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Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire delivers pitch-perfect old-school role-playing this week, while Steins;Gate 0 scratches that visual novel itch and Laser League makes a splash with its frenetic multiplayer sports action.

by Edmond Tran and Jess McDonell on May 14, 2018 at 4:00PM

If you’re a diehard PC gamer, then you’ve been spoiled for choice on Steam this past month. So many games, so little time, and it NEVER STOPS. This week is no different, with games that will completely destroy your free time if you let them. Open world survival, RPG, multiplayer action, visual novel, pick your poison, and it’ll be good. We promise!

Laser League ($14.99)

From the studio that brought you the amazing Olli Olli comes Laser League, a frenetic and futuristic multiplayer sports action game. You’ll compete in 3-on-3 scenarios as you sprint around Tran-Inspired arenas and light them up with coloured laser grids. If you hit a laser of your opponent’s color, you’re out. Your teammates can revive you, but once you’re all out, that’s game. Dodging the dense grids of moving lasers requires intense concentration, and there are multiple classes to choose from, with unique offensive and defensive skills that can really make things tricky. It’s slick, well-designed, easy to learn and fun to watch.

Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire ($49.99)

Old-school computer RPGs fans, this week has been Christmas for you. Obsidian’s Pillars of Eternity returns for a second outing, and it’s as deep as ever. The classic Dungeons and Dragon-inspired formula has been given some hefty upgrade, with full voice acting, more intricately-connected mechanics, ship combat, and consequences to every single little decision you make. It’s deep as the ocean, and a no-brainer for fans of the genre.

Steins;Gate 0 ($34.99)

One of the most beloved Japanese-style visual novels finally gets its latest release on PC. Steins Gate brings along its cast of characters into a new time-travelling scenario, but you don’t necessarily have to have played the first game to appreciate it, I promise. This narrative adventure focuses on hardcore science and moral quandaries about memory and artificial intelligence, with all the twists and turns that make this subcategory of visual novel games great. Also returning is the smartphone mechanics where your texts change the outcome to the story, and possibly the entire fabric of your reality, because of course. If you’re curious about visual novels, this is definitely one of the better ones to check out.

Conan Exiles ($39.99)

After a super rocky start on Early Access, Conan Exiles got itself together and transformed into the game players wanted to be. And that game is huge and overwhelming, with a ton of stuff to do. It’s open-world survival at its best, with beautiful biomes, granular and robust crafting options, a combat system that provides a variety of options and is satisfying to participate in, and probably about a thousand other things we haven’t even touched yet. With PvP, PvE, and custom servers along with a single-player option, Conan Exiles wants to be the survival game you want it to be, and judging by the player base, it’s hitting the mark for a lot of people.

What new PC games have you been playing this week? Let us know on Twitter: @EdmondTran + @JessMcDonell

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When it was announced that Jurassic World director Colin Trevorrow would no longer helm Star Wars: Episode IX, LucasFilm said the parting was due to creative differences. Mere days later, it was revealed that Star Wars: The Force Awakens director JJ Abrams would return for the film.

Now, with Solo: A Star Wars Story heading to theaters, some information about the events leading to Trevorrow’s dismissal has been revealed. According to the Wall Street Journal, at the heart of the matter was the scripts being turned in to Lucasfilm head Kathleen Kennedy.

While Trevorrow was hired based on his pitch to Kennedy, Disney president Alan Horn and Disney CEO Bob Iger, the scripts simply weren’t up to snuff. The WSJ reports that Kennedy was unhappy with the drafts Trevorrow co-wrote, as well as one from Harry Potter and the Cursed Child playwright Jack Thorne. While Trevorrow was keen to try again, Kennedy opted to fire him instead.

From there, the search was on for a new director. While Abrams ended up with the role, he wasn’t necessarily the first person Lucasfilm went to. Also on their list was Rian Johnson, who was fresh off of directing Star Wars: The Last Jedi–and who will tackle his own trilogy of Star Wars films after Episode IX. According to Johnson, though, any discussions about his helming the film were not serious.

In the end, Abrams took the job, which brings him full circle in the Star Wars universe. After launching a new trilogy, he’ll now bring it to a close. “I had a bunch of ideas from the beginning, back on VII, of where the story would go,” he tells the WSJ. “I just never in my wildest dreams thought I would have a chance to execute them.”

Of course, fans are going to have to wait a while to see how he executes those ideas. Star Wars: Episode IX is in theaters on December 20, 2019.

Usually when Deadpool falls back on a tired trope, he turns to the camera and milks it for comedic effect. When he dives in front of a bullet, the next words out of his mouth are to make sure the cinematographers caught it in slow motion–that kind of thing. That lets Deadpool have his bloody cake and stuff it in his disgusting gob hole too; these movies can rely on silly superhero tropes, as long as Deadpool breaks the fourth wall and plays it up. “Woo! Superhero landing!”

But when that latter part doesn’t happen–when the punchline never comes–it becomes hard to tell the difference between Deadpool and any other cliché-laden superhero sequel. That’s the biggest problem with Deadpool 2. In its opening moments, Deadpool 2 resorts to a trope so tired and off-putting that it sets the rest of the movie on a clichéd, MacGuffin-laden path to blandness. It defines Deadpool’s motivation for the whole movie. Even worse, the exact same trope motivates Cable, which is just plain bad writing. It’s a double cliché of doom for Deadpool 2.

Luckily, Ryan Reynolds’ Merc with a Mouth is still hilarious, irreverent, and irritatingly irresistible. The character, tone, and humor haven’t changed from the original, so if you liked Deadpool the first time around, chances are you’ll like Deadpool 2 as well, despite its flaws.

To explain much of Deadpool 2‘s plot would spoil it, but suffice to say things don’t go well for Wade Wilson from the start. Like in an Iron Man sequel, the “hero” spends a lot of this movie wallowing and feeling sorry for himself, although Wade’s version of that involves a lot more dick jokes than Tony Stark’s. Eventually he recruits the other members of the X-Force, faces off with Cable (Josh Brolin), and meets up with Julian Dennison’s character Russell, who calls himself Fire Fist–a nickname Wade is quick to make fun of.

Deadpool 2 is full of bait-and-switches. Characters you think are going to be important wind up not mattering at all. The X-Force–Terry Crews’ Bedlam, Bill Skarsgard’s Zeitgeist, Rob Delaney’s Peter, and Lewis Tan’s Shatterstar–aren’t featured nearly as heavily as the trailers led us to believe (except, thankfully, Zazie Beetz’s Domino, the freshest part of the whole film). Brianna Hildebrand’s Negasonic Teenage Warhead and Stefan Kapicic’s Colossus get about as much time as they did in the first Deadpool, while the newcomer to their crew, Shioli Kutsuna’s Yukio, is onscreen for about 20 seconds total.

On the other hand, seemingly minor additions to the cast, like Dennison’s Fire Fist, are actually integral to the plot, and not necessarily to the movie’s benefit (Dennison is sometimes funny, but he’s playing against type here, and it doesn’t always work).

Deadpool 2‘s overarching plot doesn’t really work. It relies too heavily on those aforementioned tropes, and on top of that it forgets to give you a reason to care about much of what’s happening. Wade has his own goals in this movie, but they’re actually counter to what you’ll want to happen as the viewer, especially after a particularly conspicuous MacGuffin gets introduced partway through. Cable and Domino are undeniably cool, but like the other new characters, they have very little depth. At most, we get to know their basic motivations (if that).

All that said, Deadpool 2 is still hilarious. The character’s best jokes always come from breaking the fourth wall and making references to other superhero movies and characters. Deadpool 2 pokes fun at the DC movies universe, Infinity War, the other Marvel movies, the other X-Men movies, and even certain previous Ryan Reynolds superhero roles. There are some extremely fun cameos, and the introduction, through Cable, of time travel into Deadpool’s “continuity” (such as it is) makes for a collection of fantastically clever gags.

The action is still a stylish blast to watch, too, especially when the new characters get involved. Domino’s power of “really good luck” lets her practically glide through action scenes without a scratch, while Cable makes good use of his “Winter Soldier arm,” as Deadpool refers to it. The Merc himself uses his own regenerative body in horrifying new ways, including breaking his own arm in multiple places to put someone in an uncomfortable headlock. At one point he has to re-grow his entire bottom half, and he spends a whole scene “shirt-cocking it.” If you’re having trouble picturing that, think Winnie the Pooh.

Overall, Deadpool 2 mostly works for all the same reasons that the original did. Reynolds carries the movie on his back–although this time around he should have shared the load a little more evenly with some of his talented co-stars, particularly Beetz and Brolin. But Reynolds’ Wade Wilson is just as charming as ever, in his own twisted way, and Deadpool 2 delivers the laughs, action, and gruesome maimings that fans want.

Microsoft, like Sony before it, is taking steps to be more transparent about the data it collects from Xbox users and in detailing what circumstances it is shared with other companies. The next time you boot up your Xbox One, you may be greeted with a page that reiterates Microsoft’s policies surrounding privacy and data-sharing. Multiple GameSpot staffers received the notification today, which you can read in full at the bottom of this post.

The statement explains that if you’re playing an Xbox Live-enabled game or app, Microsoft might share some information about you and your play habits with the publisher of said game or app. The information that can be shared with publishers includes your country and age range, Xbox profile data such as your Gamertag and avatar, and information about how many achievements you’ve unlocked and how much time you’ve spent in a game or app. Microsoft may also share details about enforcement against your profile.

Additionally, Microsoft’s statement says it may share social data information such as your “interactions and communications” with other players, though it’s unclear if this is for written and verbal messages. What’s more, Microsoft may give publishers your real name, if you’ve elected to share that information.

Microsoft went on to say that it does not control what publishers do with this information once it is shared with them. That is determined by a specific publisher’s own privacy policy practices, which you can find on the Xbox store pages.

If some or all of this information sounds spooky to you, there is something you can do. You can stop sharing game or app data with publishers by revoking access either on your console or through this website for some games and apps.

Microsoft’s privacy policy statement comes after a similarly worded message from Sony that was discovered following a recent update. It alerted players, at least those in Europe, about its data-collection methods. All of this comes in the wake of the massive data-sharing scandal at Facebook.

Earlier this month, Microsoft alerted fans that this data-sharing disclosure was coming. In a blog post detailing upcoming changes, the company said, “We’ll also let you know about scenarios where we need to share your data with game developers, publishers, and other third parties so that you can play online.” Microsoft’s full privacy policy statement is below.

Xbox Data Sharing With Games And Apps:

If you use an Xbox Live enabled game (or app through your Xbox console), Microsoft may share information with the publisher of that game or app in order to deliver your online experiences, improve the game or app, diagnose problems, provide support, and connect you with other users.

Information we share may include:

• limited Microsoft account data such as country and age range;
• Xbox profile data such as user id, gamertag, gamer profile, and avatars;
• data about your game play or app session, including achievements unlocked, time spent in the game or app, presence, game statistics and rankings, and enforcement activity about you in the game or app;
• social data, including club memberships; friends, other users you have played with, and information about your interactions and communications;
• data about the game or app’s performance on the console, including error reports;
• content you create, upload or share in the game, app, or within Xbox Live;
• other data, like gamerpics and real name, that you choose to share based on your settings or by providing additional consent.

Third party game and app publishers and developers are independent controllers of this data, and their data collection, use, and sharing practices are governed by their privacy policies. Please take time to review their policies; you may find these linked from the product pages of the games or apps in the Microsoft store. For games published by Microsoft, please visit privacy.microsoft.com.

If you want to stop sharing game or app data with a publisher, remove all its games or apps from all devices where you have installed them. Some publishers’ access to your data may also be revoked by visiting https://microsoft.com/consent

For more information about our privacy practices, visit privacy.microsoft.com.”