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‘Dead Cells’ Brings Pixelated-Permadeath To Action-Platforming
Some of us have an insatiable love for things that hurt, like deadly hot sauces conjured from the belly of hell or rom com films. The same area of the brain that causes people to receive enjoyment from torture, happens to be the same brain space that makes folks love the permadeath aspect of Dark Souls games. Well, we all need to give thanks to the Ashen One, cause Dark Cells is here to give us more of those fun frustration pangs that we love from our painfully fun experiences with Souls.
Dead Cells is an action-platformer with a cool Dark Souls twist, a dash of Metroid action with a splash of classic Castlevania play-style.
In Dead Cells, you play as a character that when killed, is respawned all over again… by means of a ball of green goo. This puts you in the position of having to fight through ever changing levels, leveling up over time, and learning your enemy’s tactics and figuring out what weapon combos work best. Most of all it allows you to keep your learned skills in order to become a tough mo’fo over the course of splendiferous amount of death.
You are going to die. Die a lot. Much like in Dark Souls, dying is part of the whole thing, the blaringly big difference here is that each time you play through a level its laid out entirely differently.
That makes the would-be frustration of having to start over and over and over again, a learning experience, where you are able to level up, create mutations and figure out what makes your enemies fall the fastest.
Slotted weapons allow for a melee item, a ranged item and two sentinel or grenade type items. The combination of these items are up to your preference and finding the one that works best for you might take a few worthwhile deaths.
I know, what you are thinking, all this sounds super familiar. Well hey, it’s something the creators at the devs are acutely aware of, down to the title basically being a play-off of Dark Souls. It’s a labor of homage and love for the permadeath gaming subgenre that actually does a great job of breaking a mold, while still working in the same shop in which that mold that created.
Controls are well-done and exude the feeling of later Castlevania games along the lines of Symphony of Night. Throwing in a variety of weapons and furthering that with tiers on those individual weapons, simply increases playability and doesn’t allow things to become stale as easily. And with a game that’s focus is putting you through the same grind again and again, this mix works like gangbusters.
Enemies come with their distinctive approaches to combat, some yield more annoying results than others depending on the combo of weapons that you have in your arsenal at that moment. Using your full collection of moves, especially the god’s gift that is dodging, are essential to get learn early, cause later levels (if you can make it) are freakin’ tough.
Dead Cells is a really special game that kicks a special amount of pixelated butt. It is in on the joke and remains playful about it, if the title isn’t proof of that the main character and his comedic pantomime expressions sure are. The action, challenge and the rewarding punishment Dead Cells gives you are worth the price of entry, and are essential for Souls and Castlevania fans alike.
Dead Cells is out now on PC, PS4, Xbox One, Mac and Nintendo Switch for $24.99.
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Movies
‘Evil Dead’ Film Franchise Getting TWO New Installments
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.
“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:
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‘Invisible Man 2’ Is “Closer Than Its Ever Been” to Happening
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.
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
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.
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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