Despite its appearance as just another arcady sandbox game, Deliver At All Costs is shockingly story-minded. So much so, that its constant focus on narrative might deter those just looking for some dumb fun. And after seeing the narrative through to the end, I wouldn’t blame them, given how hard the game tries to be a grand tapestry of storytelling excellence. The adventure is structured into three acts, each with a unique town to explore and complete missions in. One act even features a time skip accompanied by a moment of no return. So even if you just want to ignore story and focus on acing deliveries and causing mayhem in the streets, you still have to go through some cutscenes and narrative progression to unlock the next towns and side missions.   "The majority of the side content in Deliver At All Costs isn’t very enticing." Not that the side missions are worth doing anyway. The majority of side content in Deliver At All Costs isn’t very enticing. The rewards aren’t worth it and the fetch quest design doesn’t warrant the effort. I’d only recommend going out of your way for the side content if you’re already keen on exploring the various maps. The treasure chests and small boxes hidden throughout the game give cash that is used on materials for vehicle upgrades; however, a majority of upgrades can be purchased from the main story mission rewards anyway. I expected to have fun with the vehicle upgrades, but ended up sorely disappointed in their limited application. This is because upgrades cannot be used outside of curated story missions; bummer. Not that the crane attachment or extreme hauling capacity upgrade aren’t fun to play with; they are rather fun, but exclusively used for their particular missions. Again, if you’re expected a zany vehicular sandbox with a lot of options and unlockables, Deliver At All Costs isn’t that. The reason I keep associating the game with sandbox playability is due to its map design. It has an old-school 2D Grand Theft Auto style of isometric driving. In between story missions, you’re given the leisure to roam around town freely. All of your driving and running around is done through a top-down isometric camera angle that gives the environments a nice diorama look to them, and what’s more, you can move the camera between two different angles in case it’s difficult to see something. "Speaking of scenery, there’s a surprising amount of activity going on while you’re driving around delivering stuff." All the unique shops and landmarks of this diorama give off a classic vibe well. Oh, and the soundtrack fits the setting wonderfully. Lounge jazz and instrumental surfer rock accompany your deliveries, and it rarely gets repetitive. Tying it into GTA even more is the radio, with infrequent broadcasts that add flavor lore to the setting. Each town has multiple districts, each with their own theme, which helps vary up the scenery just that much more. Speaking of scenery, there’s a surprising amount of activity going on while you’re driving around delivering stuff. NPCs go about their business, birds glide across the sky, and plenty of vehicle traffic accompany the streets. In fact, there’s often a tad too much activity. Streets are so packed with cars and people that collisions are unavoidable. "NPCs roam the streets and become aggressive when threatened." I like how populated the game is, but it’s tuned a bit too high, getting in the way of enjoyability a lot of the time. Perhaps, it would have been better balanced to up the street traffic the further you get into the game, especially since the towns progress from rural to metropolitan through the course of the narrative. At the very least, there’s an attractive mini-map with well designed labels and indicators. Navigation is aided with helpful arrows showing the way to a mission destination too. But you aren’t merely delivering parcels to a destination in a given time limit; there’s a variety of ways the game mixes up its missions. Part of the game’s initial draw is its physics-based driving, which manifests in hilarious ways. One of the first missions tasks you with delivering a truck full of rotted watermelons. The first step is to bring them to a sanitizer, then you paint them so they look presentable, all while avoiding traffic and trying not to knock them over as they roll around in the back of the truck. It’s one of the enjoyable missions in the game, and one that demonstrates the physics gameplay best. I like how the missions get progressively more wacky and clever as you progress too. You even become a UFO hunter during one late-game job. It’s just too bad the very high traffic and wonky controls hamper the overall experience. "I like how the missions get progressively more wacky and clever as you progress." The driving controls are rather simple. Just aim in the direction you want to drive and hold the accelerate button. It’s the high sensitivity of the acceleration and the hard braking and turning that contribute to a somewhat frustrating experience. The high traffic just further compounds the controls to make for a somewhat clunky driving experience. Vehicles don’t differ in how they drive either, though you really only have the one truck for a large majority of the game anyway, so it doesn’t really make a difference. And the cars aren’t great to look at either. Heck, nothing looks particularly nice in the game, especially the characters. Facial animations are frankly bad and the bland art style doesn’t make up for the graphical shortcomings. What’s worse is there’s still some pretty substantial load times in-between regions, which hurts the flow of the open-world. But the element that gets hurt from graphics the most is the mixed story. It’s hard to take the drama seriously when its presented so poorly. There’s an attempt at cinematic camera angles during cutscenes, but textures are featureless and close-ups of people’s faces are serious PS1 quality stuff. Thankfully, a handful of characters are quite likable despite what their low poly models suggest. Winston’s delivery mates have surprising depth and a good amount of backstory. And Winston himself is a fully fledged personality and someone you can imagine working with. "Winston’s delivery mates have surprising depth and a good amount of backstory." Characters like Norman are instantly likeable while Winston’s arch-nemesis and hardline boss, Donovon, is perfectly punchable. I’m also impressed with a majority of the dialogue writing. Characters speak with a down-to-earth tone and level of informality that makes them realistic, even if they look like untextured Unity assets. Going back to where I started the review, the game goes surprisingly hard on the story axis, but it doesn’t fully land for me. The wacky yet earnest tone is great, but the execution of the plot doesn’t wrap up in a satisfying way. Winston’s mysterious past and the true motives of the delivery company’s executives had so much potential for an intriguing narrative thread. But alas, the finale just kinda falls flat without the payoff that the game was teasing. "The game goes surprisingly hard on the story front, but it didn’t fully land for me." As a whole, Delivery At All Costs delivers a zany and fun, though frustrating, isometric delivery experience with a story that tries a bit too hard. I can easily see this game being a cult classic, but for a majority of gamers, it won’t deliver a truly stunning experience. If you’re looking for a game with a wacky and inventive premise that experiments a bit, and don’t mind gameplay and graphics from three generations ago, give Deliver At All Costs a try and it might just deliver. This game was reviewed on the PlayStation 5.

Warning: contains spoilers for Doctor Who episode “The Reality War.” In Doctor Who’s frankly mind-boggling season finale, the Doctor’s epic battle with the two Ranis, Omega, Conrad and a herd of skyscraper-sized bone creatures ultimately comes down to the restoration of a single life – and will require a sacrifice nobody expected. Spoilers ahead. It’s honestly difficult to know where to start with this episode. There are so many potential jumping-off points for discussion – though, somewhat tellingly, very few of them relate to the actual story that kicked off in earnest last week, which the episode itself seems positively impatient to get out of the way. It takes about 15 minutes for the Doctor to stop hugging every member of the extended supporting cast so the titular war can kick off, then by the halfway mark it’s over. Audacious? Yes, though that’s not to say it actually works. Do we start with Billie Piper? Or the unexpected and quite charming Jodie Whittaker cameo? Or the fact that they somehow snuck Ncuti Gatwa’s regeneration onto the screen without anybody knowing? No, because this season didn’t start with Billie Piper, or Jodie Whittaker, or the Rani, or Ruby Sunday. It didn’t even start with the Doctor. It started with Belinda Chandra. A character with so much potential – compassionate, uncertain, a little bit spiky, competent in a new and interesting way, compellingly distrustful of the Doctor. Potential that has, at this point, been mostly wasted. There is a point in “The Reality War” where Belinda basically tells the Doctor “OK I think I’m done contributing to this episode, good luck tho” and is left holding the baby in a soundproofed box where she can neither affect or be affected by the story happening outside. We even have an unintentionally comical cut back to her standing in there, doing nothing, saying nothing. It’s hard to think of a more literal way to sideline a key player. This is the co-lead of the show! The companion! And instead of having any real agency, instead of contributing to the plot in any meaningful way whatsoever, she functionally stops existing as a narrative presence. She doesn’t even get to go with the Doctor when he rushes off to save what turns out to be her child. And for what? So that the companion who supposedly left the show last season can have all the big dramatic moments instead? There were no advanced screeners available for this episode – given what happens at the end, it’s easy to see what they were scared might leak – so I’m writing with less distance than usual, reacting fairly rapidly to a first watch. But even with several days to digest, it’s difficult to imagine feeling anything other than bafflement at this storytelling choice. This is what Belinda’s whole story arc was leading to? This is the big twist? It’s truly one of the most bewildering decisions that Russell T Davies has made. It already kind of felt like he’d run out of meaningful stuff for Belinda to do after “The Well”, and there have been plenty of complaints about her sidelining in “Wish World”, but nobody could have predicted this. Sorry Belinda. And sorry Varada Sethu. You both deserved better. Now to Ncuti Gatwa. It’s pointless getting into behind-the-scenes gossip, or speculating on the actor’s motivations – if he only ever wanted to do two seasons, of course that’s his choice. But what are we to take away from his brief tenure in storytelling and character terms? A Doctor defined by his joy, his exuberance, his love for people (frustratingly, a point this episode hammers until it becomes tedious). A smile as powerful as a billion supernovas. A killer wardrobe. Even in lesser episodes, Gatwa’s energy has carried us along, infectious and delightful. It’s a genuine shock and a shame to see him go. Join our mailing list Get the best of Den of Geek delivered right to your inbox! Not least because, as with Belinda, it feels like his Doctor had unfulfilled potential. Was this episode truly a satisfying conclusion to Fifteen’s story? He gets plenty of good moments, big and small, and of course he plays the hell out of all of them. You could argue that sacrificing their life to save one child is about the most Doctor-ish thing possible. I wouldn’t necessarily argue with you. But that’s broad strokes stuff, generally applicable to any incarnation. What about this Doctor makes this specific set of circumstances a fitting send-off? Is it satisfying for this Doctor, a Doctor representing a particular streak of joyful hedonism, a Doctor who releases UNIT from their stifling roles in Conrad’s reactionary wish world via an explicit and triumphant assertion of his queerness, to go out in this way, for these reasons? It just doesn’t feel like that’s what these past two seasons – the bi-generation, his relationship with Rogue, his torturing of Kid, the seemingly forgotten Susan stuff – have been leading to. It’s a shame that the episode also feels so messy on a minute-to-minute level. There are individually effective moments – Dark Souls boss Omega is a fantastic visual, and him casually munching The Rani is enjoyably WTF (though I can’t help wishing they’d offed the other one and kept Archie Panjabi around). The moment with the Doctor and Belinda passing Poppy’s jacket back and forth and folding it until it vanishes is kind of jaw-dropping in how understated and upsetting it is. Anita’s first joke about being in hospitality is funny (the second and third iterations not so much). Millie Gibson does a great job, even if it feels like a misstep to give Ruby so much heavy lifting to do instead of Belinda. But the whole thing feels so all over the place that not even Gatwa’s megastar energy can hold it together. And now he’s gone, regenerated into Billie Piper. At this point, we have no idea when the show will be back. It’s impossible to know where this is going. And it’s hard not to feel torn – on the one hand, Billie Piper is a fantastic actor, and it’s fascinating to consider what her take on the role will be (though it should be noted that the credits pointedly don’t say “Billie Piper as The Doctor”, whatever that could mean). On the other hand, didn’t we just do this? We had the second Tennant Doctor, it was a lovely gift for fans that wrapped up some loose ends and gave everyone a big warm glow for the anniversary, and then we flew off with Ncuti Gatwa, an actor who couldn’t have screamed more loudly that things were going to be different. But now we’re looking backwards again. And as fun a surprise as Piper’s appearance is, as fully as she will no doubt own the role… it feels like another retrograde move. It’s Doctor Who celebrating itself, getting lost in its own mythos, turning inward. And so we end this oh-so promising season in a strange, unsettling place. An episode that doesn’t really seem to care that much about the story it claimed to be telling, which makes discussing it seem weirdly beside the point. A show in limbo. A whole incarnation of the Doctor gone, when we’d barely started to get to know him. A promising companion wasted. A showrunner everyone expected to be a safe pair of hands making some utterly confounding choices. Where do we go from here? Doctor Who series 15 is available to stream now on BBC iPlayer in the UK and on Disney+ around the world.

A nearly year-old Facebook event for a "simple maths competition" has been one of the most viral posts on the platform for six months. The "event" racked up about 51 million views on Facebook during the first quarter of 2025, according to the company's latest report on "widely viewed content" on the platform. That would be an impressive stat for any single post, but it's the second quarter in a row in which the "maths competition" has nabbed the number two spot on Meta's list of widely viewed content. It also appeared on last quarter's report, during which time it received about 64.3 million views, according to an archived version of the report. So why is a random Facebook event that's not really an event getting more than 100 million views? It would seem to be a repackaging of an old engagement bait tactic. The header image for the event is an image of a piece of paper with the words "only for genius" followed by a seemingly simple equation. When shared as a Facebook post, the image is prominently displayed in a way that may look like a normal image post. The image also has some striking similarities to other seemingly simple math equations that have been going viral on Facebook for nearly 15 years. A look at the event page itself shows that hundreds of thousands of people have engaged with the event. More than 800,000 people responded to the supposed July 8, 2024 event. Even now, nearly a year later, the event is seeing regular comments from Facebook users — most of whom are intent on earnestly explaining how the equation should be solved (or arguing with others' interpretation). As Slate noted back in 2013, there's something irresistible about arguing basic arithmetic with strangers on the internet. What is a bit of a mystery is why this post has gone so viral months after it was originally posted. I reached out to the account behind the post, a Nigerian-based creator named Ebuka Peter Ibeh and didn't immediately hear back. The post seems to be far more successful than any other recent posts from Ibeh, who has about 25,000 Facebook followers. In any case, the post offers an interesting window into the kinds of bizarre content and questionable tactics that still regularly goes mega-viral on Facebook. Meta recently said it would crack down on creators sharing spammy posts on Facebook, though it's unclear if this type of engagement bait would fall under the category of content it's explicitly trying to discourage.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/social-media/a-fake-facebook-event-disguised-as-a-math-problem-has-been-one-of-its-top-posts-for-6-months-231852601.html?src=rss

Yakuza 0 Director’s Cut, coming to the Nintendo Switch 2 alongside the console’s launch on June 5, will feature a host of new content. In a new video, voice actors from the game Takaya Kuroda (Kazuma Kiryu), Hidenari Ugaki (Goro Majima), Kazuhiro Nakaya (Akira Nishikiyama), and Hitoshi Ozawa (Daisaku Kuze) spoke about how the extra cutscenes in the Director’s Cut feel “refreshing” and bring “closure” to a few of the characters, according to Automaton Media. Ugaki, speaking about some of the new scenes, spoke about how the new cutscenes portrayed to him “how dearly Majima holds Makoto and how much he wants to protect her.” For context, a lot of Majima’s story throughout Yakuza 0 revolves around him trying to figure out why Makoto is in danger from the various yakuza families. Ugaki said that the new cutscenes from the Director’s Cut go further in exploring the relationship between Majima and Makoto. Ozawa similarly spoke about how the new scenes added to the game further explore the relationship between Kiryu and Kuze. “There are things Yakuza 0 mentioned but didn’t delve into very deeply – Kuze’s new lines gave me a sense of Oh, so that’s how things are between them,” he said. Kuze acts as an antagonist force for Kiryu throughout much of this storyline, which largely revolves around Kiryu trying to figure out the importance behind a vacant plot of land in Kamurocho. The new scenes in Yakuza 0 Director’s Cut also likely offer a better transition from the title’s end to the start of the next game in the timeline – Yakuza/Yakuza Kiwami. Whereas the story in Yakuza 0 primarily takes place in 1988, the next game in the timeline fast forwards to 1995, before then starting its story in earnest in the year 2005. Since Yakuza 0 is a prequel, it also gives us a lot more characterisation for several members of the game’s cast, including protagonist Kazuma Kiryu, as well as others like Akira Nishikiyama and Goro Majima. Alongside additions to the story through new cutscenes, Yakuza 0 Director’s Cut will also feature a new multiplayer mode dubbed Red Light Raid. The new mode allows players to take on waves of enemies after picking their character of choice from a vast roster that covers essentially the entirety of Yakuza 0. New trailers for Yakuza 0 Director’s Cut were released earlier this month, showcasing the new english voice acting – featuring Yong Yea as Kiryu and Matthew Mercer as Majima – as well as giving us a look at the main opening theme for the game. Check them out. Yakuza 0 was originally released back in 2015, and focuses on telling us two main stories: how Kiryu became known as the Dragon of Dojima, and how Majima because known as the Mad Dog of Shimano. Both stories also intersect at various points, with both Kiryu and Majima trying to figure out the secrets behind seemingly-mundane things, like a vacant plot of land and a blind girl. The most recent game in the franchise was Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii.

The Last of Us season two wraps with episode seven, but was it a satisfying finale? Fun-gal and games. Image credit: HBO Feature by Victoria Phillips Kennedy News Reporter Published on May 26, 2025 The Last of Us' second season has now come to an end, with a gritty episode which delved further into the themes of grief and revenge. Please note, there will be spoilers for The Last of Us - both the show and the game - below. Image credit: HBO I never thought this last episode of The Last of Us season two was going to be easy to pull off. The showrunners delivered a moving episode last week, which, while a great watch, staggered the current day's momentum. And, unfortunately, I don't feel the series gained enough of that momentum back in season two's seventh episode to make for a truly great finale. The finale is not quite 50 minutes long, picking up after the main events of episode five. Jesse is with a wounded Dina in the theatre, where he proceeds to remove the arrow from her leg. Dina tells him she can't die, and also refuses to drink any alcohol, rousing his suspicions that there is something more she isn't telling him. A short time later, Ellie arrives back at the theatre, following her confrontation with Nora. It is clear that this Ellie is a very different person from the Ellie we saw in season one, who after beating David to death was unable to contain her emotions despite her actions in that moment saving her life. She was distressed, crying and shaking. After Ellie beats Nora in Seattle, though, she is almost numb. She does not lash out, but rather stares vacantly as Dina tends to her wounds, calmly saying how she made Nora talk. The Ellie we once knew is fading away. Image credit: HBO The dynamic between Ellie, Dina, and Jesse during the season two finale is a high point of the episode. The three young actors each show an earnestness in their performances. When Ellie tells Isabela Merced's Dina what Joel did at the Firefly hospital, Dina firmly says they need to leave Seattle. They need to go home (this does water down her speach about revenge from earlier in the season, though, it has to be said). Young Mazino's Jesse, meanwhile, serves as the level-headed, parental voice of reason, taking on a role well beyond his years as he rallies the team to find Tommy before they leave Seattle. Lastly, Bella Ramsey continues to deliver a tenacious performance as Ellie. I particularly liked the scene between Ellie and Jesse in the bookshop. Here, Jesse admits that he not only once considered leaving Jackson to be with a woman he had fallen in love with, but that he had voted not to go after Abby during the council meeting several episodes earlier. Jesse does not patronise Ellie here. Instead, he is calm and collected. He explains his reasons, stating that Jackson's community is what's important to him. He acts for the greater good, even if that means sacrificing his personal happiness. He is a natural and capable leader, something that highlights Ellie's increasingly warped sense of reality and scrappiness. Unfortunately though, Jesse's sound words are not enough to get through to Ellie, who sees an opportunity to find Abby, and takes it, even though she promised to go home. And, from here on, the season finale begins to struggle. Image credit: HBO Ellie separates from Dina and Jesse to find Abby, and on her way comes across Seraphites, as well as Mel and Owen. But, while these scenes do pack a punch - seeing Ellie getting hoisted by the neck by the Seraphites is certainly not an easy watch - they don't get enough time to stand on their own and really make an impact on the viewer. The confrontation with the Serphites in the woods is a footnote on Ellie's way to the aquarium. Did it really need to be there? For Ellie's story, I really don't think it did. I appreciate there is the war between the WLF and the Serpaphites ticking along in the background of this episode, but I have played the games. I know what the showrunners are building up to with the WLF and the Seraphites in the background, but if someone doesn't know the source material already, I wonder if these moments - including the one between Isaac and Park at a WLF camp - may fall a little flat due to their lack of clear direction. The Last of Us season two's finale teased events beyond Ellie and Dina, but given viewers will have to wait (potentially) a couple of years to find out what these story scraps all mean, are they actually worth it? | Image credit: HBO Then there is that confrontation between Ellie, Mel and Owen. I say confrontation, but actually the show changes some narrative points here, and I think this is to the detriment of the story. In the show, Ellie shoots Owen in the throat, killing him. Meanwhile, a rogue piece of detritus from the shot lodges itself in Mel's neck, wounding her enough that her death is inevitable. So, Mel's death was accidental. I don't think it should have been. In the game, Ellie knows what she is doing as she kills Mel, and I wish the series had committed to making Ellie's killing spree, which continues to show her downward spiral on her quest for revenge, intentional. I will say this, though. The moment it is revealed that Mel is pregnant is certainly a harrowing one, and Ariela Barer does a brilliant job bringing emotion to Mel's death as she reaches out to Ellie in a bid to save her unborn child. I wish Ellie had been stronger here. Ellie is clearly upset by the accident which led to Mel's death, and is deeply affected at the realisation that Mel is pregnant. Of course, it reflects Dina's pregnancy. And yet, when in her dying moments Mel asks Ellie if her baby is OK, Ellie can't even muster a small lie to ease her passing. She just stays silent. Changes like making Mel's death accidental dilute the impact of The Last of Us Part 2's story. I feel the show made Ellie seem quite infantile here, when really by this moment in the game we are starting to see the real darkness in Ellie, which makes the player further question if her bloody quest for revenge is actually justifiable any more. Meanwhile, although I can not fault the actors who continue to deliver some truly outstanding performances, any impact this moment may have had on viewers is over too quickly. Jesse and Tommy arrive to see Ellie looking distressed, and swiftly remove both her and, by extension, the viewers from the scene. It's uncomfortable, but it would have benefited the story to let us all sit in that moment for longer, to allow the reality of it all to nestle in. Image credit: HBO The rest of the episode continues to happen at breakneck speed, and while she doesn't get much screen time, Kaitlyn Dever steals the scene with Abby's return, making a big impression very quickly. Prior to the season two's debut, there was much chatter about Dever being physically very different from her in-game counterpart. But, while smaller in build, there is no doubting Abby's capabilities in the show. She means business, and while Ellie's kills have often been messy and lacking finesse, it is clear Abby has military training and a steady resolve. The show ends with a cliffhanger, with Jesse dead Abby shoots at Ellie before we cut back to Abby at the WLF base in Seattle. "Day One," the screen teases. Now, we are going to hear Abby's side of the story. It is an interesting set up, for sure. But, again, I worry how those who have not played the games will feel about season two ending this way. Has the show done enough to pull viewers back for season three, which is still potentially several years away, where the focus will be on a character we have actually spent very little time with? Image credit: HBO The second season of The Last of Us has been uneven. There is no doubting the production value behind the season, and the actors have all done a phenomenal job bringing Naughty Dog's characters to life for TV. Merced's Dina has been a particular highlight this season and, along with Mazino, has been a brilliant addition to the cast. But, despite these great performances, the story has felt both too slow and too rushed. Episodes such as the series' second instalment offered plenty of action, but then episodes such as the fifth and today's finale felt more like a patchwork of convenient and sometimes rather dull moments, all dashing to an all-too-quick conclusion. Spores, for example, only showed up once to serve Nora's death. It would have been good to have seen them at least one more during the season to make their introduction feel less contrived. Image credit: HBO Saying that, though, I am genuinely looking forward to season three, which was confirmed earlier this year. Showrunners Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann have an interesting journey ahead of them, and I am curious to see how they will continue to evolve and adapt The Last of Us Part 2 for TV. Before I go, I will give season two credit for something extra, though - I am so glad we didn't have to see Ellie kill a dog (also, thank you Jesse for confirming Shimmer is actually OK, despite seemingly being forgotten about Ellie and Dina). She lives! | Image credit: HBO And with that, that's a wrap on The Last of Us season two. Thank you for joining me each week to discuss the episodes as they happen. Until next time, keep looking for the light!

The Mission: Impossible franchise is built on intense Tom Cruise stares, convoluted plot twists and reveals, and incredible stunts. It is not, however, built on compelling stories. Most of the Mission movies are about rogue agents and ill-defined MacGuffins, a repetition that would be annoying if anyone cared about the plots. However, lack of plot clarity does not equate to lack of tension. Most of the movies feature excellent villains who make life difficult for Cruise’s Ethan Hunt and force him to do incredible feats, resulting in the stunts we all love so much. So as the franchise winds down (maybe) with Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning, let’s take a look at the best of the worst: the villains who literally drove Ethan Hunt up a wall or into a giant turbine or hanging from a biplane. Point of clarity, first. While the series does have some fun henchmen like Paris (Pom Klementieff) and some stories have shadowy baddies pulling the strings, such as duplicitous IMF director John Musgrave (Billy Crudup) or the Entity, we’re just looking at main bad guys here, the people who dare to match wills with Ethan Hunt. 7. Sean Ambrose (Mission: Impossible II) Mission: Impossible II almost killed the franchise in its infancy. It seemed like a good idea to bring on director John Woo, a Hong Kong auteur with just as much style as the first film’s director, Brian De Palma. Furthermore, Woo and screenwriter Robert Towne (a Hollywood legend who co-wrote the first movie) base their story on the Alfred Hitchcock movie Notorious, casting Thandiwe Newton in place of Ingrid Bergman as the untrustworthy spy who captures our hero’s heart. The combination proved disastrous. Woo’s melodramatic method clashed with underdeveloped characterizations, a problem particularly clear with M:I2‘s central antagonist, former IMF agent Sean Ambrose, played by Dougray Scott. The legend of how Scott, the first person cast to play Wolverine in 2000’s X-Men, lost the role because of an on-set injury has been told time and again, overshadowing the worse insult, that he’s quite badly used in this movie. Ambrose is intended to be Hunt’s dark double, so much so that he begins the film masquerading as Cruise’s character. But he never has the intensity nor the charisma of his enemy, too often coming off as a sulking man-child than anyone who could threaten Hunt, let alone the world. 6. Kurt Hendricks (Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol) Kurt Hendricks, aka Cobalt, is so much better in conception than in execution. Played by Swedish actor Michael Nyqvist, Hendricks is exactly the type of antagonist who should challenge Ethan Hunt. A true believer in a nihilistic ideology, Hendricks wants to spark a nuclear war between the U.S. and Russia. That extremist belief gives the IMF no choice but to engage in the sort of over-the-top action that makes the franchise so special. The threat posed by Hendricks might send Ethan scaling the Birge Kalifa, but as a person, he’s a nothing onscreen. Nyqvist knows how to play menace, as demonstrated in his many genre roles in his native Sweden, or in American movies like John Wick, but he has nothing to do here but glower. Worse, he’s overshadowed by his minion Sabine (Léa Seydoux), whose personal connection to Hunt’s colleague Jane Carter (Paula Patton) gives her an edge that Hendricks never achieves. The main antagonist of Dead Reckoning and The Final Reckoning, the agent known only as Gabriel (Esai Morales) is set up as Ethan Hunt’s greatest foil. Not only does he apparently have espionage skills even greater than those of our hero, but he was directly responsible for Ethan joining IMF. We learn that Gabriel killed Ethan’s girlfriend Marie and framed him for the murder, which put him on the IMF’s radar. Worse still, Gabriel resurfaces as an acolyte of the all-powerful AI known as the Entity, giving him a driving ethos to match Ethan’s desire to save everyone. On paper there’s nothing wrong with this characterization. In practice it stinks. Dead Reckoning and especially The Final Reckoning suffer from a self-mythologizing that keeps dragging the movie back into the past instead of charging forward, and Gabriel embodies that backwards impulse. Gabriel is given some big moments of evil, directly killing fan favorites Ilsa Faust (Rebecca Ferguson) and Luther Stickell (Ving Rhames), and Morales has fun playing up the villain role, but Gabriel’s worst sin is boring the audience. 4. Jim Phelps (Mission: Impossible) Before we get further, we must be clear: Jim Phelps is a good villain. The fact that he ranks so low here is a testament to the strength of the other baddies, not a knock against Jim. One of the main protagonists of the original 1960s television series (albeit portrayed by Peter Graves instead of Jon Voight), Jim Phelps makes Mission: Impossible into a legacy sequel, connecting the classic series to a new set of heroes. However, Mission: Impossible has a bravery that most legacy sequels lack, turning the former hero into the new villain. Phelps initially seems to die in the attack that takes out most of Hunt’s team at the start of the movie, during a mission that IMF boss Kitteridge later reveals to be a “mole hunt.” However, Phelps returns late in the film as first Ethan’s ally and then his enemy, the true traitor that Kitteridge seeks. Voight brings plenty of gravitas to the role, but he struggles a bit with the stunts at the end—despite the fact that he was 57 when the movie was shot, a year younger than Cruise was when filming on Dead Reckoning began. 3. August Walker (Mission: Impossible – Fallout) Going into Fallout, the buzz was all about the mustache that Henry Cavill grew for the movie. Because he could/would not shave the facial hair for reshoots on Justice League, that movie’s director Joss Whedon had to digitally remove the ‘stache from Cavill’s face, resulting in an infamously absurd looking Superman. It seemed like a petty move at the time, but once we all saw Fallout, we got it. The mustache looks amazing and deserves to stay. Join our mailing list Get the best of Den of Geek delivered right to your inbox! The mustache is important because it sums up Cavill’s character August Walker. Described as a “blunt instrument” assigned to work with (read: spy on) Hunt for CIA Director Erika Sloane (Angela Bassett), Walker proves to be a force of nature who is just as destructive as our hero. Even before he’s revealed to be the malevolent John Lark, the man who the IMF sought in Rogue Nation, Walker proves a credible threat to Ethan. He’s ready to pummel our hero to death at any second—and he looks great doing it. 2. Owen Davian (Mission: Impossible III) For all of the death-defying derring-do in the Mission: Impossible franchise, it’s notable that the scariest moment comes not during one of Ethan Hunt’s feats, but in a line of dialogue. When arms dealer Owen Davian wakes up to discover he’s been captured by IMF, he ignores Ethan’s questions and blithely asks some of his own: “Do you have a wife, a girlfriend? Because you know what I’m gonna do next? I’m gonna find her… and I’m gonna hurt her.” It’s not so much the specific words that Davian says that send a chill down the spine. It’s the way that they’re delivered, completely without passion. Of course Davian is played by Philip Seymour Hoffman, one of the greatest actors of his generation. Hoffman’s ability to play cool and controlled (and, in one memorable scene, play the ever-energetic Ethan Hunt disguised as Davian) elevates the otherwise mundane J.J. Abrams-directed third film. In fact, Hoffman brings so much to the part that it’s hard to notice how bland the writing of Davian is, a demerit that knocks him to second place despite the utterly mesmerizing performance. 1. Solomon Lane (Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation) Owen Davian may talk about killing Ethan’s loved ones, but Solomon Lane actually almost did it. The pure sorrow and terror on sweet Benji’s face when he reveals the bomb strapped to his chest tells us more about Lane’s capacity for evil than any of Davian’s monologues could do. In fact, Lane encapsulates everything about the franchise’s past baddies, perfecting everything they tried to do. He has Davian’s quiet menace, the espionage skills of Gabriel and Ambrose, and he has the twisted worldview of Hendricks. By the time he sends a bomb to the worksite of Ethan’s estranged wife Julia Meade (Michelle Monaghan) out of pure pettiness, Lane even develops a personal animosity like Phelps. Much of the credit goes to Sean Harris, who uses his raspy voice and dark eyes to enhance the malevolence. So much of the Mission: Impossible franchise rests on Cruise’s gift of being earnest on camera, looking out from the screen with yearning blue eyes and a furrowed brow to convince viewers that he can do whatever he intends to do. Harris’ eyes do the exact opposite. When he looks out from the screen, we see pools of blackness, drowning us in nothingness. If Hunt is, as IMF Director Alan Hunley (Alec Baldwin) memorably put it, “the living manifestation of destiny,” then Lane is truly the opposite; the living manifestation of nihilism.

Start SlideshowStart SlideshowDisney has enchanted us for decades with its resplendent animation and fantastical stories of princesses, wicked witches, and fire-breathing dragons, but music has always been its most indelible sprinkle of pixie dust. There are songs that move us, make us dance, and help us understand the characters that have already been so lovingly drawn. With over 350 songs in the Disney canon, it’s nearly impossible to narrow them down, but we’ve chosen the 23 in honor of the year 1923, when Walt Disney founded the company. These songs are the most magical and remind us why Disney has endured for over a century.Previous SlideNext Slide2 / 25List slides23. “Whistle While You Work” from Snow White and the Seven DwarfsList slides23. “Whistle While You Work” from Snow White and the Seven DwarfsWhistle While You Work - Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs Larry Morey and Frank Churchill’s merry tune about finding the joy in the most mundane of chores is quite simple, with only nine lines, yet incredibly catchy. Adriana Caselotti’s warbling, baby voice is fitting for this old-fashioned, operetta-style number and the entire sequence that features the big-eyed, adorable forest creatures helping her out. The squirrels sweep the dust with their tails, and the raccoons wash dirty clothes in a nearby watering hole to every sprightly beat. It’s difficult not to be beguiled by this little ditty, and you’ll find yourself humming it the next time you do your spring cleaning. Previous SlideNext Slide3 / 25List slides22. “The Family Madrigal” from EncantoList slides22. “The Family Madrigal” from EncantoStephanie Beatriz, Olga Merediz, Encanto - Cast - The Family Madrigal (From “Encanto”) Lin-Manuel Miranda’s fingerprints are all over modern Disney soundtracks. He is a master at crafting clever, fast-paced, and genre-blending earworms. The biggest ones to emerge from Encanto are “We Don’t Talk About Bruno” and “Surface Pressure,” where he blends classic Broadway stylings with punchier salsa and reggaeton genres. “The Family Madrigal” may not have reached the same level of pop culture infamy as the other songs in this film, but it’s a clever and economical way to introduce the Madrigal family and their powers. Stephanie Beatriz’s bubbly voice as Mirabel suits the song’s bouncy rhythm perfectly, while the Colombian folk instruments such as an accordion, caja vallenata, and guacharaca match the colorful energy of the magical town the Madrigals call home. Previous SlideNext Slide4 / 25List slides21.“Dig a Little Deeper” from Princess and the FrogList slides21.“Dig a Little Deeper” from Princess and the FrogDig a Little Deeper (From “The Princess and the Frog”/Sing-Along) Randy Newman’s toe-tapping blend of big-band swing and gospel choir refrains perfectly captures the vibrant soul of the New Orleans setting. The feisty Jennifer Lewis leads “Dig a Little Deeper” as Mama Odie, backed by the rousing Pinnacle Gospel Choir. The song’s brassy rhythms help Tiana let loose and Naveen to realize that he’s in love with her. The lessons Mama Odie imparts through the lyrics are wise and grounded: it doesn’t matter what you have or where you come from—that doesn’t define who you are. True fulfillment doesn’t come from material wealth, status, or outward appearances—it comes from understanding what you really want on the inside. The song crescendos with Anika Noni Rose’s powerful belt and the soulful shouts of Mama Odie’s bright flamingo chorus. Previous SlideNext Slide5 / 25List slides20. “I See the Light” from TangledList slides20. “I See the Light” from Tangled“I SEE THE LIGHT” | Tangled | Disney Animated HD The dreamy melody of “I See the Light” begins with a soft guitar. Glenn Slater and Alan Menken’s composition is fairly simple, allowing the glittering visuals to take center stage. The song takes place during the lighting ceremony that Rapunzel has yearned to visit after observing it from her tower for 18 years. Flynn and Rapunzel float on a gondola, surrounded by over 45,000 glowing lanterns floating in the air, dotting the sky and reflecting off the water that surrounds them. The characters sing the verses separately in their heads before their emotions burst, then they harmonize the chorus loudly, compelled by their realization that they’re in love. It’s a unique and touching way of framing a Disney love song. Previous SlideNext Slide6 / 25List slides19. “Friend Like Me” from AladdinList slides19. “Friend Like Me” from AladdinAladdin - Friend Like Me (HD 1080p) Howard Ashman’s playful lyrics and Alan Menken’s up-tempo, syncopated, vaudevillian song was the perfect musical playground for Robin Williams to fill with the zany impressions and quirky voices he was renowned for. A trumpet warbles in between one of the clever lyrics, sights and sounds so jam-packed with hilarity that you can barely stop to catch your breath. Robin Williams was so adept at improvisation that he had nearly an entire day’s worth of material. The animation is just as bonkers as his vocal performance, where Genie morphs into countless creatures—from a train whistle to a maître d’, a boxing trainer, a bunny, and a dragon. The Broadway-style showstopper culminates with a kick line under bright spotlights with monkeys, elephants, and dancing girls in crop tops and harem pants. “Friend Like Me” is a shining showcase for one of our finest comedic talents, the great Robin Williams. Previous SlideNext Slide7 / 25List slides18. “Baby Mine” from DumboList slides18. “Baby Mine” from DumboDisney’s “Dumbo” - Baby MineSongwriters Frank Churchill and Ned Washington are responsible for childhood traumas everywhere with “Baby Mine,” which takes place when Dumbo’s mother has been jailed as a “mad elephant” for fiercely protecting her son against his bullies. She reaches her trunk through the bars to cradle Dumbo to the soft, slumbering melody accompanied by haunting strings. Betty Noyes’ has that rich, rounded tone found in vintage singing, and it conveys Mrs. Jumbo’s maternal strength. The images of all the animals—zebras, tigers, monkeys, and even the underwater hippos—nestled in the love of their mothers, except for poor Dumbo, set against the song’s soothing orchestra, is absolutely heart wrenching. “Baby Mine” is the kind of song that inspires dreams of being comforted and cared for by a loving parental figure.Previous SlideNext Slide8 / 25List slides17. ”Once Upon a Dream” from Sleeping BeautyList slides17. ”Once Upon a Dream” from Sleeping BeautyOnce Upon A Dream | Sleeping Beauty Lyric Video | DISNEY SING-ALONGS Jack Lawrence and Sammy Fain craft a solo-turned-duet with a woozy, mysterious quality that perfectly complements the story of Sleeping Beauty. Mary Costa has such an elegant and operatic voice, with rich tones that make her sound far more mature than a 16-year-old girl. She’s soon joined by the strong, handsome voice of Prince Phillip, who appears unexpectedly in the forest. Their romance unfolds quickly, twirling together in the woods, surrounded by beautiful medieval-inspired, Gothic-Renaissance style visuals. The lilting orchestration and the grand choral ensemble add to the old-world mystique. The lyrics—of knowing someone before you truly know them, of seeing them in your dreams—add a tinge of mysterious excitement and mystical fate to their romance. Previous SlideNext Slide9 / 25List slides16. “Hellfire” from The Hunchback of Notre DameList slides16. “Hellfire” from The Hunchback of Notre DameHellfire - The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996) Alan Menken and Stephen Schwartz crafted one of Disney’s darkest songs. It’s hard to imagine Disney taking this type of creative risk again. “Hellfire” is sung by a corrupt priest consumed by lust for the Romani woman Esmeralda. The deep-voiced Tony Jay plays the dishonorable Frollo, who paints himself as a virtuous man—even though he killed Quasimodo’s mother and nearly killed Quasimodo. A true Catholic would have helped them. Today, Disney would never dare to show that authority figures—especially religious ones—can often be wrong and hypocritical, if not outright evil. This is one of the most provocative villain songs, in which Frollo essentially confesses his horniness. He sings of being enraptured by Esmeralda’s smoldering eyes and raven hair—a desire that burns and threatens to turn him to sin. “Hellfire” also has a spooky quality in its use of Latin and the intense religious choir that looms over Frollo in judgment, cloaked in red with faces like empty black holes. It’s a haunting song of operatic grandeur, with notes that flare and fade like the flames dancing in front of him. Previous SlideNext Slide10 / 25List slides15. “A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes” from CinderellaList slides15. “A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes” from CinderellaA Dream Is a Wish Your Heart Makes (from Cinderella) Sung with silky warmth and a shimmering, ethereal vibrato by Ilene Woods as Cinderella, “A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes” is soft and soothing, yet carries an undercurrent of quiet determination. She sings to her loyal companions—adorable flocks of birds and mice—who wear the tiny outfits she’s lovingly made for them. They join in during a break of the song that is more playful and buoyant while she prepares for another grueling day of chores, yet she stays positive by believing her dreams will come true. “A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes” has become a marketing anthem for the studio—used in various ads to evoke nostalgia, magic, and the promise that dreams really do come true, with Disney theme parks as the place where that magic can happen. Previous SlideNext Slide11 / 25List slides14. Hawaiian Roller Coaster Ride from Lilo & StitchList slides14. Hawaiian Roller Coaster Ride from Lilo & StitchHawaiian Roller Coaster Ride (From “Lilo & Stitch”) The rich voice of Mark Kealiʻi Hoʻomalu and the cheerful Kamehameha Schools Children’s Chorus come together for a song that is as sweet and breezy as a summer’s day. “Hawaiian Roller Coaster Ride” takes place during a touching moment of family bonding as Lilo, Nani, and David go surfing, gliding through the waves with ease. Stitch has been naughty, so he feels a little shy about enjoying the day with them, but he slowly begins to warm up to what it feels like to have a family. We see the adorable progression as the little thrill-seeker ends up riding the waves too. The song’s instrumentation—featuring ukulele, traditional Hawaiian fingerstyle guitar, and steel guitar—evokes the ocean waves and open skies, giving it that relaxed, beachy vibe. Both the animation and the song itself honors the film’s beautiful Hawaiian setting. Previous SlideNext Slide12 / 25List slides13. “I’ll Make a Man Out of You” from MulanList slides13. “I’ll Make a Man Out of You” from MulanMulan | I’ll Make a Man Out of You | Disney Junior UK “Let’s get down to business, to defeat the Huns” Donny Osmond sings in his perfectly crisp voice. The rousing number “I’ll Make a Man Out of You” by Matthew Wilder and David Zippel is the pump-up song for a training montage. It starts out comical as we see Mulan and her clumsy friends attempt to become the ideal Chinese soldier. The catchy chorus uses evocative nature metaphors for the type of strength and calm that Mulan needs to find, and the deep-voiced punctuation “Be a man!” at the end of each line adds to the hype. When Donny Osmond belts “Time is racing towards us, ‘till the Huns arrive,” you feel a thrilling rush of urgency and swell with courage. The final chorus plays against no instrumentation, the manly voices of the soldiers booming, allowing you to focus on Mulan and her friends now kicking ass. Previous SlideNext Slide13 / 25List slides12. “A Whole New World” from AladdinList slides12. “A Whole New World” from AladdinAladdin - A Whole New World (HD 1080p) Brad Kane’s voice carries an excited, breathy quality that draws you in as he whisks Jasmine away on a magic carpet ride. He sounds bright and earnest as he describes the shining, shimmering, and splendid world that Jasmine has never seen and he’s eager to show her. Lea Salonga, who is a Broadway legend in her own right, has an angelic innocence as Jasmine. Their voices come together in perfect harmony for this sweeping duet. “A Whole New World” is one of Disney’s most romantic love songs, with a melody that flutters and glides like the magic carpet itself. Written by Alan Menken and Tim Rice, the orchestration has lush strings that propel the adventurous animated sequence where they soar through the clouds, pass the Sphinx, and touch down near a group of horses. Previous SlideNext Slide14 / 25List slides11. “Strangers Like Me” from TarzanList slides11. “Strangers Like Me” from TarzanStrangers Like Me (1080p Full HD) - Tarzan (1999)Opening with a pulsing drum track, Strangers Like Me evokes the spinning wheels in Tarzan’s mind as he learns more about what lies beyond the jungle. The montage is gorgeously animated, featuring old-fashioned ink illustrations that Tarzan looks at through a magic lantern. He sees the city of London, a giant castle, the Sphinx, and even outer space for the first time. This flood of information drives the song’s urgent pace.The filmmakers craft the entire animated sequence as a response to the lyrics, as Tarzan watches Jane (“Every gesture, every move that she makes / Makes me feel like never before”) or shows off a pocket of the rainforest filled with parrots (“Come with me now to see my world / Where there’s beauty beyond your dreams”). Phil Collins’ bright voice captures Tarzan’s wonderment, especially in the soaring chorus, where Tarzan expresses his desire to learn more about strangers like him. You feel his hunger for the great, wide world in the song’s pounding, tribal drumbeats. Previous SlideNext Slide15 / 25List slides10. “I Won’t Say I’m in Love” from HerculesList slides10. “I Won’t Say I’m in Love” from HerculesHercules (1997) │ I Won’t Say (I’m In Love) [DPU HD 4K] The story of the ancient Greek hero Hercules has such a unique musical style, with lyricist David Zippel and composer Alan Menken blending doo-wop, Motown, and gospel soul. The muses serve as a literal Greek chorus, commenting on the action with their sassy perspective. In “I Won’t Say I’m in Love,” Megara’s velvet-voiced, sarcastic Susan Egan stands apart from other Disney heroines, who often sing fluttering arias about dreaming of a prince. Instead, Megara resists her feelings because she’s been burned too many times before, creating a comical juxtaposition with the Muses, who cheekily insist that she’s in love. They tease her with “Check the grin, you’re in love.” It’s a playful and flirtatious song that celebrates an unconventional Disney princess and musical choices. Previous SlideNext Slide16 / 25List slides9. “How Far I’ll Go” from MoanaList slides9. “How Far I’ll Go” from MoanaAuli’i Cravalho - How Far I’ll Go (from Moana/Official Video) Ever since their introduction in The Little Mermaid, Broadway-style “I Want” songs have become a hallmark of Disney princess films. They are passionate solos that reveal what each heroine desires most in the world. Whatever her heart longs for becomes the emotional engine driving the story forward. In “How Far I’ll Go,” composed by Lin-Manuel Miranda, Moana is torn between her dream of exploring what’s beyond her remote island and her duty to her family. She’s genuinely torn, even wondering if she’s wrong to yearn for what lies beyond the horizon. Auli’i Cravalho’s pure, heartfelt voice captures all the wistfulness and uncertainty of growing up. The melody swells and crashes gently like ocean tides, mirroring the push and pull of Moana’s inner conflict. Previous SlideNext Slide17 / 25List slides8. “Be Our Guest” from Beauty and the BeastList slides8. “Be Our Guest” from Beauty and the BeastBeauty and the Beast - Be Our Guest (HD) Music Video Broadway royalty Jerry Orbach helms this showstopper with music by Alan Menken and lyrics by Howard Ashman. The suave candlestick Lumière uses the number to lure Belle out of her bedroom, and show that the enchanted castle is more friendly and exciting than spooky and depressing. “Be Our Guest” has clever, fast-paced lyrics sung in a classic “patter song” style which then explodes in a lively, French can-can finale. The living castle objects just want to serve and make someone happy again, offering Belle elaborate meals and dazzling entertainment. Everything is on the plate for Belle, from soup du jour, hot hors d’oeuvres, beef ragout, cheese soufflé, and of course, the grey stuff. What’s just as exciting about the number as its giddy music is the animation, with spoons swimming in punch bowls like a Busby Berkeley number, prismatic spotlights, sumptuous, brightly-colored cakes, a glowing chandelier, and dancing flatware. Previous SlideNext Slide18 / 25List slides7. “You’ll Be in My Heart” from TarzanList slides7. “You’ll Be in My Heart” from TarzanPhil Collins - You’ll Be in My Heart /Tarzan(ターザン)Phil Collins knocked it out of the park with the entire Tarzan soundtrack. Somehow his earthy voice, drum-infused instrumentals, and heartfelt lyrics were the perfect mix for this jungle story. Rather than a traditional Disney musical, Phil Collins acts as an omnipresent narrator, commenting on the action or voicing the character’s thoughts. “You’ll Be In My Heart” rightfully earned the Academy Award for Best Original Song. Originally written as a lullaby for his own daughter, the song starts off tender, with Phil Collins almost gently whispering against soft marimbas. Its lyrics of true love and devotion are moving, especially in the scene where Kala sings it to a baby Tarzan, who, despite being a different species, experiences a bond where love and care know no bounds. The song eventually crashes into driving drums, moving toward a bridge that sees the child fly free on their own: “When destiny calls you / You must be strong / I may not be with you / But you’ve got to hold on.” This song is touching for anyone who has ever loved someone and watched them grow, no matter what type of relationship. Previous SlideNext Slide19 / 25List slides6. “Under the Sea” from The Little MermaidList slides6. “Under the Sea” from The Little MermaidThe Little Mermaid - Under the Sea (from The Little Mermaid) (Official Video) Those solo calypso opening notes of “Under the Sea” immediately get you excited, and Samuel E. Wright delivers a rollicking underwater bash. His booming voice and vivacious energy are perfect for the overdramatic crustacean and his mission to convince Ariel that living under the sea “is the bubbles” with no troubles. “Under the Sea’ buoys the rainbow-colored montage of marine life that fills Ariel’s world—fish, dolphins, and coral reefs. The scene cleverly ties the instruments to various creatures and animation — harps echo the swirling school of fish, shells mimic steel pans, and a pair of octopuses intertwine their legs like bass lines. With its infectious Caribbean beat, Howard Ashman and Alan Menken’s song is a true banger and impossible not to love, which is why it won the 1990 Oscar for Best Original Song. Previous SlideNext Slide20 / 25List slides5. “Colors of the Wind” from PocahontasList slides5. “Colors of the Wind” from PocahontasPocahontas - Colors of the Wind (Blu-ray 1080p HD) “You think the only people who are people / Are the people who look and think like you / But if you walk the footsteps of a stranger / You’ll learn things you never knew, you never knew.” In this increasingly polarized world, that message has never been more relevant. Pocahontas is not immediately smitten with John Smith; instead, she condemns his entire culture, which prioritizes gold and hatred over acceptance and the beauty of nature. Stephen Schwartz’s lyrics paint gorgeous pictures of the American wilderness, questioning why the white men who have invaded these lands cannot appreciate the world around them — from the grinning bobcats to the sweet berries to the trees that stretch toward the sky, if only we let them grow. Alan Menken’s surrounding score is rapturous, carried by Judy Kuhn’s passionate vocals. More than just the profound lyrics, it’s the visuals that make this musical number so unforgettable — particularly John Smith and Pocahontas dancing in a pastel-colored wind. It’s no surprise that “Colors of the Wind” won an Academy Award for Best Original Song. Previous SlideNext Slide21 / 25List slides4. “When You Wish Upon a Star” from PinnochioList slides4. “When You Wish Upon a Star” from PinnochioPocahontas - Colors of the Wind (Blu-ray 1080p HD)Written by Leigh Harline and Ned Washington, “When You Wish Upon a Star” has come to define Disney itself, typically playing over the castle logo that opens every movie. The ethereal ballad is sung by Cliff Edwards as Jiminy Cricket, whose resonant yet quirky voice feels like someone sharing a story by a crackling fire. “When you wish upon a star / Makes no difference who you are / Anything your heart desires / Will come to you,” he tenderly sings over the opening credits. The gentle melody wraps you in a warm embrace of possibility. People often make fun of Disney adults, but perhaps one reason we hold on to Disney films long after growing up is that they offer hope in an increasingly grim world. This aspirational song reminds us there is more to life than the ordinary—if we just dare to imagine.Previous SlideNext Slide22 / 25List slides3. “Beauty and the Beast” from Beauty and the BeastList slides3. “Beauty and the Beast” from Beauty and the BeastBeauty and the Beast Tale As Old As Time HD As Mrs. Potts, Angela Lansbury’s warm, cheery English voice adds a rosiness to this powerful love ballad, backed by an orchestra of sumptuous strings. The lyrics aren’t the pure romanticism of past Disney love stories; there is no love at first sight here. Instead, Mrs. Potts gently reflects on how true love can take time to blossom, and how relationships sometimes require change, admitting your faults and working hard to set aside your vices and worst qualities. It’s a surprisingly mature outlook for a Disney love song. The accompanying animation is one of the most exquisite sequences in Disney history: Belle’s golden dress glides delicately across the floor as she and the Beast dance in the grand ballroom, the camera swirling to reveal the sparkling chandelier and Michelangelo-esque ceiling of painted cherubs above them. That Howard Ashman wrote this song while dying from complications of AIDS makes it all the more poignant. Previous SlideNext Slide23 / 25List slides2. “Part of Your World” from The Little MermaidList slides2. “Part of Your World” from The Little MermaidJodi Benson - Part of Your World (From “The Little Mermaid”)Before The Little Mermaid kicked off the Disney Renaissance (a period of more sophisticated storytelling and box office success) princess songs were mostly focused on their prince charmings. They had very few aspirations outside of dreaming about their prince or wishing for their prince. But the introduction of the songwriting team Alan Menken and Howard Ashman, who had worked on the off-Broadway show Little Shop of Horrors, helped develop a Disney princess that had greater ambitions. Ariel wanted to see the human world, and she would express that within a Broadway-style solo called the “I Want” song, where the protagonist sings about, well, what they want. “Part of Your World” has a flowing melody and a sweet yearning in Jodi Benson’s voice (and given a more soulful power in the live-action version from Halle Bailey). We see her comical misunderstanding of what her treasures are, all whozits and whatzits galore. “Wouldn’t I love to explore that shore up above?” her voice soars while reaching out through the top of her grotto towards the sun. In that moment, with her big eyes and aching voice, you completely understand how much the human world means to her.Previous SlideNext Slide24 / 25List slides1. “Circle of Life” from The Lion KingList slides1. “Circle of Life” from The Lion KingCarmen Twillie, Lebo M. - Circle of Life (From “The Lion King”) No Disney song is quite as epic as Elton John’s “Circle of Life.” The image of the rising sun, paired with the opening lines sung passionately in Zulu by Lebo M., without any instrumentals, immediately hooks you into this sweeping story of the African savannah. The title, “Circle of Life,” is fitting for this tale of birth, death, and everything in between. The lyrics somehow encompass everything about our big, beautiful world — how finite life is, and the experiences, both good and bad, that give us balance. There’s despair and there’s hope. There’s faith and there’s love. The lyrics are poetic and make you think about the wonder and mystery of existence. The song reaches a powerful peak at the end when the chorus rises together. It’s impossible not to get full-body chills on that final soaring note, “It’s the circle, the circle of life,” punctuated by the thunderous drumbeat, where the sight of Rafiki lifting Simba on Pride Rock cuts to black. “Circle of Life” is a beautiful song with a grand vision, especially for a film geared towards children.

From office politics to salary negotiations, treating work like a strategy game can give you a ... More real-world edge. But should you?getty I recently had a revealing conversation with a friend — a game developer — who admitted, almost sheepishly, that while he was fluent in the mechanics of game theory, he rarely applied it outside of code. That got me thinking. For most people, game theory lives in two corners of life: economics classrooms and video games. It’s a phrase that evokes images of Cold War negotiations or player-versus-player showdowns. And to their credit, that’s grounded. At its core, game theory studies how people make decisions when outcomes hinge not just on their choices, but on others’ choices too. Originally a mathematical model developed to analyze strategic interactions, it’s now applied to everything from dating apps to corporate strategy. But in real life, nobody is perfectly rational. We don’t just calculate; we feel, too. That’s where the brain kicks in. According to the “Expected Value of Control” framework from cognitive neuroscience, we calibrate our effort by asking two questions: How big is the reward? How much control do I have in getting it? When both answers are high, motivation spikes. When either drops, we disengage. Research shows this pattern in real time — the brain works harder when success feels attainable. Play Puzzles & Games on Forbes This mirrors game theory’s central question: not just what the outcomes are, but whether it’s worth trying at all. Using a game theory lens in a professional setting, then, can be messy and sometimes bring unwanted emotional repercussions. The saving grace, however, is that it’s somewhat intuitively patterned and, arguably, predictable. So should you actually apply game theory to your professional life? Yes, but not as gospel, and not all the time. Being too focused on identifying, labeling and trying to “win” every interaction can backfire. It can make you seem cold and calculating, even when you’re not, and it can open the door to misunderstandings or quiet resentment. Put simply, it’s important to be aware of how your choices affect others and how theirs affect yours, but it’s also dangerously easy for that awareness to tip over into an unproductive state of hyperawareness. Game theory is a legitimately powerful lens — but like any lens, it should be used sparingly and with the right intentions. Pick your battles, and if you’re curious how to apply it in your own career, start with clarity, empathy and a telescope and compass. Use these not to dominate the game, but to understand it and play it to the best of your abilities, so everyone wins. 1. Establish Competence For Yourself And Assume It From Others There’s a popular saying in hustle culture: work smarter, not harder. At first glance, it makes sense — but in elite professional environments, it’s a rather reductive and presumptuous approach. The phrase can carry the implication that others aren’t working smart or that they aren’t capable of working smart. But in high-performing teams, where stakes are real and decisions have impact, most people are smart. Most are optimizers. And that means “working smart” will only take you so far before everyone’s doing the same. After that, the only edge left is consistent, high-quality production — what we generalize as hard work. From a game theory lens, this type of hard work essentially increases your odds. Overdelivering, consistently and visibly, skews the probability curve in your favor. You either become impossible to ignore, or highly valuable. Ideally, aim for both. And here’s where the real move comes in: assume the same of others. In most multiplayer games, especially online ones, expecting competence from your opponents forces you to play better. It raises the floor of your expectations, improves collaboration and protects you from the trap of underestimating the consequences of your actions. Take chess, for example. In a large study of tournament players, researchers found that serious solo study was the strongest predictor of performance, even more than formal coaching or tournament experience. Grandmasters, on average, had put in nearly 5,000 hours of deliberate study in their first decade of serious play. This is about five times more than intermediate players. This is why in a game of chess between one grandmaster and another, neither player underestimates the other. 2. Exploit The Parts Of Work That Don’t Feel Like Work To You My friend told me he rarely applies game theory outside of code. But the more he talked about his work, the more obvious it became that the man lives it. He’s been into video games since he was a child, and now, as an adult, he gets paid to build what he used to dream about. Sure, he has deadlines, targets and a minimum number of hours to log every week — but to him, those are just constraints on paper. What actually drives him is the intuitive thrill of creation. Everything else is background noise that requires calibration, not deference. This is where game theory can intersect with psychology in an actionable way. If you can identify aspects of your work that you uniquely enjoy — and that others may see as tedious, difficult or draining — you may have found an edge. Because in competitive environments, advantage is often about doing the same amount with less psychological cost. In game theory terms, you’re exploiting an asymmetric payoff structure, where your internal reward is higher than that of your peers for the same action. When others see effort, you feel flow. That makes you highly resilient and harder to outlast. It’s also how you avoid falling into the trap of accepting a Nash equilibrium. This is a state where each person settles on a strategy that feels rational given everyone else’s, even if the group as a whole is stuck in mediocrity. No one deviates, because no one has an incentive to, unless someone changes the underlying payoff structure. For example, imagine a team project where everyone quietly agrees to put in just enough effort to get by, no more, no less. It feels fair, and no one wants to overextend. But if even one person realizes they could stand to gain by going above that baseline, they have an incentive to break the agreement. The moment they do, the equilibrium collapses, because now others are pressured to step up or risk falling behind. In a true equilibrium, each person’s strategy is the best possible response to what everyone else is doing. No one gains by changing course. However, when your internal motivation shifts the reward equation, you may begin to question the basis of the equilibrium itself. Be aware, in any case, that this is a tricky situation to navigate, especially if we contextualize this from the point of view of the stereotypical kid in class who reminds their teacher about homework. Even if the child acts in earnest, they may unintentionally invite isolation both from their peers and, sometimes, from the teachers themselves. This is why the advice to “follow your passion” often misfires. Unless there’s a clear definition of what constitutes passion, the advice lands as too vague. A more precise version is this: find and hone a valuable skill that energizes you, but might drain most others. 3. Follow The Money Only Far Enough To Find The Game There’s a certain kind of professional who doesn’t chase money for money’s sake. Maybe he writes code for a game studio as a day job, writes blogs on the side and even mentors high school kids on their computer science projects. But this isn’t so much about padding his lifestyle or building a mountain of cash. What he’s really doing is looking for games: intellectually engaging challenges, satisfying loops and rewarding feedback. In a sense, he’s always gaming, not because he’s avoiding work, but because he’s designed his life around what feels like play. This mindset flips the usual money narrative on its head. And ironically, that’s often what leads to sustainable financial success: finding personal fulfillment that makes consistent effort easier for you and everyone around you. In game theory, this is a self-reinforcing loop: the more the game rewards you internally, the less you need external motivation to keep showing up. So instead of asking, “What’s the highest-paying path?” — ask, “Which games would I play even if I didn’t have to?” Then, work backward to find ways to monetize them. This does two incredibly valuable things in tandem: It respects the system you’re in, and it respects the goals you personally hold dear. While game theory maps workplace social behavior reasonably well, constantly remaining in a heightened state of awareness can backfire. Take the Self-Awareness Outcomes Questionnaire to better understand if yours is a blessing or a curse.

Pros Impressive visual upgradeMemorable quest linesDLC is includedUnintentionally hilarious moments Cons Bugs, new and oldDungeons lack variety The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered Specs ESRB Rating M for Mature Games Genre RPG Games Platform PC Games Platform PlayStation 5 Games Platform Xbox Series S Games Platform Xbox Series X All Specs It's been 14 years since Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim debuted, and since then, there have been seven unique releases of the seminal open-world RPG (including a voice-only version for Amazon Alexa). Its predecessor, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, has not been so lucky, left behind to languish in its original form on the PC, Xbox 360, and PlayStation 3—until now. Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered ($49.99, tested on PlayStation 5 Pro, also available on PC and Xbox Series X/S) is a visual update of one of the most important RPGs ever made. It gives the nearly 20-year-old title a much-deserved facelift thanks to Unreal Engine 5—and for better or worse, it preserves everything that made the game iconic. Nearly two decades in, Oblivion remains a highly enjoyable RPG that appeals to newcomers and veterans alike, earning it our Editors’ Choice award. What's New in Oblivion Remastered?"Find him, and close shut the doors of Oblivion." Those were the final words uttered by Emperor Uriel Septum—played by none other than Star Trek's Patrick Stewart—before an assassin leaped out of the shadows to cut him down. That not only capped Elder Scrolls IV's tutorial and began the game in earnest, but also kick-started my Elder Scrolls love nearly 20 years ago. (Credit: Bethesda Game Studios/PCMag)At the time, open-world games were dominated by urban, Grand Theft Auto-like titles, so The Elder Scrolls IV was my first experience with a fantasy realm cut from that template. Even after hours of fast traveling, horseback riding, and slowly jogging from point A to point B, there were more quests to find, gear to loot, and havoc to wreak. Oblivion was rough around the edges, but it touched me in a way that contemporary Bethesda releases, such as Fallout 4, Skyrim, and Starfield, do not.I was surprised by how much Oblivion was ingrained in my brain when I loaded up the remaster on my PlayStation 5. I was also surprised by how much of that original title remains in the new version. From the Lord of the Rings-esque opening track to the weird, center-of-the-screen zoom that frames every conversation, it's immediately apparent that 2025's Oblivion Remastered is nearly the same game as the 2006 release, albeit wrapped in an Unreal Engine shell.(Credit: Bethesda Game Studios/PCMag)That's not to say that nothing has changed, and Oblivion Remastered's new coat of paint comes with art direction shifts that may not resonate with fans of the original. Upon stepping out of the Imperial Sewers and into the world of Cyrodiil, I immediately noticed that the high-contrast green hills I remembered were now muted and shaded more realistically. This gives Oblivion Remastered some visual inconsistencies, as some outfits and characters look noticeably dull. But for every ugly NPC, I found a gorgeous Aurora Borealis stretched across the night sky, or stared at the shadows dancing behind a burning torch illuminating a dark dungeon.I was also impressed by Oblivion Remastered's sound design, which preserves much of the original release's charm. The iconic score is just as I remember it, but most importantly, the fully voiced characters return. Performances from notable actors like Sean Bean and Patrick Stewart stand out, but the real stars are the voice actors who portray dozens of unique characters throughout Cyrodiil. (Credit: Bethesda Game Studios/PCMag)They remind me of a community theatre doing medieval impressions at the local Renaissance Fair. I mean that with love. However, bizarre line deliveries and intonations make it hard not to laugh. Couple that with bugs and the less-than-stellar AI, and you'll encounter many bizarre interactions.In one instance, as I traveled to an objective, I spotted an elf running across the plains with her fist up, punching every deer in her way. In another case, I had just closed an Oblivion Gate, and as soon as the guard captain congratulated me, he became disgruntled and told me to get out of his face. As I walked through the survivors' camp after a Daedra attack, three characters began talking over one another, spouting the same dialogue. Those moments helped solidify Oblivion as an unintended comedic masterpiece. As modern games become obsessed with movie-quality performances and hyper-realistic graphics, it's nice to step back and appreciate the jank that persists underneath Oblivion Remastered's Unreal Engine glow. That authenticity defines and elevates Oblivion for the same reasons an earnest B-movie becomes a cult classic.Recommended by Our Editors(Credit: Bethesda Game Studios/ PCMag)That said, Oblivion's open world, as new as it was at the time, wasn't the real reason I fell in love with it. Rather, I was obsessed with the idea of consequences. More so than being good or evil, Oblivion remembers your actions and responds accordingly. Killing the wrong person gets you kicked out of guilds, while other characters react to you negatively when you try to steal from them. Guards chase you down and toss you into jail. Quests become inaccessible if you take the wrong action. This made the game world feel alive in a way that many games do not. That was true in 2006, and it remains true in the 2025 remaster.GameplayThe beat-by-beat gameplay remains fun, if simple. Although Oblivion Remastered isn't as deep as Baldur’s Gate III, it has a wide variety of classes, races, and playstyles that enable player creativity. I played as a Redguard, a race that's proficient in Athletics, Blade, and Blunt weapons, and Light and Heavy Armor. Born under the Warrior sign, my character enjoyed increased strength and endurance. As a result, I approached almost every situation like a medieval Terminator.(Credit: Bethesda Game Studios/PCMag)There's room to adjust your playstyle. So, if your heart desires a Battlemage for one situation and a stealth archer for another, you can easily pivot in one direction or the other. New gameplay changes claim to improve the combat, but I didn't notice much of a difference during testing. However, the improved controls, camera, and sprint are greatly appreciated.The guilds feature some of the more memorable quest lines. The Dark Brotherhood, one of my favorites, sees you murder targets, Hitman style. Meanwhile, the Thieves Guild tasks you with outwitting guards to steal high-profile gear, but only after you've done a certain amount of independent thievery. The Oblivion Remastered includes the two expansion packs, Knights of the Nine and Shivering Isles, plus additional DLC packs (yes, that includes the infamous horse armor pack). The Deluxe Edition includes a digital artbook and new quests, armor, and weapons.(Credit: Bethesda Game Studios/PCMag)The main quest line, which focuses on finding a new heir to battle the evil pouring from giant Oblivion gates, is pretty forgettable. Dungeon crawling is also fairly trite, with caverns and temples that repeat ad nauseam. Although there's much to explore in Cyrodiil, it isn’t too exciting if it's not attached to a quest.Graphics and PerformanceI spent my review time playing on the PlayStation 5 Pro (Oblivion Remastered is PS5 Pro Enhanced), and performance was mostly good. The game defaults to Performance mode and targets 60 frames per second. It didn't hit that target often, especially during large battles. However, switching to Quality mode was just awful. It tanked the frame rate and didn't add much visual fidelity. It's not worth the performance trade-off.Although I praise Oblivion Remastered's core for being authentically stuck in 2006, I must remove my nostalgia goggles for a moment to address the game's bugs and glitches. Many are funny, while others are game-breaking. Oblivion Remastered crashed multiple times during testing. In some cases, quest-giving characters refused to spawn or spawned in the wrong locations. On one occasion, I fell through the floor. A generous auto-save system prevents losing lots of progress, but it's still a pain to retread your last 20 minutes.Some may argue that glitches are part of the Oblivion experience, and in a way, they aren't wrong. However, there's no denying that annoying bugs from nearly 20 years ago should have been squashed by now.

In their comprehensive report about the bombshell acquisition of Jony Ive’s AI startup by OpenAI, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman and Shirin Ghaffary said OpenAI’s CEO believed Apple’s co-founder would have been “‘damn proud’ of Ive’s latest move”. He may be right. Then vs. now Jobs and Ive’s partnership has been well-documented and widely discussed over the years, so there’s no need to revisit it. What’s more interesting is what Ive’s deeply conceptual (and sometimes overly abstract) creative approach to technology might mean for what’s to come. If you’ve read Leander Kahney’s excellent book Jony Ive: The Genius Behind Apple’s Greatest Products, you probably know that the Jony Ive we see today is precisely the same Jony Ive who used to “coat the back of the film with gouache” to get the transparency effect just right on a translucent sketch. Right from the start, Ive has been passionate about two things: the creative process itself, and the meaning of its result. For better or worse, that has only deepened in the last few years. How many times has Ive talked about intention during his interviews? How often has he gone on tangents about the way we relate to technology, and how that should make us feel? When it was first reported that Ive and Altman were discussing a “new hardware for the age of AI”, any long-time tech enthusiast probably felt a combination of “Oh!” and “Oh…”. I sure did. But here’s the thing: the market is currently stuck between dumb hardware ChatGPT wrappers that are rushed out as AI iPhone killers, and software ChatGPT wrappers that aren’t allowed to leverage the full potential of the iPhone as the irreplaceable mobile hub of our digital lives. That leaves a huge gap in the AI hardware market. And this gap can only be filled by someone who actually knows what they are doing, while at the same time having enough runway not to have to turn a profit in their lifetime. That’s a pretty slim list. Meanwhile, you just know that Ive has been sitting in his many studios and truly, deeply, earnestly thinking about what his AI hardware would do if he had infinite funding and unfettered access to the lifeblood of the frontierest of the frontier AI companies out there. As it happens, that’s precisely what he got. Hopefully. Filling the gap In an alternative universe, Ive’s AI company would have been acquired by Apple, mirroring Jobs’ return when the company acquired NeXT. But be honest: if you were Ive, with everything that he accomplished at Apple (Butterfly Keyboards and portless laptops aside), and seeing how far behind the AI game Apple will probably still be for at least a good part of the next decade (considering the competition will keep evolving), what would you do? As flawed and PR-oriented as Steve Jobs was, he was also, at his core, an uncompromising idealist when it came to product vision, just like Ive. And while he might have been insanely pissed to see Ive join someone else’s company to go build the best possible version of the next chapter of consumer tech, I can’t help but think he’d be a little bit relieved, or possibly proud, to see Ive go after the very best chance to go and do just that, other people’s feelings be damned. That feels pretty Jobsian to me. Add 9to5Mac to your Google News feed.  FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.You’re reading 9to5Mac — experts who break news about Apple and its surrounding ecosystem, day after day. Be sure to check out our homepage for all the latest news, and follow 9to5Mac on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn to stay in the loop. Don’t know where to start? Check out our exclusive stories, reviews, how-tos, and subscribe to our YouTube channel