The magic of Monkey Man, doesn’t come from its incredible fight scenes, or it’s brilliant choreography or it’s smart and intelligent cinematography. Instead, it comes from an obvious struggle. You can see, throughout this movie, that Dev Patel’s blood is everywhere. There’s no part of this film that doesn’t scream like something trying to rip its way up through an artist's chest, and out of their mouth.

FAR: Changing Tides, the follow-up/sister title from the small team at Okomotive, is another one of those titles that I found deep resonance with. It seems, somehow, that the Zurich-based indie studio managed to bottle lightning twice. Games are art. Art is inherently political. The FAR games stare right into environmental disaster, and then through that lens tell tales of survival, endurance, and the relationships we have with our machines.

The last few months have been...rough. That’s putting it mildly. It’s been a full year now since I quit my job at GameStop, a full year of pandemic lockdowns started, and four months since the birth of my son. A heaping spoonful of good added to a stew of less than ideal.

PlayStation exclusives refined themselves this generation. They are heightened storytelling experiences with a tremendous amount of good writing, jaw dropping visuals, and reimagined mechanics. Have they been a consistent wellspring of innovation? No. But then neither has prestige television. It’s a familiar system, twisted and turned, made to look fresh. And it’s perfect, and learning.

I have always dabbled in driving games. I have fond memories of winning a few races in Gran Tourismo well before I was old enough to understand the ins and outs of tuning an automobile for the track. I have fond memories of specific moments of car games, but very few of those same games have kept my attention for very long. Then three things happened: Forza Horizon 4 came out. I learned that my control scheme wasn’t conducive to what I was wanting to do. 2020 happened.

XCOM Chimera Squad is my definition of a pleasant surprise. Just soldiering through quarantine on a lazy April Tuesday afternoon, across my news feed comes the improbable: a new XCOM game getting shadow dropped. Chimera squad is a $20 exploration into the ways that XCOM can, and I believe will, evolve.

After what feels like years of conversations, planning, and ideation, NerdyFits has finally started to take form. NerdyFits is a vlog, produced by Caleb and his wife, Amanda, that chronicles their fitness journey. Caleb and Amanda are both nerds who love their video games, comic book movies and shows, D&D, and so much more!

People connect emotionally to their games. Sometimes that emotional connection is peace in a tumultuous world. Sometimes that connection is a new reason to live. For the next adventure. For the next quest. For the next moment. Sometimes that connection goes unnoticed until someone else puts context to content.