LOS ANGELES — On January 1, 2025 at 12:02am, the new year welcomed a brand-new baby girl, Jocelyn Marie Caan, who in just a short eighteen years will become Leonardo DiCaprio’s newest lover.
“I can already tell she’s going to be a keeper. Well, at least until she turns twenty-five,” said an ecstatic DiCaprio lounging in the hospital waiting room, smoking a cigar in celebration.
New mother, Marissa Caan, laying in her hospital bed holding the Oscar winner’s future plaything spoke to reporters about the exciting news.
“To hear the doctor tell us that our baby girl is a beautifully healthy baby. That she has all ten fingers and toes, AND that Leonardo DiCaprio thinks she’s going to be smoking hot! We were so relieved,” Caan said as she held a picture of DiCaprio in front of her newborn’s face. “We’re both so thankful she’s going to have a second, wealthier daddy to pay her college tuition. Now I can build a minibar instead,” added Arthur Caan, Jocelyn’s father.
But not every parent at the hospital was as happy about this news as the Caans.
“We were told that there was nothing this hospital could do to make our new baby attractive enough for Leo,” said George Resnik, new father to a baby that won’t get anywhere close to dating a famous person. “All the plastic surgeons are off for the holidays and by the time they get back it will be too late. Instead, we were told that we have to accept the fact that our sweet, baby girl may just have to settle for Jared Leto in the future. It’s just so devastating to hear.”
At press time, Mr. DiCaprio gave one last embrace to his future bae before heading to his current girlfriend’s 26th birthday party to break up with her.
There are few things better in life than learning that your favorite band or artist has performed a Tiny Desk Concert on NPR. The only problem is that the performers must be real people, meaning you’ll never see any of your favorite video game characters on the series. Here are ten characters that we would be pumped for.
Love Fist (Grand Theft Auto:Vice City)
This one is for sure a reach, but a metal head can dream. Love Fist hasn’t performed together in over 30 years. Willy, the band’s bassist, hasn’t even been seen in public since distancing himself from the band in 1992. At their peak in the mid-80s, the band seemed poised to rule the world, with chart toppers like Fist Till Morning and Fist Fury. You couldn’t walk down the street without someone shouting at you, “Our love rockets are too aroused.” Just imagine, the band back together for an unplugged rendition of their first EP. Maybe one day
Must Play Track: Fist Fury
Freddy & Friends (Five Nights at Freddy’s Series)
FNaF Finatics have been begging for a Tiny Desk performance from Freddy & Friends since the band first started performing. The souls that inhabit these animatronic performers have so much soul. Sure, some of the music is a bit corporate, but hopefully the stripped down sound of a desk performance would bring the soul back to Freddy and the gang.
Must Play Track: Their covers are always the best
PaRappa The Rapper (PaRappa the Rapper Series)
PaRappa The Rapper is hot off a beef with Chance the Rapper, and his paw is still on the gas pedal. Rising to prominence in the mid-90s, Parappa’s career seemed to be a flash in the pan, but his work has passed the test of time and to quote the dog himself “Has a longevity that outlast both Chance and his marriage.” PaRappa’s funk flow will shine should he get the chance to kick, punch, and chop through a Tiny Desk set.
Must Play Track: MC King Kong Mushi
U-1, The Legendary Gitaroo Man (Gitaroo Man)
U-1 and the supporting characters that made up his career were born to be on Tiny Desk Concert. You’re telling me a live performance of Bee’Jam Blues wouldn’t kill an NPR intern from how awesome it is? Get this man his guitar and get him behind the desk.
Must Play Track: Born to be Bone
The Indigo-Go’s (The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask)
You’d have to fill the NPR offices with gallons of seawater to make this one a reality, but it would be worth it. The scond generation of The Indigo-Go’s really made a name for themselves back in 2000, heading out on a world tour that spanned across the seven seas. Sadly, the band doesn’t tour much these days due to lead singer, Lulu’s constant bouts with shore vocal cords and depression. One would think a lowkey setting like the Tiny Desk would be perfect for these Zora rockstars.
Must Play Track: New Wave Bossa Nova
Dandelion (The Witcher Series)
If you can keep him from flirting with all the maidens in the office, Dandelion doesn’t need much to perform behind the desk. Just don’t take all his tales inbetween songs at face value.
Must Play Track: Toss a Coin to Your Witcher
Donkey Kong (Donkey Konga Series)
This is another tough one, cause obviously you want him to do the DK Rap, but he would very much rather play his bongos. His last three studio albums have all been bongo based, which is fine, but come on Donkey Kong, we want to hear the hits. Maybe we can let him do three bongo songs and then he’ll feel more inclined to rap for everyone.
Must Play track: The DK Rap
You (Guitar Hero Series)
You think we’d forget you? We remember the late 2000s and the blisters on your fingers from trying to master Through the Fire and Flames. It sucks that you sold your guitar for beer money, but maybe we can find one in the NPR offices, that you can use for your performance. Just don’t get mad and throw it down when you miss a note in your song, big guy.
Must Play Track: Free Bird
K.K. Slider (Animal Crossing Series)
K.K. has been traveling from town to town, playing music for over 20 years now. No other discography can compete with his. Just a dog and his guitar bebopping about and creating some of the heaviest tunes you’ve ever heard. Getting him behind the desk may be tricky since he’s so touch and go. Once there, he may try to get away with performing only one track. He’s a one track concert kind of dog, so bask in it.
Must Play Track: K.K. Disco
Jack Black
You knew he was going to be number one before you even started this list. If there’s one video game character that’s avoided the Tiny Desk Concert, it’s been Jack Black and his musical talents. Get him out of the booth and behind the desk. Just don’t let him hear any of the interns making assassination jokes or the whole show is off.
PALLET TOWN — After quietly climbing the ranks and becoming the Pokémon League Champion, Red has broken his vow of silence revealing he was jinxed by Blue back in middle school.
“Fucking finally! You don’t know how frustrating it was to walk across the entire region, fight eight gym leaders, the Elite Four, and countless Team Rocket Grunts all while keeping my mouth shut,” he told our sources outside the Indigo Plateau. “After that jackass jinxed me I had two options, either become the greatest Pokémon Trainer in the world, or buy him a soda.”
The incident occurred in the PokéSchool cafeteria when both Red and Blue said “Dewgong these nuts” at the exact same time. Blue quickly jinxed Red rendering him speechless until Blue said his name three times.
“He came home from school one day and didn’t say a word,” said Red’s Mother as she sat motionless at her kitchen table. “I just assumed he was going through adolescence, and what better way for an eleven year old to come out of his shell than embarking on a cross-country adventure with some little rat thing Professor Oak gave him?”
The young Pokémon Trainer then spent the next several months silently wandering around the Kanto region, aimlessly walking into stranger’s houses, onto cruise ships, and infiltrating an underground crime organization’s secret headquarters.
“I suppose I should’ve gotten some sort of verbal consent before I thrust a Pokémon into that kid’s hands, but he would’ve been killed if he went into that tall grass alone, I saved his life,” said Professor Oak in an interview with Kanto Quarterly. “I never told him to go become a Pokémon Champion, he did that on his own accord.”
What was chalked up by most as being shyness, anxiety, or a monk-like spiritual vow of silence has finally been revealed, showing that if we listen more and talk less we too could become the very best, like no one ever was.
At press time, Red has started a podcast where he can yap on and on to his heart’s content.
I do not feel prepared for life and I blame video games. Video games have turned me into a paranoid freak. They have put a lot of baseless fears into me that have stunted my growth, and at the ripe age of 34 I can no longer be silent, so here are 10 baseless fears that video games have given me.
Lava
Never once have I set foot outside, and all of a sudden I am surrounded by molten rock. I thought there would at least be street signs about not to park in certain areas, because a deluge of lava is about to roll through, but instead, it’s just street cleaning and I’ve collected so many tickets I’d rather my car had just melted at this point.
Poison Swamps
Hidetaka Miyazaki is a fraud and a liar. I have gone to every park in my neighborhood and I have yet to see one poison swamp or for that matter enemies that have adapted to poison swamps. There are no muck-like creatures emblematic of our destruction of the environment or just a weird ass frog!
Showers
I smell awful. I subsist off of wiping myself with the garbage in my room. It sounds like showers could help me out, but honestly, even just the thought of running water scares me so much that I only drink energy drinks.
Girls
I’m told the fairer sex will only use you for your body, betray you, and be bad at giving you ammo, but I have yet to even meet one! Apparently, girls are half the planet, but they don’t seem to be anywhere in my basement unless my mom counts, but moms aren’t girls they’re nags. Am I right? Heh heh. God! I’m so alone!
Minorities
Similar to girls in that I’ve never seen them but I also fear they are making video games and movies bad with DEI. I bet they want to make Batman a black socialist instead of a white billionaire. Nobody is turning Bruce Wayne into Martin Luther King on my watch!
Bad Ping
The horrors of life always seem to render with no lag! Like when my basement flooded and it ruined my PS5 or when Dad left and I never saw him again.
Exclamation Points
Metal Gear taught me that a giant exclamation point pops up above somebody’s head because they were surprised to see you, but that would require me to socially interact with people which is a no-go for me thank you very much.
Pointless DLC
My life has never expanded past the small corners of its existence. At this point, I would give anything for an expansion pack on my life that is mostly a pointless rehash of its best parts, but instead, it seems like all I’m doing is losing my hair.
Mimics
Every real-life treasure chest I have ever found has just had actual treasure in it, not a living creature that wants to eat me.
Invisible Walls
Oh, a wall that won’t let me enter a part of the map that hasn’t been developed. Ha! I’ve found I can go anywhere in the world, but that access has filled me with a deep dread and possible agoraphobia. My life is hell!
REDMOND, Wash. — Halo Studios has announced their plan to convert Halo Infinite multiplayer map ‘Launch Site’ into a pickleball court as part of a new initiative to help with player retention.
“We polled lapsed players on what would get them back into the Halo Infinite ecosystem,” said John Colins, Head of Multiplayer and Pickleball Initiatives at Halo Studios, said in a recent YouTube video. “The second most popular answer was adding in some elements of pickleball to the game. The most popular answer was fixing bugs and balancing the game, so we decided to go with a pickleball court.”
Halo Infinite’s popularity has waned over the years with players opting out of its numerous multiplayer options and instead focusing on pickleball whenever they’re not obsessing and complaining about the game’s dipping Steam Chart number, a trend that Colins said he finds relatable.
“There are many times I find myself on the pickleball court, when I could be fixing a bug or balancing the Gravity Hammer,” Colins admitted in the video, as he tossed a paddle from hand-to-hand. “I get the obsession. That’s why we’re converting Launch Site to a pickleball court. It’s where most players first played Halo Infinite back at launch and it’s where we hope to combine the multiple passions of the player base. There’s also the added benefit of all the noise. Players’ complaints and constant whining will now be drowned out by the hypnotic and comforting tune of paddles passing pickleballs back and forth across the court.”
Outspoken Halo Infinite YouTuber, H4L0GUY343, took to his channel to complain about the planned pickleball courses.
“You can’t just up and change Launch Site. Like yeah, it’s my least favorite map and I don’t play it anymore, but you can’t do that,” H4L0GUY343 said, before the rest of his dumb complaining was drowned out by a nearby game of pickleball.
At press time, Halo Studios confirmed the early success of converting Launch Site to a pickleball court, and committed to converting ten-percent of existing Halo Infinite maps.
NEW YORK — Spider-Man was overheard delivering a lighthearted wisecrack to a bloody, mangled corpse, after the target of his jest reportedly jumped a subway turnstile, the Daily Bugle has confirmed.
“He was very apologetic, saying he was late for his daughter’s piano recital,” said the NYPD officer who last spoke to the victim, who could only be identified by DNA. “I was fine with giving him a warning, but right as he emerged at 42nd and Bryant Park he was abducted, thrown 20 feet into the air, and slammed down, back first, into a fire hydrant.”
Witnesses claim the red menace also wrapped the victim in a sticky, web-like substance, carried him to the top of the New York Public Library, and dangled him over the edge demanding the $2.90 it would’ve cost for the subway trip.
“Look, I’m all for supporting public transportation,” said Alice Denver, a local student who was studying at the time of the incident. “But Spidey may have gone a little too far this time. As a lifelong New Yorker, I’ve seen my fair share of grotesque scenes on the street, but the audacity to throw a humorless jab at a pile of bones and flesh is deplorable. That guy’s not my friendly neighborhood Spider-Man.”
The border-line public execution, caught on several bystanders’ cell phones, ended with an ill-advised quip from Spider-Man that has since gone viral on social media.
“This guy’s the worst thing to happen to Subway since Jared!” Spider-Man heroically proclaimed to groans from passersby. “Uh, I mean, maybe next time he’ll take the bus. Life isn’t ‘fare’? C’mon, guys, give me something. This crowd is more dead than the guy I just killed.”
At press time, Spider-Man was still workshopping roasts as a crowd gathered to remember the victim at a candlelight vigil.
ARKHANGELSK, USSR — Soldier Iakov Makarov expressed confusion at his order to stand guard in a men’s room stall on the second floor of Arkhangelsk’s chemical weapons facility, sources report.
“I really don’t understand why I’m stationed here,” Makarov said. “As an incredibly effective soldier who excelled in both basic and special training, I can be of much better use at any other position in this facility. So far as I can tell, there doesn’t seem to be anything particularly special about this bathroom, and even if there was, there are three other soldiers already here. I can’t even see what I’m supposed to be guarding because I was also ordered to keep the stall door shut. I’ve been standing here for the last three hours just staring at it. This just doesn’t make any sense.”
Makarov’s commanding officer Ioakim Nikitin admitted to having erred in issuing the orders to Makarov.
“Yeah, in retrospect, that wasn’t the smartest allocation of my soldiers,” Nikitin conceded. “The chemical weapons we create in this facility are incredibly important to the Motherland, and the gas tanks in the main bottling area are especially integral to production. They definitely could have used a strong defensive presence, so I really should have placed more soldiers there instead of grouping so many of them in the men’s room. I’ll try to do better next time.”
British Secret Service agent James Bond noticed the strange positioning of the soldiers upon breaching the facility.
“I infiltrated the building through the vents, and just happened to drop down in the men’s room,” Bond commented. “There were four soldiers randomly standing guard throughout the room. I followed my assignment and met up with fellow agent Alec Trevelyan in the bottling area, where we detonated the gas tanks. It seems like these soldiers who were in the bathroom for seemingly no reason would have been much more productive near these tanks, but I’m not going to argue with them making my job easier.”
At press time, Nikitin was also second-guessing his strategy of placing so many units of body armor throughout the facility.
My original plan for this week’s column was to end the year by breaking out the pile of shame: the games that I’d meant to cover in the column, but for whatever reason, did not. That turned out to be an unrealistically ambitious plan, both because I’ve been on the road for the holidays and because I spent all week playing Tactical Breach Wizards.
It’s likely that if you care at all about indie PC and/or turn-based strategy games, you’re already aware of TBW. It’s reportedly sold very well, has just over 7,500 reviews on Steam at time of writing, and is the latest project from Suspicious Developments, the studio that made Gunpoint and Heat Signature. This column is ostensibly about putting a spotlight on lesser-known games, but TBW is already at least a sleeper hit.
I want to write about it anyway, if only to highlight its elegance. That’s an odd word to use about TBW, which is a half-serious game about foul-mouthed wizards who solve all their problems by throwing people out of windows, but nothing else fits.
There’s a flow to TBW that immediately jumped out at me. From the start, it’s very careful to only give you as much information as you actually need. It sets up both its mechanics and worldbuilding at a careful pace, with natural conversations, great comedy writing, and bite-size introductory levels that introduce each new feature. It’s a master class on both in-game tutorials and narrative exposition.
TBW, as the name suggests, is basically turn-based Rainbow Six, but everyone in the squad is some kind of spellcaster. Its world is a sort of 20th-century western Europe with magic, set in several feuding nations on the brink of war.
You play as Jen Kellen, a storm witch and private investigator who was hired to find a missing person. She did, ten seconds after a doctor shot him through the head. Jen heads to the police station to find out why.
Subsequently, a strike team abducts the doctor, with Jen’s old acquaintance Zan on their heels. Zan wants to know why his old partner Liv, who vanished two years ago, has resurfaced as a commander for a shady PMC, and why they’re sending her to attack random police stations. With no real leads, no backup, and no money, Zan and Jen team up to find out what Liv and her new employer are doing.
Each of your characters in TBW is a different sort of wizard, and you gradually unlock a suite of different abilities as you progress. Jen is a storm witch, who does little direct damage but can knock enemies around with gusts of wind.
The combat really revolves around Zan, however, who has the ability to see one second into the future. Mechanically, you can use Zan’s foresight to rewind and fast-forward through each turn, to see the consequences of your actions and undo them as required.
You only have so many actions you can take in any turn, but Zan is essentially a mechanically-justified quicksave button. It’s easy to make a stupid mistake that gets a character killed, but you can always rewind to the start of your turn and try something else.
That’s one of multiple ways in which TBW feels like it was made for me specifically. I play a lot of turn-based strategy games, but bounce off many of them for one reason or another: big difficulty spikes, poorly-explained mechanics that suddenly become crucial, how a displayed 90% hit chance usually results in a miss, and so on.
As it turns out, I’m not the only one with that list of grievances. According to the developers, TBW is essentially an attempt to address issues that annoyed them about XCOM 2. They started with a laundry list of complaints about a game that they loved, then made something that systematically addressed them.
There are features of TBW’s gameplay and world that deal with problems that I didn’t know I had, like how you aren’t forced to bench half the squad at any given time, or how your team defaults to non-lethal tactics. It does help keep TBW’s overall tone intact when you know you aren’t actually dropping 10 to 16 bodies per map.
Naturally, I could point to a couple of things that annoy me. There are a couple of rough levels in the campaign and I’m not crazy about every character in the lineup. Dall in particular feels like she’s missing some crucial elements in her kit, especially as you close in on the endgame.
Despite that, Tactical Breach Wizards simply does most things right. It’s one of the most compulsively playable strategy games I’ve tried in years, and it navigates what could’ve been a worldbuilding nightmare with a casual confidence that I actually find a little inspiring. It’s an easy recommendation.
[Tactical Breach Wizards, published and developed by Suspicious Developments, is now available on PC for $19.99. This column was written with a copy of the game purchased on Steam.]
ADVENTURE BAY — Following a decade of crime fighting, the Paw Patrol has been defunded and its members have been put down. Recently elected Mayor Humdinger says it’s all part of an aggressive new vision for Adventure Bay.
“The Paw Patrol has been disbanded and replaced with a more sensible and obedient human police force,” Humdinger said, surrounded on stage by his little kittens. “For too long, Ryder and his pups have run amok in Adventure Bay. You gave them a tower and vehicles, they asked for mobile bases and bigger vehicles. You asked for their protection, they ran off to Barkingburg on an all expenses paid trip, that you paid for. This unchecked spending must come to an end. Adventure Bay will no longer pay. Say it with me everyone: Adventure Bay will no longer pay.”
Humdinger continued a few more times before realizing no one in the crowd was shouting along. Following an awkward silence, the mayor opened up for questions, most of which related to the fate of Ryder and his pups.
“Ryder has been shipped off to a Foggy Bottom orphanage. The pups have been rounded up and are going to be put down,” Humdinger said to a chorus of gasps. “What?! It’s the humane thing to do. Once a pup gets a taste for civil service, it never stops being a civil servant. We’ve already ‘taken care of’ Zuma and Rocky since they were underused and we figured that news would sting you a little less. Skye, Marshall, and Chase, on the other hand, will be publicly executed in the coming days.”
Members of the press displayed anger and outrage at the news as Humdinger smiled down from his podium. Several reports asked about the fate of Rubble, the construction pup on the Paw Patrol’s payroll, who had not been mentioned in the mayor’s plans.
“For those of you wondering about Rubble, yes, he has been spared from my wrath, er, I mean plan,” Humdinger said as he stroked one of his kittens. “Aside from him being an adorable bulldog, I can’t bring myself to order the execution of a contractor who is not only forklift certified, but is timely as well. Do you know how hard it is to find a timely contractor?”
At press time Adventure Bay’s new police force had been gifted a Cybertruck, a Dodge Charger, and a brand new battle tank, all from the office of Mayor Humdinger.
AUSTIN — Since its announcement, fans of Legacy of Shane: Blood Reaper and its deep mythology have been eager to jump back into the remaster of the classic 1999 game. Upon release, not everyone is as thrilled.
“Where in Christ am I supposed to find the fire temple?” asked Sam Bradley, an employee at the mall Wetzel’s Pretzels. “I don’t remember any of this stuff. I worked three dozen jobs, had two kids, and one divorce since this originally came out,” said the braggart.
While longtime fans are thrilled to re-enter the lore-heavy world of their youth, new players are frustrated by the nonsensical map, poorly lit areas, and all the game-breaking bugs that remain from the original release.
“I know everyone thinks my generation just plays Fortnite but this is legit frustrating,” said Thora Birch, an employee of Auntie Anne’s Pretzels further down the mall. “All the winding hallways lead to rooms that look identical to the last. How did anyone finish this game?” asked the idiot who clearly doesn’t understand the revolutionary disc-streaming technology developed before they were born.
Gamefaqs.com celebrated the highest traffic they’d had in years as players try to understand ancient block puzzles and why the fire sword is in the water temple. Hardcore fans praise the third party that developed the remaster since all they did was port the GoG patch to Steam, upscaled the textures, and left the bugs intact.
“This is how you remaster a game!” half a dozen YouTube thumbnails exclaim, the hosts all in front of identical Funko Pop walls. One YouTuber, Jman85, stood out as his review was done at his job working at Philly Pretzel Factory.
At press time, the developers announced plans to modernize the game by introducing a series of game breaking patches all released within the coming months.
