Kalakshar US

If you own one of Victrola’s high-end, Sonos-ready turntables from the last few years, your techie record player is about to get more versatile. The company said on Thursday that all of its “Works with Sonos” vinyl turntables will support Bluetooth, Universal Plug and Play (UPnP) and hi-fi Roon streaming through a software update.

The update will dramatically increase the streaming versatility of the Stream Carbon, Pearl and Onyx turntables. Meanwhile, Victrola says the ultra-premium Sapphire player, which also supports those standards, has already received the update. The company says it will install automatically, and the new options will appear in the section of the app where you previously only saw the option to pick a default Sonos speaker.

While the new capabilities are good news for anyone who spent anywhere from $600 to $1,500 on a hi-tech vinyl player, it seems curious (if not infuriating) that the premium gear launched without these capabilities despite having all the requisite hardware. And while the company framed the update as a natural continuation of its mission to help vinyl lovers, you could look at Sonos’ calamitous year and speculate that Victrola calculated that hitching too many horses to that post might not be the best idea.

An incomprehensibly botched Sonos app update in May led to months of downward spiraling. Despite numerous attempts to plug holes, the debacle culminated in two rounds of layoffs and the departure of its CEO and chief product officer in January. Although Victrola launched cheaper Sonos-less alternatives to the same turntables months before Sonos’ plummet began, it’s easy to imagine it nervously eyeing that mess and deciding now is a good time to awaken the Sonos variants’ dormant wireless capabilities.

“This update is a major step forward in our mission to blend the warmth of vinyl with the convenience of modern wireless audio,” Victrola Scott Hagen wrote in a press release. “The Victrola Stream turntables have been the best option for Sonos users, and now we’re extending that same effortless streaming experience to even more audio ecosystems. Vinyl lovers can now enjoy premium wireless flexibility without compromise.”

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/audio/victrola-adds-more-wireless-options-to-its-sonos-compatible-turntables-181634084.html?src=rss 

Everything about Sorry We’re Closed sets my little punk heart ablaze, from its low-poly 3D graphics and banging original soundtrack, to its casually epic storyline starring heartbroken club kids and horny demons. Sorry We’re Closed takes place around a bustling city of neon-splattered nightmares, and if I could, I’d move there immediately.

Michelle, an existentially lost and effortlessly cool twenty-something, is introduced to the spiritual world by The Duchess, an archdemon with thigh-high boots and a threatening allure. Michelle is marked as The Duchess’ love interest and cursed with a powerful Third Eye. The Duchess is cruel and desperate for love, and Michelle — still reeling from a breakup that rocked her world three years ago — has a limited amount of time to discover why she’s been chosen and how to escape the curse with her life intact.

The characters in Sorry We’re Closed are raw, funny and authentic, and their relationships are relatably messy. There’s Oakley, the diner owner; Marty, the record shop manager; Clarissa, the dancer; Robyn, the local adventurer; Darrel, Oakley’s boyfriend and resident douchebag; and of course a cast of otherworldly beings. I feel like I know some of these people in my real life, and as for the rest, I’d love to meet them and help them chase their weird fantasies. Everything in this game is super stylish, from the blocky 3D avatars to the detailed, painterly icons that accompany their dialogue boxes. The city is populated by a diverse blend of genders and sexualities, and it feels both perfectly natural and deeply welcoming, like a stunning fever dream of what could be if The Gay Agenda finally got its way.

Again, it’s a world I’d love to live in.

Michelle spends her time exploring the underworld and chasing the ghosts of The Duchess’ former victims — er, lovers — while gathering the strength to fight the archdemon head-on. There are four different endings in Sorry We’re Closed, and your decisions to help or hinder your friends will determine how things shake out in a tangible way. Many of the demons and angels in this world have sadistic streaks, and there are multiple scenes of bloody dismemberment and extreme body horror along Michelle’s journey. Choose your path forward wisely.

The game plays out in a fixed-camera perspective for exploration scenes, and switches to a dual-stick, first-person view for combat. Using a DualSense controller, you enter first-person view by holding down LT, and then shoot or swing with RT, using the right stick to aim. Michelle ends up with three weapons: a wolf-faced axe, a pistol and a shotgun. She also gets a powerful Heartbreaker attack, which builds up as she does damage and eventually allows her to unleash a devastating shot directly at an enemy’s heart. Collecting ammo and health is a constant task in Sorry We’re Closed, and first-person view is useful here, allowing Michelle to break and loot vases.

Transitioning between third and first person feels nice and smooth, and the game does a great job of infusing classic Resident Evil-style gameplay with modern sensibilities. When it’s engaged, Michelle’s Third Eye lets her see and interact with an alternate reality, which appears in a circular pool around her. Demons that get caught in the Third Eye are briefly stunned, and their weak points become visible as stained-glass hearts. You’re only able to shoot weak points when Third Eye is engaged, but you can drop it at any time to attack with impunity. The length of the Third Eye stun can be extended by spending yowzas, the game’s currency, at the shop, which is run by a floating goat head. There are other basic upgrades for ammo and health capacities, which Michelle carries in the form of water bottles.

As Michelle travels deeper into The Duchess’ dimension, the environments become more M.C. Escher-like, and there are a series of puzzles to solve when you’re not actively battling demons. There’s nothing too tricky here, but there are little fetch quests and physical riddles to solve, and the reality-shifting mechanic of Michelle’s Third Eye keeps things interesting. There’s a perfect amount of variety in this game, with plenty of space to mess around with each new idea.

I adore the way Sorry We’re Closed plays with perspective. It has standard top-down scenes, sure, but there are also cinematic shots peeking through the gaps in a chandelier, wide angles that show off the scale of some environments, head-on running scenes, and instances of beautiful but impossible physics, especially when The Duchess is involved. In case you couldn’t tell, I kind of fell in love with The Duchess, even though I know they would destroy me. Maybe because of that, even.

Sorry We’re Closed is campy, relatable, gruesome and gorgeous. You could say the same about The Duchess.

With today’s console launch, all versions of the game are getting rebalanced combat areas, improved controller sensitivity, aim assist options, fresh difficulties, a Time Attack mode and New Game+. Sorry We’re Closed is now available on PC, PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S, and there’s a premium physical edition for Switch and PS5 due out later this year, available to pre-order now. Sorry We’re Closed is the debut title from à la mode games, a two-person team based in Bournemouth, UK, and it’s published by Akupara Games.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/sorry-were-closed-ps5-review-oops-i-fell-in-love-with-an-archdemon-170040845.html?src=rss