‘Metroid Dread’ Is Let Down by Its Boring Robot Villains
Robot design tends to fall into one of two camps. In the first, they look like us; in the second, they look like tools, their bodies molded toward a particular…
Zoom Dysmorphia Is Following People Into the Real World
Last summer, when clinics began to tentatively reopen, dermatologist Shadi Kourosh noticed a worrying trend—a spike in appointment requests for appearance-related issues. “It seemed that, at a time like that,…
Is Your Name Ruining Your Life?
My mum named me after the Bollywood actor Amitabh Bachan, a suave star of Indian cinema in the 1970s and 1980s. The reference was entirely lost on my classmates at…
Mark Zuckerberg’s Metaverse Already Sucks
The Zuckerverse is coming. Just over a week ago, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced, in a long interview with the Verge, that his social network is readying itself to become…
Mario Golf: Super Rush Takes Way Too Big a Swing
Over the years, Mario has tried his hand at many activities, from tennis, enjoyably, to Dance Dance Revolution, much less so. But it’s always been golf where his reinvention has…
The Best Games (and Trailers) From E3
E3 has returned, brought to you live via stream, offering free entry for all to make up for another year without the show’s wild cosplay. If there was an overriding…
Pokémon Cards Are Surging. So Is Hate Toward Graders
When Peter Graham noticed that people were going nuts for Pokémon cards again—that grown men were sweeping packs into their shopping trolleys and pulling out guns to fend off Weedle-crazed…
Andy Weir’s ‘Project Hail Mary’ Is ‘The Martian,’ Again
After the runaway success of his first book The Martian, a science-driven thriller about a stranded astronaut which spawned a blockbuster movie starring Matt Damon, Andy Weir tried to do…
You Will Die a Lot in Returnal. It’s Worth It
I first encountered Returnal last June, at Sony’s PS5 reveal, and I admit I didn’t think much of it when it emerged on a conveyor belt of generic sci-fi: Spaceperson…
Why a James Bond Film Will Never Premiere on Netflix
In 2011, movie studio Universal Pictures announced that it would be carrying out a test: It would put out its new film, Tower Heist, on video-on-demand just three weeks after…