YouTube continues to expand its lineup of movies and TV shows every month. The video-sharing platform does offer consumers new releases every week. However, most of these high-profile titles cost money. If you’re looking to save a little bit of dough, explore YouTube’s selection of free movies and television shows.
How can these programs be available at no cost? YouTube runs ads during these presentations, similar to how commercials air on television. However, that’s a fair trade-off to watch content for free. Explore October’s options in the “Movies & TV” tab on the sidebar. Read our guide below if you need to be pushed in the right direction.
I no longer expect video games that tackle the subjects of racism and discrimination through fantasy — as Metaphor: ReFantazio does — to surprise me. Those stories never go beyond well-trodden depictions of “racism is bad,” and I tune them out like so much white noise. But Metaphor: ReFantazio has done the work, and its willingness to go beyond surface-level treatments of tired fantasy tropes to dig at the heart of the real issues with racism and discrimination is exactly what makes it a phenomenal game. Metaphor is a clever evolution of the Persona series, but it wouldn’t be as interesting or outstanding as it is without its refreshingly progressive message.
Metaphor takes place in a world where our reality of “equality” between different ethnic groups is presented as an unattainable-but-nice-to-think-about idyllic fantasy, while discrimination, classism, and the struggle against monstrous creatures called “humans” rule the day.
In Metaphor, society is arranged into a racial hierarchy based on different fantastical physical features… or lack thereof.Image: Atlus
The world of Metaphor is stratified according to a hierarchy of different tribes classified by their physical characteristics, like wings, horns, or elfin-like long ears. Then there’s the protagonist, who comes from the most hated tribe, which, to our eyes, resemble real-world humans with no distinct physical features. Atlus calling this game “Metaphor” is about as unsubtle as a brick thrown at a protest.
Advertisement
As I dive into the guts of what makes Metaphor so great, I do have to note the frequent issues I had with instability. I played the game on Xbox Series S and experienced numerous crashes that seemed related to the game’s autosave feature. On top of that, when the game did crash and I rebooted my Xbox to start over, the game frequently reloaded without a video input. I could hear the start menu music but see nothing, requiring me to end my gaming sessions prematurely as the issue only seemed to fix itself after an overnight break. You can read more about Metaphor’s technical performance in Eurogamer’s review.
The world is thrown into chaos when the dogmatic king is murdered, leaving behind no heir, as his idealistic son mysteriously vanished years before. His death triggers a nationwide contest whereby anyone, no matter their birth or circumstance, can compete to win the throne, provided they have the love and support of the people. Your job is to earn that love through a variety of contests in the hope of putting that idealistic prince on the throne so that he may change this hateful racist world for the better.
In Metaphor, the characters utilize a job class system called archetypes. Each party member starts with a specific archetype — warrior, healer, mage, etc. — and by developing relationships with other NPCs, unlock more. Like Persona, combat is centered on exploiting an enemy’s weakness while mitigating your own. There’s also an absolutely fabulous overworld combat feature where if you strike a weaker enemy, they simply die, forgoing a transition into a battle scene. However, if an enemy is your level or stronger, you can use overworld combat to surprise attack and weaken them, giving you a serious advantage in the fight to come.
The slick menus of Persona-series fame return.Image: Atlus
Advertisement
I adore these improvements over Persona’s combat because it significantly cuts down on the time needed to grind experience. It also makes combat harrowing as hell because while you’re able to ambush monsters, they can do the same to you. Metaphor’s combat excels, exceeding its RPG cohort, because it demands that I think more strategically. Arrogantly running around a dungeon or into boss fights with your biggest, highest-level guns blazing is not always the winning strategy, and it’s also a good way to get you killed.
My higher-level party was frequently wiped out by an enemy I’d otherwise mop the floor with simply because they got the drop on me. Conversely, I’ve been able to soundly defeat enemies eight and nine levels higher than me with freshly unlocked level-one archetypes because their special abilities were uniquely suited to exploit a weakness. Metaphor is the only single-player game that made me feel like a raid leader in an MMO like Final Fantasy XIV or World of Warcraft.
Metaphor also feels good from a tactile perspective. The animations that play as you fluidly zip between different options in combat add a kinetic energy that made me feel like I was playing an action game instead of a turn-based RPG. This experience is enhanced by the slick-as-hell, highly stylized menus and the killer soundtrack — especially the main battle music. I don’t know what that man is saying, but the way he says it gets me hype as hell.
But Metaphor is more than just a stylish, dynamic RPG — it’s also the rare fantasy story that tackles discrimination with nuance.
Advertisement
In a lot of fantasy, I’m annoyed by the storytelling conceit of using discrimination against fantasy races as an allegory for real-world racism. Stories featuring this trope usually stop at the “racism is bad” surface level, demonstrating that with ugly over-the-top displays of violence (hey there, Dragon Age) while ignoring the subtleties that make racism so heinous and pervasive. Metaphor manages to incorporate and tackle both aspects of this reality.
“Rich people are corrupt” is a sentiment frequently expressed in video games but rarely so… pointedly.Image: Atlus
There’s a moment when you’re reading a fantasy book with a companion, and they mention that realizing their goal of a world where everyone is treated equally won’t be enough. “Equal competition doesn’t mean equal footing,” Heismay says. It’s the first time I’ve seen a video game acknowledge that simply stopping the big bad evil racist won’t magically make up for the countless generations of oppression. The game does the same with class and wealth. There’s a character vying for the throne who wishes to essentially “eat the rich” and redistribute their wealth at the point of a guillotine. But by virtue of her extremely low status, she sees everybody with more than a few coins to rub together as her ideological enemy. It’s just like when people in poverty lash out at other people a little bit less in poverty when their real enemies are the wealthy powerholders who exploit that animosity. It’s awesome that the game calls that out.
There’s an almost reflexive instinct to call Metaphor: ReFantazio “Persona with swords.” The game has the hallmarks of a Persona, which lend it an air of familiarity, not to mention much of the same creative talent. But this characterization doesn’t feel correct. Those familiar systems have been remixed to feel fresh while the game’s message is vibrating on levels the Persona games brush up against but never quite reach.
Advertisement
Heismay says, “Diversity, equality, and inclusion.”Image: Atlus
The upsetting thing about racism, classism, homophobia, and the like is that there’s a reluctance in the real world to acknowledge that it’s not only the violence of individual actors that perpetuates this oppression but institutions and systems as well. We challenge those individual actors and call them out because that’s much easier and quicker to do than the difficult generational work it takes to dismantle racist systems and build equitable ones. Games with that kind of message do the same — ending with the climactic defeat of the bad guys. Metaphor is one of the first times a high-profile game acknowledges the real, much harder, and less glamorous work of dismantling systems.
And at a time when you can’t even call out the individual actors anymore without getting gaslit to hell and back — it’s moving, as a person of color, to see Metaphor go the extra mile to say, “These systems need to go, too.” That’s what makes Metaphor: ReFantazio so powerful, resonant, and in every sense of a word that’s unfortunately been bastardized into meaninglessness, woke as fuck.
Metaphor: ReFantazio is out now on Xbox, PlayStation, and PC.
Good morning! Let’s play Connections, the NYT’s clever word game that challenges you to group answers in various categories. It can be tough, so read on if you need clues.
BLUE: KINDS OF PANTS CAPRI, CARGO, HAMMER, STIRRUP
PURPLE: ___ ROLL CALIFORNIA, DRUM, EGG, HONOR
My rating: Moderate
My score: 1 mistake
There are days when the NYT’s difficulty ratings for Connections make no sense to me. Purple today is one of the ‘blank’ varieties, where you have to find the missing word that unites the four answers. These are typically the hardest, and always form (as far as I know) the purple group. But there’s no way that today __ ROLL was tougher than the green ROAD RUNNER CARTOON STAPLES or blue KINDS OF PANTS group.
I solved them all, but only thanks to a love of Road Runner that dates back 40-odd years. I doubt everyone will be so lucky. And I would have had no chance of solving the blue group, because I’ve never heard of HAMMER PANTS or STIRRUP PANTS. Am I out of touch? Quite possibly…
PURPLE: STARTS OF CELL PHONE MAKERS APP, GOO, MOTOR, SAM
What is NYT Connections?
NYT Connections is one of several increasingly popular word games made by the New York Times. It challenges you to find groups of four items that share something in common, and each group has a different difficulty level: green is easy, yellow a little harder, blue often quite tough and purple usually very difficult.
On the plus side, you don’t technically need to solve the final one, as you’ll be able to answer that one by a process of elimination. What’s more, you can make up to four mistakes, which gives you a little bit of breathing room.
It’s a little more involved than something like Wordle, however, and there are plenty of opportunities for the game to trip you up with tricks. For instance, watch out for homophones and other word games that could disguise the answers.
It’s playable for free via the NYT Games site on desktop or mobile.
SpaceX is getting ready to launch its mighty Starship on its fifth test flight, scheduled for Sunday, October 13. With a mostly-successful fourth test flight behind it, the Starship has already been into orbit and returned to Earth mostly intact. This time, SpaceX will be hoping to catch its Super Heavy booster as well as taking the upper stage Starship into orbit.
The exact date of this fifth test flight has been delayed due to issues with licensing from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), but SpaceX has now confirmed it is targeting 8 a.m. ET (5 a.m. PT) Sunday for its test.
To watch the test, you can tune into to SpaceX’s live stream, which will be shown on X (formerly Twitter):
The company has described its ambitions for catching the Super Heavy booster in a blog post, as it will use a pair of giant mechanical arms referred to as chopsticks to try to hold the booster as it comes in to land at SpaceX’s Starbase facility in Texas. This would be the first time a Super Heavy booster has been caught, and a significant step forward in making the Starship reusable. SpaceX has already proven the efficacy of this concept with its Falcon 9 rocket, of which the boosters are frequently landed on the ocean or occasionally on land to be reused.
The Starship is a considerably larger and more powerful vehicle than the Falcon 9, however, and has different boosters — making catching the booster a difficult task.
“Extensive upgrades ahead of this flight test have been made to hardware and software across Super Heavy, Starship, and the launch and catch tower infrastructure at Starbase,” SpaceX wrote. “SpaceX engineers have spent years preparing and months testing for the booster catch attempt, with technicians pouring tens of thousands of hours into building the infrastructure to maximize our chances for success. We accept no compromises when it comes to ensuring the safety of the public and our team, and the return will only be attempted if conditions are right.”
Advertisement
To tune into the live stream of Sunday’s test flight, you can look to coverage beginning at around 7:30 a.m. ET (4:30 a.m. PT) or you can follow updates on the flight at SpaceX’s X account.
Samsung launched the Galaxy A55 this year as its latest most “premium” mid-range smartphone. Following the discontinuation of the Galaxy A7x series, the Galaxy A5x took its place as the king of the segment for the company. Like many Galaxy devices, the A55 boasts long-term software support with constant updates. Samsung is rolling out the October 2024 update for the Galaxy A55.
October 2024 security update reaching the Galaxy A55, first in Asian countries
Samsung usually sends monthly patches to its Galaxy devices from a certain range onward. As usual, not all updates bring big improvements or impressive new features. There are also patches focused on optimizing the stability and performance of the device as well as fixing vulnerabilities to keep it secure. That’s exactly what the Galaxy A55 is receiving with the October 2024 update.
The latest firmware brings fixes for more than two dozen Android-related vulnerabilities. The latest firmware also addresses 12 vulnerabilities exclusive to Galaxy devices. Plus, the company is fixing a potential security hole present in phones and wearables powered by certain Exynos chipsets. The update has the build number A556EXXS5AXI4 and is rolling out to users in some Asian countries first.
Once the update is available in your region, you’ll receive a notification to download it. However, you can also check availability manually by going to Settings > Software Update > Download and Install. If all goes well, other regions should start receiving it in a couple of weeks.
Advertisement
The Galaxy A55 may be the most balanced smartphone in the company’s catalog. It’s not as powerful or premium as a flagship, but it offers solid performance and an elegant design. The company made this year’s model more robust by integrating flat metal edges instead of plastic ones. There’s a solid rear camera system made up of 50 MP + 12 MP + 5 MP sensors. Sadly, there’s no telephoto sensor, so you’ll have to step up to the Galaxy S24 FE if you want optical zoom.
Other features include the Exynos 1480 chip, 5,000mAh battery, stereo speakers, and IP67 rating. If you’re looking for an even more affordable yet still capable Galaxy mid-ranger, you can consider the Samsung Galaxy A35.
Comedian and writer John Mulaney will host a live variety talk show on Netflix, the streaming company announced in a post on X. The show may be similar to Mulaney’s Everybody’s in LA, a live talk show that streamed on Netflix for six episodes in May 2024.
Mulaney’s production company will produce and he’ll be the showrunner, but no other details were revealed. However, at an event in LA, Netflix’s chief content officer Bela Bajaria said Everybody’s in LA showed what a weekly live talk/variety show could look like on the service. “[It] was just so bold and original and fresh and then unpredictable,” he said, “And I think it’ll be really fun to get to do a live show with him.”
Netflix has developed a reputation for not giving shows time to develop an audience even if critics love them — with Jeff Goldblum’s Kaos being the latest example. However, Bajaria admitted that viewership for Everybody’s in LA wasn’t huge, so the streamer is clearly willing to deviate from that strategy in some cases. In fact, Netflix has stuck with comedians even when they generate controversy, as its history with Dave Chappelle has shown. That’s possibly because comedy specials and talk shows are dirt cheap to produce compared to scripted series.
WordPress.org has taken over a popular WP Engine plugin in order “to remove commercial upsells and fix a security problem,” WordPress cofounder and Automattic CEO Matt Mullenweg announced today. This “minimal” update, which he labels a fork of the Advanced Custom Fields (ACF) plugin, is now called “Secure Custom Fields.”
It’s not clear what security problem Mullenweg is referring to in the post. He writes that he’s “invoking point 18 of the plugin directory guidelines,” in which the WordPress team reserves several rights, including removing a plugin, or changing it “without developer consent.” Mullenweg explains that the move has to do with WP Engine’s recently-filed lawsuit against him and Automattic.
Similar situations have happened before, but not at this scale. This is a rare and unusual situation brought on by WP Engine’s legal attacks, we do not anticipate this happening for other plugins.
WP Engine’s ACF team claimed on X that WordPress has never “unilaterally and forcibly” taken a plugin “from its creator without consent.” It later wrote that those who aren’t WP Engine, Flywheel, or ACF Pro customers will need to go to the ACF site and follow steps it published earlier to “perform a 1-time download of the genuine 6.3.8 version” to keep getting updates.
As its name implies, the ACF plugin allows website creators to use custom fields when existing generic ones won’t do — something ACF’s overview of the plugin says is already a native, but “not very user friendly,” feature of WordPress.
Advertisement
The Verge has reached out to Automattic, WordPress.org, and WP Engine for comment.
Update October 12th: Adjusted to add clarity about Mullenweg’s use of the “fork” label.
Womens Workouts3 weeks ago
Science & Environment2 weeks ago
News3 weeks ago
Technology2 weeks ago
Sport3 weeks ago
Football2 weeks ago
Technology2 weeks ago
Technology2 weeks ago
MMA2 weeks ago
Sport2 weeks ago
Technology3 weeks ago
News3 weeks ago
Health & fitness2 weeks ago
MMA3 weeks ago
Science & Environment3 weeks ago
Womens Workouts3 weeks ago
Technology3 weeks ago
Sport3 weeks ago
Womens Workouts3 weeks ago
TV3 weeks ago
News3 weeks ago
Servers computers3 weeks ago
Technology2 weeks ago
Technology2 weeks ago
News3 weeks ago
CryptoCurrency3 weeks ago
Science & Environment3 weeks ago
CryptoCurrency3 weeks ago
Womens Workouts3 weeks ago
Science & Environment3 weeks ago
Technology2 weeks ago
Technology3 weeks ago
News3 weeks ago
CryptoCurrency3 weeks ago
Politics2 weeks ago
News2 weeks ago
Travel3 weeks ago
You must be logged in to post a comment Login