Joker, Morgana, and Skull get sent to an alternate world connected to the Metaverse that they have to try to fight their way out of.It’s an exciting prospect when one of your favorite games—in a series that typically doesn’t receive direct sequels—gets what’s more or less, well, a direct sequel. Mainline entries in Persona have a sort of definitive conclusion then get spinoffs or reissues, while a brand new storyline starts in the next full game (Persona 2 being an exception). Persona 5 Strikers, however, picks up where the original left off: The Phantom Thieves are back together to fight evil in the Metaverse as the cops keep a watchful eye on their moves. But now we have musou-style action RPG gameplay that’s explosive, frenetic, and at least in the early stages, pretty damn tough.
I’ve spent about five hours with Persona 5 Strikers, which encompasses the opening scenarios and the entire first palace (or dungeon), and it’s a blessing to be kicking ass as these characters again with all the lavish style you’d expect. With what seems to be a story with lower stakes and tiny slices of life simulation elements, it kind of feels like a Persona 5-lite in its narrative. The best way to put it is that Persona 5 Strikers is like the movie companion to your favorite anime.
It’s summer vacation. Makoto and Haru have already started college, while everyone else is finishing up high school (except for Futaba, who broke out of her shell and started high school, props to her). Joker decides to return to Tokyo after a string of group texts, and everyone’s going to have a carefree and lovely time with their leader back in town. Except, that’s a lie.
The news this week about Amazon’s Lord of the Rings TV show has seemingly led to an uptick in Lord of the Rings discussion everywhere, and people are now discovering a metal band called Gimli, Son of Gloin.
This is not your average metal band. The group, from Southampton UK, only uses Gimli samples from the Peter Jackson Lord of the Rings series for vocals like, “‘Cause he’s got my axe embedded in his nervous system!” and, “We dwarves are natural sprinters!”
These lines, and many more, play on top of some crushing and heavy metal guitar riffs and drum beats. You can listen to the group’s new album, At Last; Durin’s Mightiest Son Returns To The Field Of Battle With Axe In Hand And Glory In His Heart!, here on Bandcamp.
If you’ve let your Disney+ subscription lapse since The Mandalorian Season 2 for example, now might be a great time to pick the service back up again, at least for the next month or so while new episodes of the series are brought out every week.
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Watching any show on the service requires a Disney+ subscription. This costs $6.99 for a one-month subscription or $59.99 for a year. Alternatively, you can get a bundle of Disney+, ESPN+, and Hulu for $12.99 per month. Unfortunately, Disney has eliminated the free trial for new subscribers, so you’ll need to pay to watch the show even if you’ve never subscribed before. That said, the service offers plenty of entertainment for the price, including Star Wars, Marvel, Pixar, The Simpsons, National Geographic, and more.
Disney+ is releasing new episodes of WandaVision Season 1 weekly on Fridays, which is a trend the streamer has followed since Disney+ launched back in 2019. This is instead of the more traditional binge streaming model that Netflix tends to use for all of its shows.
After WandaVision’s two-episode premiere on Friday, January 15, Disney+ will air the following seven episodes every Friday until the Season 1 finale, which will release on Friday, March 5, 2021.
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Here is the full WandaVision Season 1 release schedule for all nine episodes:
For more on the imaginative world of Marvel’s WandaVison, be sure to read our guide to Wanda and Vision in the comics, as well as our detailed breakdown of the Wanda and Vision’s MCU timeline so far.
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Manufacturers have been able to cram more impressive hardware into gaming laptops over the years, and MSI’s latest devicelatest device–revealed at CES 2021–continues that trend. Having shaved more micro-inches off of its chassis, the Stealth 15M is the world’s thinnest portable gaming PC with a 15-inch screen.
With a height of 0.63 inches high when closed, the MSI Stealth 15M is slightly slimmer than similar products on the market such as the Razer Blade 15 laptop, the Lenovo Legion 7 Slim, or Alienware’s M15.
Ultra-thin gaming laptops usually require some serious concessions in order to be shrunk down to that size, but the Stealth 15M still packs some impressive hardware inside of its aluminum frame. The recently-revealed Intel H35 Tiger Lake CPU Core i7-11375 CPU, 16GB RAM, a 512GB SSD, and an RTX 3060 laptop GPU are all part of the package, which also includes a 1920×1080 IPS display that has a refresh rate of 144Hz.
We’ve known since October that Hitman 3 is coming to Nintendo Switch via cloud streaming, but both Nintendo and developer IO Interactive had not yet mentioned a release date. That’s changed now, with official word that it will come right alongside the other platforms on January 20.
IO announced the date with a tweet. That puts the Switch release on the same day as more powerful platforms that will run it natively on the hardware itself: PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X|S. The Switch version will require an internet connection, since it’s streaming.
This is one of a handful of streaming games on Switch, and was announced along with Control. In GameSpot’s Control cloud edition review, Phil Hornshaw said it ran generally well on Switch, with some degree of noticeable frame rate issues and graphical compromises. It’s not the best way to play Control, but it will do in a pinch, so we can probably expect the same from Hitman.
At-home arcade and retro gaming brand AtGames has officially launched its streaming service ArcadeNet after a beta period. The service, which is available on AtGames’ Arcade Legends products like the Legends Ultimate and Legends Gamer devices, allows players to stream additional games, including arcade, console, and pinball games, via either free or paid tiers.
With the basic free plan, ArcadeNet members can stream a limited amount of games on the service for up to two hours, and an additional one hour for pinball streaming. The games will change regularly in this plan.
For ArcadeNet Standard, which costs $20 per month, you’ll get improved quality–up to 1080p and 60fps instead of 720p and 30fps–and you can play multiplayer and use voice chat with up to three other people.
