Wise Words for You

Detroit: Become Human posits a well-worn future, when androids have become so lifelike and so deeply integrated into human society that surely it's only a matter of time and circumstance until they break through to the other side and achieve consciousness. There isn't much time spent examining how such a seemingly preventable event might be possible; Detroit is primarily focused on androids' experiences during the process of their awakening, and their shock when looking at humanity with eyes unclouded for the first time. Ultimately, it's up to you to decide how they react in the face of adversity. It is a game play-light experience broken up into dozens of chapters with hundreds of decisions to make during cut scenes and explorative sequences. The only real challenge is to be fast, thorough, and perceptive enough to guide characters towards decisions that match your moral compass--or not, if you prefer your stories messy and chaotic. As a result of the myriad cro...

Lots of people have played Pokemon Go, developer Niantic's pop culture phenomenon of an augmented reality mobile game. Three years later, Harry Potter: Wizard Unite serves as something of a follow-up, bringing a lot of Pokemon Go's sensibilities into the Wizarding World. But Wizards Unite is a bigger and more robust game than Pokemon Go was at its launch, with a lot more things to keep straight. That said, the underlying ideas--walking around your real neighborhood to locate virtual people, creatures, and objects and interact with them--are the same between the two AR games. If you've played Pokemon Go, you'll catch on to Wizards Unite.  The thing about Wizards Unite is that there is a whole lot to know and learn about the game as you play it. You'll be constantly inundated with tutorials to teach you about Traces, potions, battles, fortresses, Foundables, and more. There's more to keep you engaged, but it's not nearly as straightforward as Poke...

Niantic's follow-up to Pokemon Go, Harry Potter: Wizards Unite, is now available. Like its predecessor, the new Harry Potter game tasks you with walking around, interacting with real-life locations that have been translated into the game world, and collecting things--among other Wizarding World-related activities. And like Pokemon Go, it has an augmented reality component designed to bring a bit of fantasy into your everyday life. There's a lot to learn in Wizards Unite, from how to take on enemies in combat to what you're even trying to accomplish (it's complicated!). Essentially, magical objects, people, and creatures have been scattered throughout the world, and you're tasked with recovering them before the secrets of the magical word are revealed to the world at large. You'll do this through some rather Pokemon Go-like gameplay, and the joking references to this being "Harry Potter Go" are not unfounded. That said, there are a lot of wrink...