is a solution built on top of the Microsoft 365 platform that takes advantage of its advanced features and functions, together with custom apps, to deliver a streamlined corporate lending loan origination process. With Proposal Manager, corporate banks can easily streamline and automate the corporate lending process, create more effective proposals, and collaborate across the enterprise confidentially – all while taking advantage of the familiar, connected, accessible and intelligent experience in Microsoft 365.
AI in Excel: Excel is a powerful tool used by business leaders today. New AI-powered improvements in data handling and performance are making Excel even more valuable. New capabilities like Ideas, new data types, Insert Data from Picture and dynamics arrays are examples of how Microsoft is bringing AI into the tools business leaders use every day.
Bringing the leading ecosystem solutions to Microsoft platforms
The financial services technology landscape is an ecosystem of innovative players. Solution providers that are core to many financial institutions today are also enabling intelligent industry transformation with data and AI, and they’re choosing Microsoft platforms to power their technologies. These solutions are helping firms do things like grow retail banking business with next-best-action software, spot and fight financial crime with regtech, and improve customer relationships with multichannel customer experience solutions.
Today, our breadth of intelligent partner solutions is growing with new real-time payments infrastructure and blockchain-based trade finance tools, among existing tools for security, productivity and process optimization.
Volante: Volante’s well established VolPay Suite of payments processing products, today launched VolPay-as-a-Service on Azure with its first customer bank. The service provides banks with a managed service for end-to-end processing payments in the cloud, from capture through clearing. FIMBank Malta will be the first bank worldwide to deploy Volante’s Volpay-as-a-Service, an important step forward for cloud-based payments infrastructure.
TradeIX: TradeIXand R3 are working with 11 global banks to automate trade finance products under the Marco Polo initiative, which focuses on receivables discounting and payment commitments supported by blockchain-based software, Corda. For corporates looking to collateralize receivables, the process of submitting and financing invoices requires tremendous manual effort and reconciliation across counterparties. With Marco Polo and Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance and Operations, corporates can automate and attest receivables in real time and banks can apply their rules and eligibility logic, providing all parties with an accurate view of present and future cash flow.
Meet us at Sibos and Money2020
It’s an exciting time to sit at the intersection of technology and financial services, and to think about what’s possible in the future. It’s humbling to be on this transformational journey with so many ambitious digital leaders. We welcome you to visit us at booth No. A30 if you’re in Sydney, or at our sessions at Money2020 in Las Vegas to meet our team.
Fallout 76's release date is a month away, but some players will have a chance to try Bethesda's new multiplayer-focused RPG very soon. Following the recent pre-beta stress test, Bethesda is kicking off the first Fallout 76 beta session on Xbox One on October 23 (before expanding it to PS4 and PC the following week), and those who've qualified are able to pre-load it right now.
The Fallout 76 beta is open exclusively to those who've pre-ordered the game, so if you want to jump in, you'll need to reserve Fallout 76 on your platform of choice. Not everyone who pre-orders will get into the beta right away, however, as Bethesda will gradually invite more players in waves. You'll also need to have an Xbox Live Gold or PS Plus subscription in order to participate.
As Bethesda details on its FAQ page, to download the beta, you'll first need to find the redemption code on your pre-order receipt or in the email confirmation you received. After that, you'll need to log in to Bethesda's website, then input the code using the link on the FAQ. Once that is completed, Bethesda says it will send an email with further instructions.
The first beta session is scheduled to begin on October 23 at 4 PM PT / 7 PM ET and run until 8 PM PT / 11 PM ET. No further dates and times have been announced yet, but Bethesda says it will be running during "targeted time frames." According to the developer, the purpose of the beta is to "stress test and break the game," so players should expect some hiccups along the way. The beta will go on until shortly before the game's launch next month.
Fallout 76 releases for PS4, Xbox One, and PC on November 14. Unlike previous installments in the series, 76 is an always-online RPG with an emphasis on multiplayer, which we found makes for a very different kind of Fallout game. You can learn more about the title in our roundup of everything we know about Fallout 76.
Kingdom Come: Deliverance - The Amorous Adventures of Bold Sir Hans Capon
The heart of our much-loved young Sir Hans Capon is bursting with overwhelming longing for... his latest flame.
The second DLC "The Amorous Adventures of Bold Sir Hans Capon" for Kingdom Come: Deliverance revolves around his attempts to woo the fairest maid he has ever set eyes upon, and his success will not depend only on his own mastery of the art of love ? it?s also up to his trusty wingman, you - Henry, to ensure that The Amorous Adventures of Bold Sir Hans Capon come to a happy end!
That?s the main objective linking three new quests, in which you will not only have to read love poems, arrange a nighttime tryst and keep an enraged butcher at bay, but also infiltrate the camp of a band of bloodthirsty brigands, enter a dice tournament, dig up a corpse, investigate a murder and... er... perhaps commit a few. All for love, of course!
Posted by: xSicKxBot - 10-21-2018, 09:17 AM - Forum: Lounge
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Video: How Gauntlet paved the way for class-dependent multiplayer
People take Dungeons & Dragons-style class-based heroes for granted in their favorite games now, but Atari’s Gauntlet brought that staple multiplayer feature to arcades and consoles for the first time with its Warrior, Wizard, Valkyrie, and Elf.
In this GDC 2012 talk, Gauntlet creator Ed Logg, who also designed ground-breaking titles like Centipede and Asteroids, shares his thoughts on creating the game that popularized the phrase “Wizard needs food badly”.
He discusses how the game paved the way for the class-dependent multiplayer experiences that are a cornerstone for many popular titles today.
In addition to this presentation, the GDC Vault and its accompanying YouTube channel offers numerous other free videos, audio recordings, and slides from many of the recent Game Developers Conference events, and the service offers even more members-only content for GDC Vault subscribers.
Those who purchased All Access passes to recent events like GDC or VRDC already have full access to GDC Vault, and interested parties can apply for the individual subscription via a GDC Vault subscription page. Group subscriptions are also available: game-related schools and development studios who sign up for GDC Vault Studio Subscriptions can receive access for their entire office or company by contacting staff via the GDC Vault group subscription page. Finally, current subscribers with access issues can contact GDC Vault technical support.
Gamasutra and GDC are sibling organizations under parent UBM Americas.
Posted by: xSicKxBot - 10-21-2018, 09:17 AM - Forum: Lounge
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Cast away the dark in DARK SOULS: REMASTERED
Cast away the dark in DARK SOULS: REMASTERED
Experience the critically acclaimed, genre-defining game DARK SOULS: REMASTERED. Revisit the ancient lords with enhanced details to the meticulous world. DARK SOULS: REMASTERED includes the main game plus the Artorias of the Abyss DLC.
Deep and Dark Universe
Delve into an epic dark fantasy universe stricken by decline and the Curse. Explore its intricate world design–full of hidden passages, dungeons and secret–and uncover its deeply rooted lore.
Each End is a New Beginning
Each playthrough surprises you with new challenges and unexpected facets of the game. Don’t bet on completing the game only once.
Gameplay Richness and Possibilities
Apply hundreds of unique combinations of weaponry, armor, magic, and crafting options to create your own playstyle and gaming experience.
Sense of Learning, Mastering, and Accomplishment
From your first steps to mastery, build your character while refining your playing skills. Learn to strategize freely and experience the rewarding taste of overcoming daunting foes.
The Way of the Multiplayer (up to 6 players with dedicated servers)
Online player capacity has been increased from 4 to 6 players, with password matchmaking available for the first time!
Whatever your motivations are to play online*—collaboration or confrontation, support or betrayal—you’ll find your true home among the nine covenants. Which allegiance will you choose?
If we could pull your attention away from exploring the beautiful scenery and becoming a Horizon Superstar in historic Britain with Forza Horizon 4, we have some new Xbox One features to share. The October 2018 Xbox Update adds new ways to express yourself with Avatars, interact with your console with Voice Skills, and enjoy your favorite streaming content. Here’s a rundown of what’s new:
New Xbox Avatars The new Xbox Avatars are expressive, creative and, most importantly, bring to life the community of fans they represent. The Avatar Editor features a wide range of body types, and the entire Avatar closet supports all of them, enabling you to uniquely tailor your Avatar however you see fit.
Avatars will appear across your Xbox One. You will see your own Avatar on your profile, as well as the profile pages of anyone who has chosen to represent themselves as an Avatars. You’ll also find Avatars on activity feed posts, Friend blocks on the Home screen, Gamerscore leaderboards, club headers, profile comparisons, and more. In addition to all the items that are available at launch, we also have a new Avatar Store where you can obtain even more new Avatar items, including licensed designs from Halo, Gears of War, and more. With new content every month, the Avatar Store is a diverse marketplace of clothing, outfits, props, and accessories to make your Avatar even more unique.
Once you’ve created your new Avatar, you can use the Photobooth feature to capture a great photo of your Avatar to use as your Gamerpic. In addition to the mood that you set for your Avatar, you can also use the Photobooth to pose your Avatar using a multitude of different emotes, each of which can be paused and advanced frame-by-frame with more control than ever before. Rotate and zoom controls help you capture the exact pose that you’re looking for, and a wide variety of background colors enable you to set the scene.
If you prefer your Xbox Original Avatar, that’s okay too! The new Xbox Avatar Editor also enables you to compare and choose which version of the Xbox Avatar best represents how you want to be seen on Xbox Live. If you choose to represent yourself as an Xbox Original Avatar, all the content from your Xbox Original avatar’s closet continues to be available via the Xbox Original Avatars app on Xbox One and Windows 10.
Xbox Skill for Cortana and Alexa The Xbox Skill for Cortana and Alexa is available today in the U.S. This feature enables people to use their voice to navigate and interact with Xbox through Cortana and Alexa-enabled devices – expanding voice navigation beyond previous Kinect and headset capabilities. With the Xbox Skill, people can use voice commands to power on/off their console, adjust volume, launch games and apps, start and stop broadcasts on Mixer, capture screenshots, and more. For example, if you have the Xbox skill enabled on your Echo just say “Alexa, launch Forza Horizon 4” and this command will automatically turn on your console, sign you in, and launch Forza Horizon 4. Look for the Xbox Skill in the Alexa Skill Store or the Cortana Skill Store to get started. To set up Alexa, just say, “Alexa, open Xbox” and to set up Cortana, just say, “Hey Cortana, open Xbox”, or search for “Xbox” in the assistant skill store. To learn more about this new feature, see our previous post.
Additionally, starting tomorrow in the U.S., anyone who buys a qualified Xbox One S or Xbox One X bundle at Amazon.com will also get a new Amazon Echo Dot, but don’t wait too long because this offer is only available while supplies last.
Dolby Vision video streaming on Xbox One Xbox is committed to bringing rich entertainment options to our fans. Today we are excited to launch our latest entertainment option, Dolby Vision™ HDR video streaming support across Xbox One S and Xbox One X! Dolby Vision enables select TVs to deliver enhanced HDR with dynamic scene-by-scene precision and accuracy versus standard HDR, which is static for the entire movie/show you are watching. If you have a TV that supports the latest version of Dolby Vision and a Premium Netflix subscription, jump in and experience incredible brightness, contrast, and color for yourself today! Dolby Vision on Netflix with a premium subscription will be supported at launch with more Dolby Vision apps adding support in the coming months.
To enable Dolby Vision on your console, navigate to Settings -> Display and sound -> Video output -> Video modes -> Allow Dolby Vision. If you need more assistance setting up the feature or want more information on supported TVs, check out this blog post.
New languages for Narrator Xbox is committed to being more accessible and inclusive. Today we are adding five additional languages to Narrator on Xbox One, including Spanish, Portuguese, Polish, Swedish, and Dutch. We’re also adding an Australian version of English language for Narrator, so Australian users will no longer have to select U.S. or U.K. English to use Narrator.
These updates are available because of the Xbox Insiders who have helped shape these features, so big thanks to all of you for your valuable input. If you’d like to help create the future of Xbox and get access to early features, download the Xbox Insider Hub app on your Xbox One or Windows 10 PC today. You can also visit the Xbox Insider Blog here for the latest release notes and to learn more. We’ll have more to share soon on additional features releasing to Xbox One this fall. Until then, enjoy the October Update and happy gaming!
Shakedown Hawaii Releasing On Switch And 3DS Early Next Year
If you enjoyed Retro City Rampage by Vblank Entertainment on WiiWare, it might be worth taking a look at the new gameplay overview trailer for its successor Shakedown Hawaii. The game was originally scheduled to arrive in 2017 on the 3DS and Nintendo Switch and has since been pushed back to Q1 2019. Surprisingly, the 3DS release is still on the way – with the developer previously clarifying it was committed to releasing this particular version.
As explained in the trailer above, Shakedown Hawaii is a 16-bit destructible open-world adventure that parodies big business and the white collar crimes that go alongside it. You’ll take control of a trio of protagonists as you build a corporation, acquire businesses, sabotage competitors, rezone land (by demolishing it) and shaking down shops for protection money. You can explore the world on foot, by car or boat, go inside more than 200 stores, interact with multiple citizens and traverse a variety of environments ranging from jungles to farmland.
Are you still excited to play Shakedown Hawaii? Which platform will you be picking it up on? Take a look at the new overview trailer above and tell us in the comments below.
HBO’s sweeping Game of Thrones television adaptation has always been the weekly opportunity for many fans to take a seat and proselytize the best course of action for one of its many characters on course to take the Iron Throne to they friends as it plays out in real time.
Meanwhile, Nerial’s Reigns and Reigns: Her Majesty are consistently some of the most entertaining mobile experiences out there, inviting mere peasants on iOS and Android to try their hand at royal decision-making. It’s no surprise, then, that the two would be a match made in heaven. Reigns: Game of Thrones is not only the best iteration of Reigns to date, but it also happens to be the best Game of Thrones video game adaptation, with an expansive set of storylines,
For those unfamiliar with Reigns, it adopts a Tinder-like formula that only requires one real thing of players: swiping right or left. In the first two games, you took on the role of a fledgling king or queen and lived out many moons as royalty until you inevitably perished (which you do, quite a lot). Citizens, advisors, and strangers flock to you with favors, advice, and other tasks that require you to mull over decisions on, with a left swipe for no and a right swipe for yes.
Some may seem frivolous, but the ramifications of your choice can echo throughout later happenings. Some appear disastrous at first but may end up a boon for your kingdom. It’s simple enough to get the hang of, but you never quite feel as though you’re making the right decision in your heart of hearts. That’s the beauty of it, and perhaps what keeps you coming back for more.
Luckily, the icons at the top of the play screen give you a tiny bit of insight as to which aspects of your rule will be affected by your decisions. So when you mull over whether you should prepare for battle to take the land of Meereen back as Queen Daenerys Targaryen, the first character unlocked in Reigns: Game of Thrones, you should check said icons.
You’ll see your standing with the Sept, or the religious segment of the Game of Thrones world, your military power, how to people view you, and your money reserves. Each decision will move a meter up or down so that the icons can become completely full or empty. Emptying is denoted by a red cast to each icon, while filling it is green.
The key here is to remember that neither filling the icons nor emptying them is vital to your success. In fact, if you fill them at all, you’re going to be headed for an ending, whether you’re poisoned, killed by a crowd of angry villagers, run into a particularly angry dragon, or fail to survive one of the most punishing seasons in the Game of Thrones world – winter, of course. You have to walk a fine line between catering to one group too much and another not enough, just like in real life, and Reigns‘ classic formula works miraculously here.
It’s hard to tell when death might suddenly befall you, but it will, again and again. You just learn to deal with it and move on swiftly, and then come back at the game with a renewed sense of purpose. You’ll know which decisions to avoid next time, if you remember them, since the game always throws new challenges your way and randomizes situations, so you don’t get too complacent.
At its core, Reigns: Game of Thrones is, essentially, a re-skinned version of the classic Reigns formula with some new tricks up its sleeve. But thanks to a few changes Nerial opted for this time around, there are some intriguing alterations to its core design that give the game new life. For instance, the Red Priestess Melisandre acts as a catalyst for the rebirth of your characters time and time again. When one dies, you may unlock another. And then you may select which one you’d like to play as. Melisandre offers some brief hints about clues to look for when making decisions.
You aren’t relegated only to Daenerys, though. There are eight playable characters and plenty of other personalities you’ll recognize in the game, including Arya, Jaime Lannister, Tyrion Lannister, Jon Snow, Sansa, and Cersei. Each come with their own unique sets of storylines and challenges to overcome, just like in the show, but there’s an overarching narrative too, which you’ll soon come to find out.
All of these elements come together to make a simple yet exciting and wholly addictive exercise in strategizing, decision-making, and general Game of Thrones nerdery. It’s every bit as engaging as the Telltale vision of the series, even more so in fact, and trumps the other poor game adaptations in ways that aren’t even fair. This is the best attempt any developer has made thus far when it comes to conceptualizing Westeros, its varied personalities, and the world’s political intrigue yet. And it all comes down to a Tinder-like swipe fest. But you know what? It sure is a fantastic one.
