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After clearing both houses of the New York State Legislature in June, Governor Kathy Hochul has finally signed the Warehouse Worker Protection Act. Broadly modeled after AB-701, the landmark labor law California enacted earlier this year, the legislation aims to protect workers from unreasonable productivity quotas. Under the law, New York State will require major warehouse companies, including Amazon, to provide new hires and current employees with documentation detailing their productivity expectations.

The law also gives workers the right to request their quota at any time, including after their employment ends. Additionally, the legislation prohibits companies from imposing quotas that interfere with a worker’s state-mandated meal and restroom breaks. Companies also cannot fire someone for failing to meet an undisclosed quota.

“Regulations protecting workers in the warehousing industry have lagged far behind its rapid growth until today,” said the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU), one of the labor groups that pushed for the legislation. “The RWDSU has long prioritized the challenge of protecting warehouse workers from stress-induced injuries and illness from limitless quotas and it’s why we pushed for the introduction of the Warehouse Worker Protection Act this year.”

As you can imagine, Warehouse Worker Protection Act advocates had Amazon in mind when they campaigned for the bill. The retail giant operates more than 70 facilities across the state, more than half of which have opened since the start of 2021. In 2020, a report from the Center for Investigative Reporting found the company expected workers at its newer and more automated fulfillment centers to meet unrealistic productivity quotas that made them more likely to sustain serious injuries.

Before handing the reins of the retail giant to Andy Jassy in 2021, former Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos denied the company had unreasonable productivity quotas. In his final letter to company shareholders, he said Amazon gave workers opportunities to “take informal breaks throughout their shifts,” adding the company “set achievable performance goals that take into account tenure and actual employee performance data.”

 

Tesla is reportedly planning more layoffs and another hiring freeze. According to an Electrek source, the company has halted hiring for the time being and teams will need to lay some people off in the first quarter of 2023.

The extent of the layoffs and hiring freeze are not yet clear. However, Tesla is trying to increase headcount at its manufacturing plants. Reports have suggested the company will announce plans to build another Gigafactory in Mexico in the coming days. Tesla does not have a communications department that can be reached for comment.

The automaker’s CEO Elon Musk said in June that Tesla would see a 3.5 percent net reduction in headcount over the subsequent few months. A round of layoffs around that time reportedly focused on salaried employees, including hundreds of workers from the Autopilot team.

Even though Tesla delivered a record number of its electric vehicles last quarter, the company’s stock price has nosedived by around 65 percent this year and 22 percent this month alone. Musk has blamed the tanking stock on Federal Reserve rate hikes.

Like other businesses, Tesla has been dealing with an economic slowdown over the last several months. However, it has had to contend with the added wrinkle of Musk’s protracted takeover of Twitter, then his chaotic day-to-day management of that company (which included mass layoffs). 

Some Tesla investors have been concerned by Musk getting preoccupied by Twitter and pulling his attention further away from the automaker, leading them to sell off their stock. He said on Tuesday evening he’ll step down as Twitter CEO once he can find someone to replace him.

There are suggestions that demand for Tesla vehicles has slowed, with some people canceling preorders and leases amid Musk’s calamitous Twitter reign. As Electrek notes, Tesla has even taken the rare step of offering discounts on its EVs in some markets.

Many other tech and automotive companies have carried out layoffs and/or frozen or slowed hiring this year due to a broader market downturn and fears of a recession. Among them are Rivian, Stellantis, Meta, Apple, Amazon, Snap, Roku and Peloton.

 

Gone are the days when free games equated to ropey puzzle games and knock-off clones of games that had a price tag. These days, courtesy of in-app payments and the ease of offering both a sample of a title alongside its full-fat version, there are actually plenty of great games to play without spending a dime. Following the continued success of titles like Fortnite, the level of quality across mobile, PC and consoles has never been higher. Put your card away, and consider this your starting point.

Genshin Impact

At launch, many of us assumed Genshin Impact was a tenuous Zelda: Breath of the Wild copy with impressive anime graphics and not much else. But this turned out to be a very different game Nintendo’s action RPG, with over 50 characters, at this point, to play as. The world is rich and varied. It’s also a huge accomplishment for a free game that’s found a huge chunk of its audience on smartphones.

While battles with foes form a major part of the game, a lot of the joy and satisfaction comes from customizing that army of characters, building up a collection of loot and strengthening them further. While there is an entire microtransaction system baked into the game, much of the game is playable (and enjoyable) without having to spend a dime. Did we mention it’s totally gorgeous?

Play Genshin Impact

Overwatch 2

Even though Blizzard has improved the onramp for new players this time around, Overwatch 2 still has a steep learning curve. Stick with it, though, and you’ll get to indulge in perhaps the best team shooter around. Overwatch 2 has a deceptively simple goal — stand on or near an objective and keep the other team away long enough to win. It’s much more complex in practice. To the untrained eye, matches may seem like colorful chaos, but Overwatch 2 has a deceptively simple goal — stand on or near an objective and keep the other team away long enough to win.

It’s much more complex in practice. Blizzard reduced the number of players on each team from six to five. That, along with across-the-board character tweaks, has made gameplay faster-paced and more enjoyable than the original Overwatch. There’s a greater emphasis on individual impact, but you’ll still need to work well with your teammates to secure a victory.

Now featuring a cast of more than 30 heroes, each with distinct abilities and playstyles, you’ll surely find a few Overwatch 2 characters that you can connect with. The first batch of new heroes are all a blast to play. There are many great (though often fairly expensive) new skins to kit them out with too. The game looks and sounds terrific too, thanks to Blizzard’s trademark level of polish. At least until you figure out how to play Overwatch 2, you can marvel at how good it looks.

Play Overwatch 2

Fortnite Battle Royale

Fortnite is a social space as much as it is a game. Where else can you see Spider-Man doing John Cena’s “You Can’t See Me” taunt next to Indiana Jones dancing to a Dua Lipa song, or Ariana Grande hanging out with Goku while you catch up with friends in voice chat? It also happens to be a great video game with a clear path to victory. Drop onto the island, grab some weapons and gear and try to be the last player or team standing as a storm pushes survivors closer to each other.

Epic made Fortnite far more approachable earlier this year when it introduced a Zero Build mode, which prevents players from building structures for cover. If you have the skills to box an opponent into a skyscraper in mere seconds, by all means, go for it in the other modes, but Zero Build levels the playing field for new players.

Play Fortnite Battle Royale

Fall Guys

Fall Guys is a different flavor of battle royale. Sure, there can still only be one player or squad standing tall at the end, but there are no guns in sight here. It’s essentially a platformer in the vein of MXC or Takeshi’s Castle, in which only a certain number of players will qualify from each obstacle-laden round.

It’s also maybe the goofiest and purely enjoyable multiplayer game around. You don’t necessarily need to win to have a good time. It’s hard to feel aggrieved, even when another player shoves you off a ledge to knock you out. It rarely feels mean-spirited even when another player messes with you.

With developer Mediatonic adding more levels and cute cosmetics fairly frequently, the game rarely feels stale. Whenever you return to Fall Guys after a break, you’ll probably run into a new type of bedlam.

Buy Fall Guys

Apex Legends

From the studio that brought you Titanfall, Apex is a 60-player deathmatch with teams consisting of three people each. The goal is for your team to be the last one standing in Kings Canyon, where you’ll have to loot and fight your way to survival using characters like Octane, an adrenaline junkie whose ultimate move is deploying a jump pad that catapults you into the air for sneak attacks.

You can download it and use the majority of Apex’s characters without having to spend any money. That said, you will have to shell out some cash to access to certain content, including weapon skins and new characters such as Wattson. If you don’t like the cartoonish aspect of Fortnite, and if you’re a fan of the action-packed Titanfall gameplay, it doesn’t get much better than Apex.

Play Apex Legends

Dota 2

Dota 2 has one of the steepest learning curves of any game. Only after sinking hundreds upon hundreds of hours into the five-on-five MOBA can you even begin to understand the deep game mechanics, 100+ unique characters and team strategies. But the fact Dota 2 is so challenging makes those big plays and hard-fought victories all the more satisfying. The sky-high skill ceiling means there’s always something to learn, and if you eventually make it into the pro ranks, one tournament win can turn you into an overnight millionaire.

Play Dota 2

Pokémon Go

When Pokémon Go launched in 2016, there were some obvious omissions, such as trading and player-versus-player trainer battles. Now, almost every problem and missing feature has been addressed. The game isn’t perfect, but the fundamentals — walking around outside, spinning Pokéstop signs and catching critters — make this a truly unique and health-beneficial experience for Pokemon fans. The daily “research” quests and timed events, which boost the appearance of certain monsters, are a great excuse to log in every day. Niantic continues to expand the Pokédex, too, so that your collection is never quite finished.

Play Pokemon Go

Call of Duty: Warzone

For years, Fortnite was the battle royale of choice for younger players, until Call of Duty: Warzone came along. Boosting by interest during the pandemic, the free-to-play battle royale has persisted through numerous iterations of the Call of Duty franchise, with new maps, game modes and weapons helping to push the player base above the 100 million mark. The core game requires you to either drop in solo or as part of a team and duke it out with up to 149 other players, running between different points of interest to forage for weapons, tactical items and vehicles. If that wasn’t enough, a wall of gas will force you into increasingly tight areas.

Warzone offers some fresh takes on the traditional battle royale formula. For example, if you die, you will be sent to the ‘Gulag’ to fight with other downed players for a one-time chance to redeploy back into the game. Should you lose, teammates can still ‘buy’ your return, but requires them to first earn enough in-game money to afford it. Following the release of Modern Warfare 2, Warzone was overhauled. It got a new map, Al Mazrah, which is the largest playzone in the game’s history. Loadouts – a system that allowed players to customize a Primary and Secondary Weapon, Tacticals, Lethals and three Perks before the game – have been changed too. 

Play Call of Duty: Warzone

 

Online multiplayer has become part and parcel with many video games these days, but finding something you can play on the couch with a loved one has gotten tougher. If you’re looking for some cooperative fun, though, we can help. Below are 25 of the best couch co-op games we’ve played across the Nintendo Switch, PlayStation, Xbox and PC. Note that we’re focusing on genuine co-op experiences, not games that have local multiplayer but aren’t truly cooperative in practice. (So, no Mario Kart or Jackbox.) Even still, our list encompasses everything from platformers and puzzlers to RPGs and arcade shooters.

Super Mario 3D World

You know the broad strokes of any Super Mario game by now. Within the series, though, 3D World stands out for using a largely fixed camera and levels that are more semi-3D than the totally open spaces of games like Super Mario Odyssey or Super Mario Galaxy. There are still many items to grab and secrets to uncover across the characteristically charming, brisk and inventive stages, but everything you can find at a given moment is right in front of you, which encourages you to look closer and move from foreground to background.

Co-op play can be chaotic, but 3D World owns that. You and up to three buddies share lives but are scored on your individual performance, with the leader at the end of each level getting a literal crown placed atop their head. This makes for a sort of competitive co-op mode, one in which a particularly devious “teammate” could straight-up grab you and chuck you off a cliff in an attempt to secure their high score. The adventure only has to be as spicy as you and your partners want it to be, though; if you aren’t playing with a group of sickos, 3D World should be an exciting update to a familiar Mario formula.

Buy for: Switch
Length: 17 hours

Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze

Like most Donkey Kong Country games, Tropical Freeze is a 2D platformer that’s both structurally straightforward and aesthetically gorgeous. Donkey Kong is not Mario: He has a more immediate sense of gravity to him, so when he leaps, he comes down hard. But the platforming is uniquely deliberate as a result, and the way the game leads you from one stunning scene to the next, even within the same stage, is a delight.

Tropical Freeze can get difficult, particularly during some later boss fights, but a “Funky Mode” in the Switch version eases things slightly. If you have a Wii or Wii U, meanwhile, this game’s predecessor, Donkey Kong Country Returns, is just as great, if not better.

Buy for: Switch
Length: 15 hours

Rayman Legends

If Donkey Kong is Mario’s brutish animal pal, Rayman is the eccentric French buddy he visits when he’s overseas. Rayman Legends is a more out there 2D platformer than the Nintendo properties above: Instead of the pristine environments and perfect geometry of a Mario or Donkey Kong game, here everything is a bit more abstract, cartoony and crass. (There are more fart sounds, for one.)

The moment-to-moment movement is a little less precise, too, but Legends still plays fast and light, with stages that are loaded with optional rooms and collectibles that invite your curiosity. This is an unpretentious game, a fun side-scrolling platformer that merely wants to be a fun side-scrolling platformer, and it becomes more enjoyable (and frantic) with friends.

Buy for: Switch, PS4, Xbox, PC
Length: 16 hours

Luigi’s Mansion 3

Luigi’s Mansion 3 is another ghost-hunting adventure starring Mario’s scaredy-cat brother, who this time must stomach his fears and use his “Poltergust” vacuum to rescue his friends from a haunted hotel. Its co-op mode isn’t available until an hour-ish into the story, but at that point, a second player can become “Gooigi,” a Luigi clone made of green goo with infinite lives (it makes sense when you get there). Though the game isn’t particularly tough, this setup gives you more freedom to mess around with puzzle and boss fight solutions without having to start over repeatedly.

Luigi’s Mansion 3 has some frustrating elements more generally – controlling that ghost-gobbling vacuum can be annoyingly imprecise, and backtracking through previously-conquered areas can get tedious – but the creative level designs and Pixar-esque animation give it a distinct personality compared to other Nintendo games. It’s a silly and usually satisfying time, one that’s especially well-suited for kids.

Buy for: Switch
Length: 16 hours

Clubhouse Games: 51 Worldwide Classics

Clubhouse Games is a compilation of 51 classic tabletop games, from Yahtzee and Connect Four to shogi and nine men’s morris. Not every entry in the collection supports couch co-op, but most do, and almost all are made easy to grasp.

Apart from being accessible, though, Clubhouse Games stands out for the quality of its curation. The included games span cultures, time periods and even modes of play; some are built on skill or patience, others on abstraction or chance. When you first boot up the game, you’re asked to identify your “heart’s desire,” and there’s a fair bit of detail on each game’s origins and history as you go along. Taken as a whole, this is a game that recognizes play itself as a kind of universal connection. But even ignoring all of that, Clubhouse Games is a fun, chill time, much like busting out a favorite board game.

Buy for: Switch
Length: 18 hours

BoxBoy! + BoxGirl!

BoxBoy! + BoxGirl! may not look like much, but this minimalist puzzler from Kirby makers HAL Laboratory has the kind of simple pleasure and regularly inventive design you’d expect from a Nintendo-published game. In its two-player campaign, you play as Qbby and Qucy, two walking boxes with the ability to grow additional boxes out of their heads. Your goal is to get from point A to point B, using those boxes to cross gaps and navigate various obstacles along the way.

The catch is that you can only create a certain amount of boxes at a time, so you and your partner often have to think outside the box (sorry) to find a safe way past. You’ll start off making basic bridges, but the bite-sized levels quickly build on themselves with a stream of new ideas. Eventually, you’ll find yourself using boxes as makeshift grappling hooks, shovels, laser-blocking shields and more, all in ways that quickly make sense. Simply beating the game isn’t that difficult, but collecting the tricky-to-reach crowns tucked away in each stage brings a greater challenge for those who want it.

Buy for: Switch
Length: 11 hours

It Takes Two

The 3D platformer It Takes Two is one of the few full-scale, narrative-driven games that’s exclusively designed to be played in co-op. As such, it takes care to avoid the trappings of many co-op experiences: It rarely asks both players to do the same thing at the same time, and thus it rarely makes one person carry all the weight. It constantly throws new concepts at you, and while some levels can drag a bit, its bouncy movement feels good throughout.

Its saccharine yet oddly dark story isn’t as satisfying: Few games make divorce seem like a happy ending as much as this one, and you’ll probably never want to hear the words “Dr. Hakim” again by the time you’re done. But if you can ignore the dialogue, It Takes Two delights more than it doesn’t.

Buy for: Switch, PS4 & PS5, Xbox, PC
Length: 14 hours

Portal 2

The first-person puzzler Portal 2 launched more than 11 years ago, but it recently received new life with a Switch rerelease. Either way, its sharp writing and cleverly layered puzzles more than hold up today. Co-op play takes the form of an entire separate campaign – it’s not as big on story as the solo mode, but it still does a fantastic job of gradually teaching you how to think spatially. It also ensures you and your partner actually communicate. There’s no way to play on PS4 or PS5 nowadays, but on PC, you can download a range of community maps for a greater challenge, too.

Buy for: Switch, Xbox, PC
Length: 11 hours

Streets of Rage 4

Streets of Rage 4 faithfully revives the classic series of early ‘90s, side-scrolling beat ‘em ups from the Sega Genesis (which remain fine co-op playthroughs themselves). You move to the right, position yourself efficiently and pulverize waves of bozos with a flurry of punches, kicks, throws and special moves. The hand-drawn animation style and bouncy soundtrack are both great, and most set pieces convey the “rage” part of the title effectively. This isn’t the most ambitious game, as it largely aims to hit high notes from 30 years ago, but it provides the kind of thrill, style and refinement any good beat ‘em up should.

For a more accessible, albeit simpler, throwback brawler, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge is worth considering as well.

Buy for: Switch, PS4, Xbox, PC
Length: 4 hours

Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga

Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga is a Lego-ified romp through the nine mainline Star Wars films. Like most Lego games, it’s dead simple to play – collect the things, bop the bad guys – but that makes it something just about anyone can pick up and enjoy. The best thing it has going for it is its sense of humor, as its abbreviated remakes of each film are loaded with cutesy gags and in-jokes. (One favorite: wandering around Cloud City and finding the room where Lando Calrissian keeps his hoard of capes – and a heroic portrait of himself.)

There’s an absurd amount of side quests and collectibles beyond the narrative bits, but most of those are repetitive, and Skywalker Saga’s systems, while fun, aren’t meaty enough to make optional content all that interesting. Still, if you stick to the main stuff, you should find Skywalker Saga to be a good-natured love letter to some inherently goofy films.

Buy for: Switch, PS4 & PS5, Xbox, PC
Length: 40 hours

Stardew Valley

Stardew Valley has exploded in popularity since launching back in 2016, and it’s easy to see why: More than just a laid-back farming sim a la Harvest Moon, it’s an escape, an engrossing alternate life where you’re allowed to putter around your farm, mosey through town, and take life slow, free from the burdens of aggression and competition. You and a friend can share a farm and divide up tasks in co-op, but the game isn’t fussy; if one of you would rather fish, explore the beach or simply sit around your house, it’s okay to do your thing. And if you’d rather ruthlessly optimize your land for profits, that’s an option, too. Just note that you’ll need to build a cabin for your partner if they’re joining an existing farm.

Buy for: Switch, PS4, Xbox, PC
Length: 87 hours

Halo: The Master Chief Collection

Halo: The Master Chief Collection bundles remastered versions of the first six mainline Halo games, which continue to provide tighter control and pacing than most first-person shooters that’ve launched in the decades since. The original Halo’s campaign in particular remains essential. While some of the later narratives here go completely off the rails – looking at you, Halo 4 – the general tone still strikes the right balance between goofiness and badassery. The newer Halo Infinite sadly dropped couch co-op altogether, but there’s still good fun to be had driving Warthogs and dual-wielding space guns in the classics. Just be aware that local multiplayer is only available on Xbox, not PC.

Buy for: Xbox, PC (no local co-op)
Length: 47 hours

Divinity: Original Sin 2

Divinity: Original Sin 2 is a massive isometric CRPG for those who look back fondly on fantasy series like Ultima or Baldur’s Gate. It has loads of dialogue, deep character customization, and challenging turn-based combat (by default, at least). It’s not a game you’d play casually – a playthrough can last well over 100 hours, and it’s more than willing to throw a mountain of mechanics at you, regardless of whether you’re able to keep up.

If you want to dig into something dense, though, Divinity’s complexities are ultimately rewarding, and its world is wonderfully reactive. Its approach to co-op is also unusually thoughtful: You and a partner can go through the entire campaign locally, but you’re distinct characters, and neither of you have to follow the other’s lead. Indeed, part of the fun is in the ways your “buddy” could undermine your adventure, taking up a quest with contradictory aims or killing an important NPC. It asks: What’d happen if your RPG party members behaved like actual people? The answer: a mess, potentially, but a thrilling one. Just note that local multiplayer is unavailable on the Switch version of the game.

Buy for: PS4, Xbox, PC, Switch (no local co-op)
Length: 100 hours

Untitled Goose Game

Untitled Goose Game is a simple puzzle/stealth game that gets a lot of mileage out of its premise: You are a goose, and your only goal in life is to aggravate the residents of a little English village. If the idea of dragging a groundskeeper’s rake into a lake, pulling a seat out from under an old man right as he goes to sit down or generally honking at everyone in sight sounds funny to you, it’ll probably give you a good laugh.

The actual game part of the game doesn’t have much variance to it – you’re largely trial-and-error-ing your way through a checklist of troll-y activities – but it’s all appropriately silly, and it ends quickly enough to not run its joke into the ground.

Buy for: Switch, PS4, Xbox, PC
Average length: 4 hours

Chicory: A Colorful Tale

Chicory: A Colorful Tale is an open-hearted adventure game set in a world of talking animals, where the wielder of a magic paintbrush is tasked with literally filling the land with color. You play as a sprightly dog who becomes that wielder. What follows is a cozy adventure in the vein of Zelda, but with a twist: You can use the brush to paint over the environment, at any point, anywhere you want, in various colors and patterns. This turns a somewhat familiar game into something of a digital coloring book, one that remembers your markings in time as you go along. Chicory is exceedingly gentle and never suggests you’re doing it wrong, so if you want to spend 45 minutes ignoring the story and painting trees purple, you can. There are tons of accessibility options on top of that.

In co-op, player one still controls the pace of progression, but player two gets another brush with all the same abilities. On top of giving a second set of hands to deal with the game’s various puzzles and boss encounters, this lets you both create a shared impression on the world, like two kids sharing crayons on a children’s menu. The narrative gets heavier than the cutesy art style suggests, exploring themes of self-doubt, impostor syndrome and other struggles that can come with creative work. But it’s refreshingly earnest throughout. If you’re looking for a warm, caring, but still goofy co-op experience, Chicory is worth a shot.

Buy for: Switch, PS4 & PS5, PC
Length: 14 hours

Spiritfarer

Spiritfarer is a management sim not unlike Animal Crossing, but with some light platforming elements. Like Chicory, it’s generally relaxed, sincere and low-stakes, but occasionally devastating in the way it puts a friendly face on adult themes. Here, you play as Stella, a young woman who becomes tasked with ferrying freshly deceased souls into the afterlife. This mostly involves exploring the seas on a big boat, doing quests and gathering and crafting resources to make passing on more comfortable for the many characters you get to know. Player two joins in as Stella’s pet cat, Daffodil, who can’t trigger quests but can otherwise help with platforming and management tasks.

Spiritfarer’s sim elements can sometimes feel monotonous, and the way the game addresses death head-on can be sad, but it stands out for being as much about love and care as sorrow. If you and your partner are into management sims and aren’t afraid of shedding a tear or two, there’s beauty to be found here.

Buy for: Switch, PS4, Xbox, PC
Length: 33 hours

Overcooked! All You Can Eat

The Overcooked! games set you and up to three friends as chefs tasked with preparing various meals on a timer. In theory, this is as simple as grabbing the right ingredients, preparing them properly, then sending the finished plate off on time. But as the orders keep piling up and parts of the levels start to conspire against you, your ability to scramble and communicate under pressure becomes increasingly put to the test. There’s a non-zero chance your partner will call you an “idiot sandwich” by the time you’re done.

With its adorable looks, Overcooked! knows what it’s doing, but fighting through the anxiety of its most chaotic levels brings a particularly comical sense of accomplishment. The All You Can Eat edition here includes the original Overcooked!, the (superior) sequel Overcooked 2!, and all their DLC. It also adds an “assist mode” that lets you ease up the timers on each order, which, yes, kind of defeats the point of the game, but also might be necessary if you and your friends start screaming at each other over cartoon fish chopping.

Buy for: Switch, PS4 & PS5, Xbox, PC
Length: 41 hours

Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime

Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime is a vibrant space shooter in which you and up to three partners must collectively navigate a chunky battleship through levels packed with baddies and other obstacles. There are eight panels for controlling the ship’s engine, shields and various weapons, but each player can only man one station at a time, so you have no choice but to scramble and communicate to keep your shared body alive for as long as possible. The net effect isn’t unlike Overcooked!, then, but if you don’t mind a little stress, Lovers is effective in the way it makes you and your buddies work toward a common goal.

Buy for: Switch, PS4, Xbox, PC
Length: 7 hours

Cuphead

The run-and-gun shooter Cuphead is a stunner, with a lovely soundtrack and luscious animation that combine to make the whole thing feel like a playable cartoon from the ‘30s. (It’s no wonder there’s now a TV show based on the game.) Somehow, the story, about a pair of talking cups who make a deal with the Devil, fits the art style like a glove.

Actually playing Cuphead, meanwhile, is an exercise in punishment. It is brutally difficult, with several intense boss fights that demand serious concentration. Playing it in co-op makes it even tougher, as those bosses gain more health, and having two characters jump around can make the action more chaotic. That said, the challenge is not cheap, and overcoming each fight brings the expected wave of catharsis. If you have a bit of a masochistic streak, it’s worth a go. A recent DLC expansion only adds to the beautiful mayhem.

Buy for: Switch, PS4, Xbox, PC
Length: 15 hours

Spelunky + Spelunky 2

Spelunky helped popularize the trend of modern 2D platformers with roguelike elements – i.e., games where you mostly start from scratch upon death. Spelunky 2, released about a decade later in 2020, essentially polishes the original game’s formula.

Like Cuphead, neither of these games is for the faint of heart. Traversing their caves while avoiding the many death traps within is like descending into cartoon Hell. But again, it’s a (mostly) fair and legible challenge, if you can stay patient. The procedurally generated levels keep exploration from feeling totally rigid, and the frankness and pure speed with which death can hit you gives everything a morbid sense of humor. Couch co-op can feel somewhat unnatural at times – everyone has to stick near player one to stay on camera – but having a partner or three to revive you is a relief, provided you don’t accidentally blow each other up first.

Buy for: Switch, PS4, Xbox, PC
Length: 104 hours

Ikaruga

Ikaruga is more than two decades old at this point, but it remains a crown jewel among shoot ‘em ups. It takes a simple idea – every enemy and projectile in the game is either white or black, and you have to change your ship’s color accordingly to survive – and makes the most of it across five meticulously crafted stages. It’s another notoriously difficult one, but there’s not an ounce of fat on it, and its central mechanic forces you and your partner into a near-perfect state of concentration. If you’re craving an arcade-style shooter, it’s still a rush. And if you get sick of dying, know that recent releases have added more accessibility settings, including the option for infinite continues.

Buy for: Switch, PS4, Xbox, PC
Length: 3 hours

Wizard of Legend

Wizard of Legend is a top-down, 2D dungeon crawler with an emphasis on speed. It’s another skill-based roguelike, but letting your arsenal of spells fly and figuring out how to best chain attacks with your partner is a joy. Simply moving around is pleasingly kinetic, and the pixelated art style is kind on the eyes. It’s probably not enough to convince the roguelike-averse to hop aboard, but Wizard of Legend is a good one of those all the same.

Buy for: Switch, PS4, Xbox, PC
Length: 16 hours

Assault Android Cactus

Assault Android Cactus is an especially intense twin-stick shooter. You and up to three friends play as little androids charged with surviving hordes of robot baddies on a space freighter. (The tone is much more campy than gritty, thankfully.) Its tension derives from the fact that each android runs on a continuously depleting battery; if emptied, it’s game over. Since you can only replenish that battery by defeating waves of enemies, it behooves you to play aggressively and keep moving. The nonstop rush of baddies, gunfire and power-ups Cactus throws at you is exhilarating, and it’s heightened by quick-burst levels that rarely sit still. Plus, while this isn’t an easy game, it’s far from unfair, with most of the challenge coming from chasing high scores.

Buy for: Switch, PS4, Xbox, PC
Length: 6 hours

Wilmot’s Warehouse

Wilmot’s Warehouse is a clever little game about organizing an ever-growing warehouse. At the start of each level, you get a batch of colorful boxes, which you must gather and tuck away on a timer. Exactly how you organize them is up to you. When the timer ends, customers will start requesting certain products within the warehouse, and the challenge becomes retrieving the corresponding boxes as quickly as possible.

The game, then, is coming up with a system that will let your specific brain remember where everything is and adapt to new box types as they roll in. There’s a frenzy to completing orders, and a dark undercurrent to the idea of two warehouse workers being scored as they fulfill this many orders and strive this hard for efficiency. (The latter is made particularly clear in the game’s sudden ending.) In the abstract, though, Wilmot’s Warehouse makes a soothing game out of our unending desire to create order from chaos.

Buy for: Switch, PS4, Xbox, PC
Length: 8 hours

Escape Academy

Escape Academy is, in essence, a series of digital escape rooms. You work with a partner, combing for clues, deciphering codes and solving puzzles to get out of a locked room within a time limit. Like the real thing, it can result in some shouting, but it encourages constant communication and ultimately provides a sense of empowerment. The puzzles themselves are varied, but maybe a touch too easy, and the overarching narrative is (mostly) just kind of there. But if you and a partner have been itching to try a real-world escape room, Escape Academy should serve as a charming substitute for a couple of afternoons.

Buy for: PS4 & PS5, Xbox, PC
Length: 5 hours

 

Ukraine will receive an additional 10,000-plus Starlink satellite dishes from Elon Musk’s SpaceX to help provide internet amid Russian attacks on communications infrastructure, Bloomberg has reported. Financial issues around the terminals have reportedly been resolved, with several European countries stepping up to share the costs, according to Ukraine’s deputy prime minister Mykhailo Federov. 

“SpaceX and Musk quickly react to problems and help us,” Federov told Bloomberg. “Musk assured us he will continue to support Ukraine. When we had a powerful blackout, I messaged him on that day and he momentarily reacted and has already delivered some steps. He understands the situation.” However, Ukraine will need to find additional funds by spring of next year.

The 10,000 new terminals add to the 22,000 already received, and will be used to “stabilize connections for critical situations,” according to Federov. “There is no alternative to satellite connections,” he added. 

Earlier in the fall, SpaceX asked the US Department of Defense to take over payments related to Starlink. “We are not in a position to further donate terminals to Ukraine, or fund the existing terminals for an indefinite period of time,” the company said. Elon Musk backtracked on that decision, however, writing on Twitter that SpaceX would “keep funding [the] Ukraine [government] for free” even though Starlink is still losing money. It was reported in November that the price of a Starlink terminal had doubled in Ukraine, from around $385 to $700. However, the monthly rate for data has dropped from $100 since the war started in February down to $75. 

 

You’ve heard the joke about the US Navy vessel and its unidentified opponent that won’t get out of the way. Its Captain, outraged at its refusal, barks into the radio that he’ll sink them if they don’t reconsider, to which the opponent responds “Sir, this is a lighthouse.” I suspect that the truth it speaks to – some people want to steam ahead with what they want, regardless of the material facts – is something everyone can recognize. And it’s also true that the ones who are most convinced of their rightness are the ones who don’t notice the proverbial lighthouses looming on the horizon.

I think it’s a mindset that Silicon Valley types train themselves into because it’s part of the myth-making that takes place there. Star innovators who defied common opinion, and logic, to forge their own path and make a fortune from something everyone else had missed. It’s rarely true, but it’s a useful narrative to cling to, and it’s easier to portray yourself as swimming alone against a tide of hostility (or indifference), especially if you interpret valid criticism as obstinate censure. It’s an attitude that’ll get you far, for sure, but can often leave you open to calamities that others might have avoided.

Take Meta, which bragged back in October that it had invested blown $10 billion on its mediocre VR environments Metaverse ambitions. When the company said that its cutesy avatars were getting legs (the must-have accessory for any digital avatar in 2022) there was scoffing. The scoffing got louder when it turns out that the leg animations used in the demo were, in fact, faked. $10 billion for that, in this economy? Either VR feature development really is more expensive than curing world hunger, or Mark Zuckerberg’s being had.

The narrative, intentionally or otherwise, is that Zuckerberg is leading a spirited, one-man quest to own whatever the internet will evolve into. I’ll admit, it’s not the dumbest move, given that while Facebook remains massively profitable, its long-term future remains uncertain. It’s just a shame that his bet seems to be a perpetually-sunny, cel-shaded version of the world from Neuromancer rather than anything better. And, to be honest, all of the non-tech people I know have looked at VR demos and politely decided that they’d much rather stick with anything else.

Part of this is because so many tech leaders are in their post-imperial phase, beheading anyone who dares suggest the kingdom is in ruins. It means the information handed to dear leaders is scrubbed-free of anything that could anger them, thinning their already thin skin. (Elon Musk has a knack for firing anyone who disagrees with him, even if he’s been proven wrong.) Worse, is that as they surround themselves with sycophants, they become increasingly unaware of their own blind spots.

For instance, we’re expected to hit a deep recession as energy and food prices continue to leap up. People are looking for ways to save money, but still want to hook onto whatever exciting fad is coming around the corner. Instead of spending $10 billion on… legs, why didn’t Meta use half of that money to reduce the barriers of entry to would-be VR users? $5 billion could have easily been used to discount the price of a Quest 2 to between $99 and $199 for several million people. Yes, you’d be forcing things a little, but imagine how many people would buy Beat Saber in the run-up to the holidays. Sadly, it’s hard to care about the material concerns of normal people when the closest thing you’ve got to a nearby normal person is (Facebook’s President of Global Affairs) Nick Clegg leashed to your gatepost, attacking any would-be visitors and biting the mailman.

Then there’s Sam Bankman-Fried (and his cohort), who at the time of writing has just been arrested for all of the things he’s done. Now, I have to admit, events are moving so fast that it’s hard to come up with anything pithy about SBF, FTX, Alameda and everything else. But it already looks like we’re going to have to endure at least two competing prestige miniseries about All Of This. It’s just a shame that after the freewheeling cons of Theranos, WeWork and Uber, we’re not learning any of our lessons and are, instead, enabling these crooks.

Now, I could repeat much of what’s already been written about crypto this year, but I don’t think there would be much point. Between you and me, I think that the crypto world is going to fall into terminal decline in the not-too distant future. There are only so many major exchanges that can collapse, wiping out people’s cash, before would-be converts start deciding that less risky ventures are for them. And without the constant supply of new fools, the bloodbath of people trying to turn their digital fortunes into real ones will crater Bitcoin’s value.

What I’d rather talk about is the culture that enabled Bankman-Fried to garner so much public attention as he did. And that means talking about the media, which gave him so much space and praise as to prematurely sanctify an unreliable, or untrustworthy, figure. Was he enabled and feted by an industry that’s desperate to find and groom future superstars? It makes sense, given you need celebrities to sell print editions, and be keynote speakers at those live events which apparently generate the bulk of the cash those publications rake in.

Since there’s nobody else who fits into the mold of that fictional US Navy captain, I’d like to talk about my plans for 2023. I’ve decided to become a Tesla mechanic, since so many of those cars seem to need mechanical repair after they’ve left the factory. Now, I don’t know anything about electronics, engineering, automotive technology, wiring repair, aerodynamics, software design, LIDAR, autonomous systems, safety legislation, wheel dynamics or power efficiency, but I reckon it’s both really easy, and bound to be super profitable.

And, let’s be clear, I can just open the hood of your Tesla and start ripping out the wiring looms, because anyone who disagrees with me is suffering from the woke mind virus. I’ll hire a couple of kids who scrawled penises on the walls of their middle school, because that’s really funny. Maybe I should use my wealth to buy an independent EV repair store, although I might need to let some of the qualified EV mechanics go in order to recoup the enormous purchase price. I’ll also let the payroll, tax, accounts and safety crew go too, because who needs ‘em, right?

Now, get out of my way, I’ve got a lighthouse to move.

 

Twitter news whiplash continues. Elon Musk has said he’ll step down as CEO of Twitter once he’s found a suitable replacement. You might remember Musk ran a poll at the weekend asking if he should leave the role, and the Twitter-using public overwhelmingly told him, well, yes. There was no immediate response to the results of the poll, but by late Tuesday, after suggesting he might change it so only paying users could vote, he seems to be acting on the result. According to his tweet, Musk plans to stay on and run the software and server teams.

The job as Twitter CEO will be viewed by many as a poisoned chalice. Roughly 70 percent of the staff have either been laid off or quit, hate speech and trolls have thrived and many advertisers have dropped or reduced their advertising spending. On top of all that, the company is also now facing increasing pressure from the US government.

– Mat Smith

The Morning After isn’t just a newsletter – it’s also a daily podcast. Get our daily audio briefings, Monday through Friday, by subscribing right here.

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Lenovo’s Swiss Army lamp kicks off the weird gadgets of CES 2023

A 4K webcam, wireless Qi charging pad and multiple USB-C ports for $329.

Lenovo’s Go Desk Station with Webcam is for those of us with limited desk space. It’s a webcam, adjustable desk light, Qi wireless charger and expansion hub all in one, and it doesn’t compromise on any of those things. But it is priced accordingly. The primary feature is the Lenovo Go 4K Pro Webcam, which is also available as a standalone camera. It can stream 4K at up to 30 fps and includes autofocus and auto-framing with an adjustable field of view, along with auto ambient light adjustment, via the built-in desk light. That desk light rides on a height-adjustable and rotating arm.

The hub has a full-function 65-watt USB-C port for laptop power, to start with. It also has a 15-watt Qi compliant charging pad for mobile devices, a 20W USB Type-C port, two USB Type-A 3.1 ports and an HDMI 2.0 output for external displays. This beastly peripheral arrives in March 2023, starting at $329.

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‘Sifu’ is getting an arena mode

And heading to Xbox and Steam in March 2023.

Sifu’s long-awaited Arenas challenge mode will arrive next March. Developer Sloclap made the announcement through IGN, which shared a trailer for the upcoming DLC. The studio first teased the mode last April when it published a free content roadmap for Sifu. Sloclap told IGN: “Completing the new Arenas challenges will also unlock new cheats and exclusive new outfits.” The Arenas mode update will coincide with the game’s release on Xbox and Steam.

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NASA’s InSight lander says goodbye from Mars

“This may be the last image I can send,” the InSight Twitter account said.

This is likely the final photo NASA’s Mars InSight lander will ever send back to Earth. Since landing on the planet in November 2018, the robot has been snapping pics and gathering data about the Martian environment, accumulating dust on its solar panels that entire time. As NASA predicted earlier this year, the layer of debris has finally become too thick for the solar panels to operate. The InSight Twitter account officially said goodbye on December 19th with a final image from the surface of Mars.

“My power’s really low, so this may be the last image I can send,” the tweet reads. “Don’t worry about me though: My time here has been both productive and serene. If I can keep talking to my mission team, I will – but I’ll be signing off here soon. Thanks for staying with me.”

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How Meta flunked its first year as a metaverse company

Meta finishes in a much worse place than it started.

This time last year, the company once known as Facebook had finished rebranding as Meta, with Mark Zuckerberg explaining: “From now on, we’re going to be metaverse-first, not Facebook first.”

The company has lost billions of dollars on Reality Labs, the division overseeing its metaverse work. Its stock has cratered. The company has, for the first time, shed thousands of employees in mass layoffs. Perhaps most crucially, given its new goals, Meta hasn’t articulated what the metaverse is or effectively made the case for why we should care. Karissa Bell breaks down Meta’s first year.

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Lionel Messi’s World Cup celebration is now the most-liked post on Instagram

The legendary footballer took the record away from a photo of an egg.

Soccer legend Lionel Messi posted a slideshow of him and his Argentinian teammates celebrating after winning the World Cup and, at the time of writing, the post has more than 68.7 million likes, breaking the record for the most-liked post on Instagram. The previous record-holder, a stock photo of an egg, claimed the top spot in early 2019 and currently has north of 57.3 million likes.

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If you want more than just a robot vacuum, Roborock’s models provide not just exceptional sucking power but mopping functions as well. Now, you can grab some of the company’s best models at steep discounts thanks to Amazon’s latest sale. Some of the best deals include the E5 Robot Vacuum and Mop at $200 (44 percent off), the S7 Robot Vacuum and Mop ($410, 37 percent off) and the Roborock S7+ Robot Vacuum and Sonic Mop at $680, or 28 percent off the regular $950 price. 

Shop Roborock robot vacuums at Amazon

The Roborock E5 is one of the best value robot vacuum/mops out there, but that doesn’t mean you’re losing out on features. It offers a powerful 2,500PA of suction, yet can clean for up to 200 minutes of a charge. It’s also ideal for pet hair and other bulky debris thanks to the large 640ml (0.67 quart) dustbin. It can vacuum and mop simultaneously, mopping up to 1,600 square feet efficiently thanks to the OpticEye scanning and dual gyroscopes. And it’s no slouch technology-wise, offering an app, Alexa voice and a remote to give you fine control over cleaning. Normally it’s priced at $360, but you can grab one now for just $200.

The Roborock S7 has the same 2500PA suction, but comes with a larger water tank for mopping and an ultrasonic sound feature that identifies carpet so the machine can automatically adjust cleaning strength. Also, the S7 can be connected to a clean base, so you have the option in the future to add another level of convenience to your robo-vac. It also supports voice control with Alexa or the Google Assistant, full app control, home mapping, cleaning schedules and spot cleaning, too. Normally priced at $650, you can grab it now for $410 ($240 off).

Finally, if you’ve been saving up for the best robotic mop/vacuum around, The Roborock S7+ fits the bill. It’s a vac-and-mop combo, and its mopping map automatically lifts itself out of the way when the machine reaches the carpet. At the same time, the mop picks up more dirt thanks to the sonic vibration technology. And it can dump the dirt after each cleaning, so you don’t need to deal with emptying for up to 120 days. It cleans efficiently thanks to LiDAR navigation, while offering voice control, home mapping and more. The Roborock S7+ is normally quite expensive at $950, but it’s on sale for $680, or $270 off the regular price. 

Follow @EngadgetDeals on Twitter and subscribe to the Engadget Deals newsletter for the latest tech deals and buying advice.

 

Virgin Orbit is set to make the first ever space flight from UK soil, after the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) approved a “historic” first launch license from Spaceport Cornwell. With that in hand, the company plans to launch nine satellites from a LauncherOne rocket aboard its “Cosmic Girl” Boeing 747 aircraft in January next year. 

Virgin Orbit first announced plans to launch from a site at Cornwall Airport Newquay four years ago, so the launch has been many years in the making. The first flight was originally scheduled in for mid-December, but was postponed due to technical issues and the lack of a license.

Despite those concerns, the CAA said the license was issued within 15 months, “putting the UK framework on a competitive footing with international space regulators.” The regulator added it took “all reasonable steps” to mitigate safety risks. Spaceport Cornwall, meanwhile, received its launch certification last month.  

In addition to the launch license, Virgin Orbit received a range control license that allows it to issue warning notices and monitor the progress of missions. “Receiving range and launch licenses takes us one step closer to the first satellite launch take-off from UK soil,” said Virgin Orbit CEO Dan Hart. “We are progressing towards the first launch from Cornwall – keeping a strong focus on a safe and successful mission for all.”

Virgin Orbit flies LauncherOne under the wing of a 747 to reduce the rocket size and fuel needed while eliminating the need for a vertical launch pad. For its maiden “Start Me up” mission, Cosmic Girl will take off from the spaceport and fly to a height of 35,000 feet, then release the LauncherOne rocket that will take the satellites into orbit. Permits for the nine satellites have yet to be issued, but are reportedly “imminent.” 

 

Despite being the widest release of all time in Japan, Avatar: The Way of the Waterfailed to claim the top ranking last weekend as it was topped by an anime basketball picture called The First Slam Dunk. On top of that, multiple theaters in the nation reported technical problems, with one in central Japan forced to reduce the 48 fps frame rate down to the traditional 24 fps, Bloomberg reported. 

Fans were reportedly turned away from other screenings and issued refunds. Some of the theater chains cited by fans as having issues, including United Cinemas Co., Toho Col, and Tokyu Corp., declined to comment on the problem.

Not many movie theaters support high frame rate (HFR) 48 fps playback, as it requires the latest projectors or upgrades to existing ones. Normally, movie theaters would be aware of which formats they can play and plan accordingly. But HFR has been used so little that it would be understandable if errors cropped up. 

Avatar: The Way of the Water is available in multiple formats, including 2D 48 fps, 3D 48 fps and regular 24 fps. If you see the 48 fps version, it only uses the HFR tech for action sequences, while dialog and slower scenes are dialed down to 24 fps (by duplicating frames). Engadget’s Devindra Hardawar saw the film at 48 fps and liked it, but added that the technology remains divisive.

Other notable films using HFR were Ang Lee’s Gemini Man and The Hobbit trilogy. When the latter came out in 2012, I argued that high frame rates work best with the 3D format as it helps eliminate potential eye strain and even nausea. That’s not an issue in 2D, so 24 fps gives the most natural look with none of the video game/soap opera effect that many people dislike.