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‘Death’s Gambit’: Combines Permadeath With Classic ‘Castlevania’

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Gambit

Adult Swim Games has gone into the permadeath RPG bizz, and the results are pretty freaking satisfying. Death’s Gambit, is the latest from the game studio and it takes a beholden approach to the classic elements of RPG’s of yesteryear while throwing in that permadeath sub-genre that is all the rage right now.

Right from the start menu, you are introduced to your character who has been mortally wounded in battle and is being drug to a massive pyre consisting of what is assumedly your fallen comrades.  Just before being tossed in you are “saved” by Death. Nice guy that he is, he offers you a chance to come back to life in order to get revenge. After the formalities of a blood contract, Death Vito Corleones you and informs you that in return, you will owe him a favor one day.

From there you enter the world of Siradon, freshly dubbed as an agent of Death, where you take on an intensely challenging, RPG experience.

The world of Siradon, is vast and dynamic. Each of the new locales is paired with an assortment of enemies that are ever-adaptive to playstyles, and have a nice mix of mini-bosses thrown into the mix to keep things interesting along the way.

I couldn’t go any further without saying Dark Souls. So here it goes. Death’s Gambit is a side-scroller that is heavily inspired by the permadeath nature of the Souls games, which in my opinion, if done right, is never a bad thing.

Character design is legit as heck in both pixelated and classically illustrated form. Each character within Death Gambit’s world is extremely cool, and have well-done voice work to match. The art is very rooted in the classic Final Fantasy and Vagrant Story realm. These detailed art representations are displayed when exchanging dialogue. Outside of that, the world takes on a vintage pixelated look, closer to what you see in Castlevania games with the controls and action to match.

From the get-go, you are able to create your own class of character, along with a specialized item type. I went with a Wizard class, that focused on ranged spell attacks. Throughout the play through, enemies are constantly dropping random items that range from armor and weapon types to consumables. The randomness of these items makes for unique play-through opportunities.

The Rashomon-rooted, non-linear story structure is where the game shines its brightest. These slowly reveal what occurred hours before your character began their quest and even does a really cool limbo thing that has you revisiting your childhood home as a special type of hell. The narrative keeps things interesting till the very end by offering up surprises neck and neck with the surreal.

From the very beginning and your initial deal with Death, you are given a blood signed contract. This allows you to be resurrected after being slaughtered by baddies. Much like fires in Dark Souls, you are respawned at the last site where you rested. From those rest stops, you can do upgrades to your abilities and stats along with reclaiming “feather plums” that you can also use to heal in battle.

Everything done with its own voice is refreshing, even if it is taking place in a familiar arena. Death’s Gambit structures itself on the Souls cornerstone, but its narrative, art design and approach to combat is rad and refreshing. The 10-12 hour play through is challenging, gorgeous and something I think, Death himself and Souls would be proud of.

Death’s Gambit is out now on Playstation 4 and PC for $19.99.

 

 

 

 

 

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‘Evil Dead’ Film Franchise Getting TWO New Installments

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It was a risk for Fede Alvarez to reboot Sam Raimi’s horror classic The Evil Dead in 2013, but that risk paid off and so did its spiritual sequel Evil Dead Rise in 2023. Now Deadline is reporting that the series is getting, not one, but two fresh entries.

We already knew about the Sébastien Vaniček upcoming film that delves into the Deadite universe and should be a proper sequel to the latest film, but we are broadsided that Francis Galluppi and Ghost House Pictures are doing a one-off project set in Raimi’s universe based off of an idea that Galluppi pitched to Raimi himself. That concept is being kept under wraps.

Evil Dead Rise

“Francis Galluppi is a storyteller who knows when to keep us waiting in simmering tension and when to hit us with explosive violence,” Raimi told Deadline. “He is a director that shows uncommon control in his feature debut.”

That feature is titled The Last Stop In Yuma County which will release theatrically in the United States on May 4. It follows a traveling salesman, “stranded at a rural Arizona rest stop,” and “is thrust into a dire hostage situation by the arrival of two bank robbers with no qualms about using cruelty-or cold, hard steel-to protect their bloodstained fortune.”

Galluppi is an award-winning sci-fi/horror shorts director whose acclaimed works include High Desert Hell and The Gemini Project. You can view the full edit of High Desert Hell and the teaser for Gemini below:

High Desert Hell
The Gemini Project

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‘Invisible Man 2’ Is “Closer Than Its Ever Been” to Happening

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Elisabeth Moss in a very well-thought-out statement said in an interview for Happy Sad Confused that even though there have been some logistical issues for doing Invisible Man 2 there is hope on the horizon.

Podcast host Josh Horowitz asked about the follow-up and if Moss and director Leigh Whannell were any closer to cracking a solution to getting it made. “We are closer than we have ever been to cracking it,” said Moss with a huge grin. You can see her reaction at the 35:52 mark in the below video.

Happy Sad Confused

Whannell is currently in New Zealand filming another monster movie for Universal, Wolf Man, which might be the spark that ignites Universal’s troubled Dark Universe concept which hasn’t gained any momentum since Tom Cruise’s failed attempt at resurrecting The Mummy.

Also, in the podcast video, Moss says she is not in the Wolf Man film so any speculation that it’s a crossover project is left in the air.

Meanwhile, Universal Studios is in the middle of constructing a year-round haunt house in Las Vegas which will showcase some of their classic cinematic monsters. Depending on attendance, this could be the boost the studio needs to get audiences interested in their creature IPs once more and to get more films made based on them.

The Las Vegas project is set to open in 2025, coinciding with their new proper theme park in Orlando called Epic Universe.

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Jake Gyllenhaal’s Thriller ‘Presumed Innocent’ Series Gets Early Release Date

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Jake gyllenhaal presumed innocent

Jake Gyllenhaal’s limited series Presumed Innocent is dropping on AppleTV+ on June 12 instead of June 14 as originally planned. The star, whose Road House reboot has brought mixed reviews on Amazon Prime, is embracing the small screen for the first time since his appearance on Homicide: Life on the Street in 1994.

Jake Gyllenhaal’s in ‘Presumed Innocent’

Presumed Innocent is being produced by David E. Kelley, J.J. Abrams’ Bad Robot, and Warner Bros. It is an adaptation of Scott Turow’s 1990 film in which Harrison Ford plays a lawyer doing double duty as an investigator looking for the murderer of his colleague.

These types of sexy thrillers were popular in the ’90s and usually contained twist endings. Here’s the trailer for the original:

According to Deadline, Presumed Innocent doesn’t stray far from the source material: “…the Presumed Innocent series will explore obsession, sex, politics and the power and limits of love as the accused fights to hold his family and marriage together.”

Up next for Gyllenhaal is the Guy Ritchie action movie titled In the Grey scheduled for release in January 2025.

Presumed Innocent is an eight-episode limited series set to stream on AppleTV+ starting June 12.

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