Killer Queen Black Review – ‘Cause I’m Having a Good Time
If you're fortunate enough to have a barcade in your neck of the woods, you have probably seen it: a huge, imposing pair of arcade cabinets with "Killer Queen" emblazoned on the marquee in blue and gold. Maybe you've even seen or played a versus session, with five players gathered around each screen attempting to work together and clutch sweet, sweet victory. Killer Queen is ideal for arcades, it's a unique game built around the camaraderie of being together in a public space--a vibe that's difficult to translate to the often solitary online experience PCs and consoles offer.
Enter Killer Queen Black, the first appearance of Killer Queen beyond the dimly-lit neon lights of modern social arcades. While it isn't a 1:1 port of the arcade original, Killer Queen Black nonetheless delivers a tremendously fun and engaging multiplayer experience, whether you're playing with a bunch of friends at home or joining in random battles online.
It's important to realize that Killer Queen in any form is, fundamentally, a multiplayer experience. That means that if you don't plan to play with local friends or take the game online, there is little that it will offer you beyond a brief tutorial mode and the ability to play with CPU-controlled teammates and enemies. But when you do get a party started, Killer Queen Black realizes its full fun and frenetic potential.
Killer Queen Black has you playing in two teams of four players (down from five in the arcade original), with one player assuming the role of the insectoid Queen and three being worker drones who aid her. Each player has an important role; while the Queen is the team's anchor and has access to powerful attack skills, the infinitely-respawning drones can pick up berries, ride snails, and upgrade in special pods to gain super-speed or become weapon- and shield-bearing warriors. Victory is achieved in one of three ways: by killing the other team's Queen three times, collecting and storing enough berries to fill your team's base, or riding a sluggish snail to your team's goalposts.
The game's varied roles and three means of victory offer up a lot of interesting strategies. Do the drones all opt to forfeit the ability to carry berries and ride the snail to gain weapons to go on an all-out offense? Or maybe only a couple should grab gear while one tries to bait the opposing Queen by riding the snail? Maybe your team's Queen can dodge and counterattack enemies, distracting the opposing team and claiming their power-stations while your drone friends hoard berries or inch the snail to the goal. You can even put yourself in the snail's jaws to stymie a riding opponent, allowing your weapon-wielding teammates an opportunity to kill off threats. There are many possibilities, and while a lot is always going on at any one time in Killer Queen Black, learning its basic rules and controls is easy enough that most anyone can jump in and quickly enjoy the strategic depth the gameplay has to offer.
Graphically, Killer Queen Black has received a significant overhaul from the arcade original. The arcade game employed a detailed retro-pixel art style, and that carries over to Black. However, the detail on the characters, animations, and background elements is significantly improved, adding a lot to the atmosphere of Killer Queen's strange humanoid-insect world. As a result it's not too tough to follow the action, even on the Switch's comparatively smaller handheld screen, Along with the graphical overhaul comes some all-new maps, many of which emphasize the clever use of screen-wrapping to enhance strategic play by letting you quickly move from end of the screen to the other.
There are many ways to enjoy the game's multiplayer modes. You can link a pair of Switches together via a local network for eight-player action, you can hop online in a custom room with friends or an assemblage of random players--you can even take a local team of up to four players online to battle against another group online.
In our testing, online play was generally smooth sailing, though it was pretty easy to tell when players' connections weren't ideal; you could see their character jumping abruptly around the map as the game struggled to catch up with their location. (To its credit, the game tries its best to match you with others based on region.) There's online voice chat for each team to coordinate strategy--though, if you don't have access to voice chat (a likelihood for the Switch version), you can also communicate through a simple emote and emphasis system that draws attention to places on the map. If there's one major gripe about online, it's a lack of options; you can turn certain maps on and off, but that's about it. With only six maps in the base game (that often repeat multiple times during a five-round set), the scenery starts to feel a stale pretty quickly.
Minor gripes aside, Killer Queen Black is the very definition of a great multiplayer game: easy to learn, fun to jump into, and packed with the sort of clutch moments that make you jump up and cheer. The satisfaction of spur-of-the-moment decisions, like sniping a Queen from the other side of the map with a carefully-timed laser gun blast, knocking an attacker pursuing your Queen off-kilter with a thrown berry, or eagerly shoving yourself in a snail's mouth pixels from the enemy goal in order to buy your teammates time to complete your berry hoard is consistently engaging. If you're looking for a unique, competitive multiplayer experience for online or local group play, Killer Queen Black is the bee's knees.
Blizzard Officially Responds to blitzchung Controversy
Blizzard has responded to the controversy regarding Ng Wai "blitzchung" Chung, stating that it will give blitzchung his prize money and will lower his ban from professional Hearthstone play from one year to six months. However, it does not offer an apology or remove all punishments against blitzchung following his support of Hong Kong's liberation movement.
J. Allen Brack, president of Blizzard Entertainment, wrote a letter to Blizzard's community to address the event that occurred at last week's Hearthstone Grandmasters tournament, saying that even though Blizzard will reduce the punishment, "there is a consequence for taking the conversation away from the purpose of the event and disrupting or derailing the broadcast."
El Camino: What Was Jesse’s Letter About?
El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie resolves any lingering questions about Jesse Pinkman's fate at the end of Breaking Bad. But the film also presents an unanswered question of its own. Who was Jesse's letter to, and what ever happened to Brock Cantillo, the young son of Jesse’s late girlfriend Andrea? We asked star Aaron Paul to give his take.
SPOILERS ahead for El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie!
Brock was a little boy Jesse came to care for while he was dating Brock’s mom Andrea. But Jesse, for all his affection for Brock, is also responsible for much of the pain this child would eventually endure.
Jesse met Andrea Cantillo in Narcotics Anonymous in Season 3.His initial intentions toward Andrea weren't altruistic; he wanted to sell her blue meth. He pivoted after discovering she was the mother of Brock. After Andrea's kid brother Tomas was shot to death, Jesse gave Andrea money to buy a new home in a better neighborhood.
Gemini Man: How They Made Will Smith Young Again
While much has been made of the digital de-aging of Will Smith to play his younger clone, Junior, in Gemini Man, the creation of the younger Smith owes a lot more to how Gollum was brought to the screen than to the traditional de-aging effects done on movies such as this year’s Captain Marvel and The Irishman. For Gemini Man, director Ang Lee and his visual effects team opted to create a fully digital character via performance-capture for Smith’s younger clone rather than to simply digitally soften the then-50-year-old actor’s features.
Netflix’s The Witcher: Henry Cavill ‘Lived and Breathed’ the Games
Henry Cavill, who stars as Geralt of Rivia in Netflix's The Witcher series, recently shared his passion for both the video games and the novels written by Polish author Andrzej Sapkowski.
Per an interview with French magazine Premiere, and translated by Reddit user u/Valibomba (so some nuances from the quotes may have been lost in translation), Cavill reportedly said, "I discovered the games, then I discovered the books, and the universe of The Witcher instantly meant something to me. I often thought about playing Geralt. When the opportunity appeared, I didn't let the chance pass me... I didn't even have the need to prepare myself for the role. Because I breathe, I live this universe every day."
Banned South Park Episode Screened in Hong Kong Streets
As political tensions between Hong Kong protesters and the Chinese government grow, the animated comedy South Park once again finds itself at the heart of the conflict.
In the wake of reports that China has outright banned all South Park content from the Internet, protesters have found other ways of disseminating the episode "Band in China." As spotted by The Hollywood Reporter, protesters in Hong Kong's Sham Shui Po district screened the episode to an impromptu but very appreciative crowd.
PS4 Is In the Endgame Now
Welcome back to Game Scoop!, IGN's weekly video game podcast. This week we're talking PlayStation 5, Doom Eternal, Concrete Genie, and more. Watch the video above or hit the link below to your favorite podcast service.
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The 5 Best Versions of Joker in Video Games, Ranked
Batman’s arch-nemesis, The Joker, has been depicted in numerous forms of media since his introduction in the original Batman #1 comic in 1940. In addition to the comics, Joker has appeared in movies -including the most recent Joaquin Phoenix film - and many animated and live-action TV series. While there are some iconic versions of the Clown Prince of Crime throughout the gaming pantheon, some of them have gotten much bigger laughs than others. Here are the five best versions of Joker throughout the years in video games.
H. Jon Benjamin Talks Being the Worst Starfleet Officer Ever
Full spoilers follow for the latest Star Trek: Short Treks episode, “The Trouble With Edward.”
While Starfleet is typically depicted as having only the best people among its ranks, occasionally a dud creeps in. In the original Star Trek series this was usually some captain or admiral who had turned bad. In the Next Generation, Reginald Barclay was introduced, the most inept whoever stepped among Starfleet’s finest. But whereas Reg got a chance to redeem himself over multiple episodes and years, H. Jon Benjamin’s character in the new Short Trek “The Trouble With Edward” will seemingly never have that opportunity. And judging by the events of the short, he probably doesn’t deserve it either.
League of Legends Esports Players Asked to Not Discuss Sensitive Topics On Air
Following a recent controversy where Blizzard banned a professional Hearthstone player for a year and stripped him of his prize money for supporting the protests in Hong Kong on a live interview, Riot Games’ esports head has asked its players casters to refrain from discussing “sensitive topics” on air.
In a statement published on League of Legends’ official esports Twitter account, Riot’s global head of League of Legends esports John Needham issued a long statement on expected player conduct ahead of the League of Legends World Championship Group stage.