Myself and a grip of Post colleagues spoke to students at the gorgeous Duke Ellington School of the Arts, Dave Chappelle’s alma mater. teaching students filled us all with a reinvigorating spirit for our own craft. they inspired us.
If you’ve ever wanted an interactive John Hughes movie, “Mixtape” arrived this week as the perfect answer.
Developed by the small Melbourne-based team Beethoven & Dinosaur, “Mixtape” is a $20, three-hour interactive experience that repackages classic Hughes coming-of-age beats into short bursts of minigames and visual storytelling.
Released on PC, Xbox, PlayStation 5 and Nintendo Switch 2, it leans hard into late-’80s and ’90s nostalgia, following 17-year-old Stacey Rockford on her last day in 1999 before leaving for a New York university. She’s obsessed with music, a walking encyclopedia of trivia spanning post-punk to Roxy Music. We all know someone like that. I used to be someone like that.
That’s roughly where my connection to this era ends, which is strange considering I graduated the same year as Stacey, writes The Post’s @genepark . But I grew up in Guam, in a majority Brown community, and the John Hughes universe was alien to me.
That isn’t to say “Mixtape” doesn’t land. It’s a meditation on the transience of life, on cherishing every moment and every connection. The writing explicitly asks us to leave nothing unsaid — a simple reminder, but a vital one.
Read the full review at the link in our bio.
i was honored to have been a guest of the great Reggie Fils-Aime, the legendary former president of Nintendo America. He was inducted into the Consumer Tech Hall of Fame here in DC. I also met with another hero @alexisohanian who cofounded reddit and thus helped me become an award winning social media journalist.
“The Super Mario Galaxy Movie,” which hit theaters Wednesday, is expected to be one of the biggest box office hits of the year. Because, Mario, The Post’s @genepark writes.
The sequel, featuring Brie Larson and Donald Glover, continues the beloved franchise's legacy with familiar characters and slapstick comedy.
Mysterious new space princess Rosalina (Brie Larson) is kidnapped. Anya Taylor-Joy’s Princess Peach, sensing a connection with Rosalina, sets off to attempt a rescue, while the Mario brothers follow and tag along, hopping across planets to justify the “Galaxy” moniker. Yoshi, the cute green dinosaur that helped launch the Super Nintendo in 1991, is voiced by Donald Glover.
Despite its blockbuster success, the film's fast pace and excessive dialogue overshadow its potential for emotional depth, according to The Post’s culture critic Gene Park. The movie pays homage to gaming's visual language but misses opportunities for stronger character relationships.
Read the full review by tapping the link in @poststyle ’s bio.
In 2023, I reviewed the Xbox-published game “Starfield” and gave it 4/4 stars, The Post’s @genepark writes. It somehow became my most controversial review, in part because its critics deemed the game “outdated” and dull.
More than two years later, I’m here to double down on my love for this game. I think it’s a misunderstood experience. But I’m not going to blame players for that misunderstanding.
The game drew an audience of 15 million by 2024, but it hasn’t approached the cultural footprint of Bethesda Game Studios’ past work. Now “Starfield” is preparing for its largest update yet, bringing new story content, expanded space travel systems and an April 7 release on PlayStation 5.
Cozy games are usually defined as games with low stakes and routine activities like farming, decorating and collecting with no “endgame” mission, just an overall imperative to live well in a game’s world. “Animal Crossing” and “Stardew Valley” are the two most prominent games in this genre.
For me “Starfield” was “Animal Crossing” in orbit as I hunted various galaxies for out-of-print books to line the shelves in my recreation room on a planet called Leviathan IV, Park writes. I installed user-generated modifications to create space stations complete with guest suites and a hydroponic indoor garden.
Read the full analysis by tapping the link in our bio.
“Resident Evil Requiem,” the ninth chapter in a series now celebrating 30 years, is easily the most confident entry in the last decade. I should know, I’ve finished this thing nine times like it’s a peer-reviewed study and I’m up for tenure, writes The Post’s @genepark .
It doesn’t mean the game is an unassailable masterpiece. Like much of the series, it loses its footing in the back half, while its opening stretch does the heavy lifting and lingers longest in memory.
Released last month on PC and console platforms including the Nintendo Switch 2, “Requiem” is the continuation of the longest-running horror series in video games. “Resident Evil” occupies a unique space in pop culture.
Read more at the link in @poststyle ’s bio.
