 |
|
|
|||||
Ive been wondering why everyone seems so hyped on Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. Its the debut game from Sandfall Interactive, an independent French studio with fewer than 30 employees, and its attracted massive partnerships in video games and film over the past five years. Expedition 33 has a high-profile cast of voice actors, including Andy Serkis, Charlie Cox, Shala Nyx and Jennifer English. It received an Epic MegaGrant in 2022, it was picked up by Pacific Drive publisher Kepler Interactive in 2023, and it was a tentpole of Xboxs first showcase of 2025. Even though the game isnt out until April, Story Kitchen has already signed on to turn it into a live-action film. At the very least, Expedition 33 has seemed like an easy game to fall in love with. After playing just over three hours of Expedition 33, I understand all of it the hype, the quick love and the quiet excitement generated by the games writing, acting, world and mechanics. Expedition 33 is innovative and absolutely stunning. Expedition 33 feels like a prestige drama set in a surreal, slightly gothic 3D landscape. Tonally its drenched in melodrama, and visually its reminiscent of Game of Thrones, but with Belle Époque stylings and mountains of diabolical magic. The realm of Lumire has been consumed by a powerful being called the Paintress she paints a new number on the tower each year and all people of that age instantly die. Shes been counting down for more than half a century, killing the oldest citizens first, and shes just painted the number 33. The people of Lumire send out annual expeditions to stop the Paintress, but so far, theyve all been met with death. The heroes of expedition 33 have one year to live. When we meet Gustave in the preview, things arent going well for expedition 33. His party has been ambushed by a mysterious white-haired man someone so old that he shouldnt be able to exist in this world and Gustave is alone. Gustave has a magical robot arm and a very French moustache, and he sets off through lush forests and dark, wet caves to track down other survivors. He does find some, but only after he nearly kills himself in despair. Lune, a strong-willed and scholarly mage, appears just in time to save Gustave from himself, and together they meet up with Maelle, Gustaves introverted but powerful foster sister. Sandfall Interactive Your party supports six playable characters in the full game, but the preview focuses on these three. The prestige-drama vibes stem from their interactions, and particularly their personality clashes. In one cutscene, Lune and Gustave find themselves sitting around a campfire on a starry night, screaming at each other about the ethics of utilitarianism. Between tirades, Gustave screams, Fuck the mission! Eventually their intensity subsides and the conversation returns to a tentatively amicable space. At the end of the scene, the shot pans to Lune, who smirks and says, Fuck the mission? Really? Gustave sheepishly responds, Sorry. And suddenly, Im deeply invested in the relationship between Lune and Gustave, but also Maelle and all of the friends theyve come to save. It doesnt hurt that these cutscenes are truly gorgeous, with realistic skin textures and dirt smudges in close-up shots, and beautiful performances by all actors. From cutscenes to combat, Expedition 33 is radiant. Sandfall Interactive Environments in the preview grow more surreal as Gustave, Lune and Maelle travel closer to the Paintress, whos hidden herself across deep seas and expansive land masses. They travel through raw areas shattered by magic, boulders hovering in mid-air and ornate buildings haphazardly embedded in odd places, broken and inhospitable. Anthropomorphized rock enemies roam the lands and there are bits of chroma currency, essentially to find, and some upgrades hidden off the linear path. Were not talking Avowed levels of shinies, but a minimal sense of curiosity is definitely rewarded. When exploring, you can swap among party members without breaking stride, and Lune emerged as my clear favorite. Instead of running, Lune speed-hovers a few inches above the ground, and embodying her is like soaring through a dream. Running (or hovering really fast) feels great in the game, and so does the grapple system that flings you across gaps and up buildings. There are also climbable handholds and ropes of light that act as elevators, and all of it works a treat. The games dreamlike feeling only crystallizes in Flying Waters, a region that looks and behaves as if its at the bottom of the ocean bubbles, shipwrecks, whales and all but without a drop of water to be found. You breathe, walk, run and jump as normal here, but there are schools of fish swimming through the air and the waterline is visible high above you. Its wonderfully trippy. I could spend the rest of this preview just gushing about Expedition 33s fabulous environments, characters and enemies, or its top-notch writing, music and graphics but lets talk combat. Sandfall Interactive Expedition 33 is a turn-based game with clear JRPG influences, but it adds a twist to the traditional battle system: quick-time prompts. Your party members have the ability to use an item, deploy a specific skill, or plain-old attack, plus they have a Free Aim move that can snipe enemy weak points before a full strike. There are elemental weapons to equip and upgrade, and each character runs on a distinct battle mechanic. Gustave has an overcharge system that powers up his robot arm for a special move, Lune uses elemental stains to stack specific damge, and Maelle switches among three fencing stances. Balancing healing, buffs, defensive moves and attacks is a delicate dance in Expedition 33, and the preview really started to sing once I had all three members nicely leveled up, kitted out and slinging various types of elemental damage. Unlike traditional turn-based play, there are real-time prompts embedded in your skill attacks, and executing these delivers bonus damage and effects. The Final Fantasy series has toyed with this idea to mixed success, but in Expedition 33 its a critical, finely tuned system, and I love the tension it creates. Quick-time elements infuse the familiar turn-based loop with a twitchy kind of clarity, adding a few extra dopamine hits to the classic press-and-wait rhythm. Each QTE prompt is tricky without being punishing, and its not just offensive moves that get the real-time treatment. Dodging, parrying and jumping are essential skills in Expedition 33, and these mechanics demand your attention with every enemy turn. In short, no, you wont be able to set the controller down during combat in Expedition 33. And, yes, Im totally here for it. Sandfall Interactive Maybe its because each character strikes a dramatic pose whenever its their turn, but combat has a distinct Persona flair (and this is a great thing in my book). Meanwhile, the games soundtrack has echoes of Nier: Automata and Tetris: Effect, and altogether, even boss battles can be a bit of an emotional experience. In the interest of keeping this preview under 3,000 words, Im not going to get into the specifics of upgrade trees and resource types, but I will say that I found these systems to be purposeful and responsive. I was pleased with how often my party leveled up, there were ample traits to tweak for each character, and the effects of my stat manipulation were immediately apparent in combat. Rest assured, Expedition 33 is an RPG. Though this is just based on a preview, Expedition 33 seems incredibly polished. Not only does it play seamlessly on a macro level, but it also gets the smallest details right, including voice-acted memories, haptic feedback that kicks in when a grapple point is in range, an opaque text box thats both readable and seamlessly integrated into every scene, and the ability to put a rose in Gustaves hair, even in cutscenes. The entire preview is impressive. Sandfall Interactive That said, I wonder whether Expedition 33 is too impressive, technically speaking. I played the preview at a stable 1080p/60 on a gaming PC with an RTX 4070 Super, and I didnt encounter any issues, but locking to 60 fps at 1440p was beyond my setup. This feels like a game thats going to break a lot of hearts and PC parts. And its not just PC Im curious to see how Expedition 33 will run on any console that isnt a PlayStation 5 Pro. But, thats a consideration for review time. The preview for Expedition 33 illuminates why Sandfall Interactive has received so much pre-launch attention and support. Expedition 33 is composed of beautiful contradictions: Its a JRPG but it comes from a Western studio. Its a fantasy RPG built outside the restrictions of Dungeons & Dragons rulesets. Is an indie game that looks, sounds and feels AAA. Most of all, Expedition 33 is refreshing. Expedition 33 is due to hit PC, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S on April 24. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/clair-obscur-expedition-33-preview-stunning-visuals-innovative-combat-prime-melodrama-140052194.html?src=rss
Category:
Marketing and Advertising
Lenovo is showing business laptops lovers some attention by announcing several new ThinkPads at Mobile World Congress 2025, including a new form factor for the T-series line, and updated internals across the business laptop lineup. The ThinkPad T14s 2-in-1 is by far the most interesting of the bunch, with a new convertible body that's similar to Lenovo's Yoga laptops, and supports the magnetic Yoga Pen stylus. The laptop comes with up to a 14-inch, 400-nit WUXGA touch display, and inside, you can get up to a Intel Core Ultra 7 H or U 200 series chip, 64GB of LPDDR5x RAM and 1TB of storage. If you're looking for an option without a 360-degree hinge, the ThinkPad T14s Gen 6 and ThinkPad T14 Gen 6 will also now come with either Intel Core Ultra or AMD Ryzen AI Pro chips, up to 32GB of RAM and up to 2TB of storage. Lenovo Lenovo describes the new ThinkPad X13 Gen 6 as "one of the lightest ThinkPad designs ever," at only 2.05 lbs, but that light weight doesn't mean the laptop misses out on the latest internals. The X13 Gen 6 comes with either a Intel Core Ultra or AMD Ryzen AI Pro chip, up to 64GB of LPDDR5x RAM and your choice of a 41Wh or 54.7Wh battery. The new ThinkPad can also support Wi-Fi 7 and an optional 5G connection, if you want to take it on the go. Chip updates round out the remaining ThinkPads, with the ThinkPad E14 Gen 7 and E16 Gen 3 gaining support for up to an Intel Core Ultra 7 U or H 200 series chip and up to 64GB of DDR5 RAM, while the ThinkPad T16 Gen 4 is caps out at 32GB of RAM. Lenovo is making the majority of its new ThinkPads available this summer, with the ThinkPad T14s 2-in-1, ThinkPad T14s Gen 6 and ThinkPad X13 Gen 6 arriving in June 2025 for $1,719, $1,674 and $1,139, respectively. The ThinkPad T14 Gen 6 and ThinkPad T16 Gen 4 are launching a little earlier in May for $1,359 and $1,623. And rounding things out, the ThinkPad E14 Gen 7 and E16 Gen 3 are coming in "Q2 2025" for $849 and $859. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/computing/laptops/lenovo-is-updating-its-thinkpad-lineup-with-new-chips-and-form-factors-at-mwc-2025-230055977.html?src=rss
Category:
Marketing and Advertising
Lenovo hasnt even released its futuristic laptop with a rollable screen. But that hasnt stopped the company from taking that notebooks core components and remixing it into a whole new thing at MWC 2025. Officially called the ThinkBook codename Flip AI PC Proof of concept (yes, that is its official name and its a real mouthful), the laptop uses the same flexible OLED featured in its rollable sibling, except this time instead of disappearing inside its chassis, the display folds outwards. This allows what is normally a 13-inch panel to double in size to 18.1 inches at a moment's notice. Notably, because the Flips screen bends instead of sliding in and out of the bottom half of the system, Lenovo can utilize the panels full area unlike the ThinkBook Rollable, which can only extend up to 16.7 inches. In its vertical mode, this provides a ton of extra space for documents or multitasking. However, the screen can also be folded back into tablet mode or something akin to a 2-in-1s tent mode for times when you might want to share your display with someone on the other side of the table. Sam Rutherford for Engadget Somewhat impressively, a fancy monitor isnt the only trick the Flip has. Down below, Lenovo created what it calls a Smart ForcePad, which features a three-layer illuminated dashboard that adds customizable controls and icons to its surface. Its a neat trick that expands what a basic touchpad can do, though its not exactly a huge leap from what weve seen on rival machines from Acer and others. Finally, on the inside, the Flip should have solid performance thanks to the inclusion of an Intel Core Ultra 7 processor, 32GB of RAM and PCIe SSD storage. As a fan of anything with a flexible screen, its fascinating to see how quickly Lenovo was able to take the components used in the ThinkBook Plus Gen6 Rollable and turn them into something else. That said, as this was a very early prototype (a Lenovo representative said it was only one of two in the world at the time), there are some obvious issues that need to be ironed out before this thing ever gets close to an official release. The first is that for a system with a screen this tall, its hinge wasnt fully up to the task of keeping everything stable, as even a light tap would cause the whole panel to sway back and forth in a disconcerting way. The model I used also lacked that kickstand that appears in some of Lenovos promotional images, which would have further increased its sturdiness. However, the biggest potential problem with the Flip may be difficult to address because its inherent to its core design. When the laptop is collapsed down into a clamshell for traveling, the way its screen folds exposes the flexible display to items that might scratch it. And while its possible to get around this by using a form-fitting laptop sleeve, that seems a bit too dangerous, even for someone like me whos been using foldable phones for half a decade. Upon further consideration, I wouldnt be surprised if this design challenge is a big reason Lenovo decided to bring the ThinkBook Rollable to market instead of the Flip. Currently, Lenovo has no plans to bring the Flip to full production, but even so, its nice seeing what a company can come up with when it's not scared to show off unfinished devices.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/computing/laptops/lenovos-codename-flip-is-another-wild-take-on-a-flexible-screen-laptop-230051495.html?src=rss
Category:
Marketing and Advertising
All news |
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||