issue 12 // volume 44 ‘Overcooked’ serves up a lot of fun > This kitchen simulator is the perfect addition to your local multiplayer roster Lauren Kelly Graphics Manager kekkk ver wanted to team up with your friends to cut, cook, and plate orders in a restaurant where the floor is made of ice? Overcooked is a four- player local multiplayer game where you and your friends work together to get as many dishes complete as possible within the game’s time limit. This will involve your various teammates taking the lead and barking orders, starting kitchen fires, getting all the wrong ingredients, and falling out of the various kitchens with fully-plated meals. It’s stressful, but it’s also incredibly fun. The game’s overworld is a map not dissimilar to old-school Mario games, where you follow a path to the various levels, which unlock one at a time. There are even different areas that you can only unlock after getting a certain number of stars, with a maximum of three stars obtainable per level. Some of the kitchens I’ve worked in in Overcooked have included two moving trucks that meet up occasionally in the middle for you to pass ingredients and plates across, a volcano with randomly dropping platforms and white bullets passing through the centre, and the aforementioned floating chunk of ice, where you serve fish and chips to penguins. As you can see, it escalates quickly from the run-of-the-mill kitchen of the first few levels. To keep it even more interesting, the players get to choose from a wide variety of chef characters, including humans of many races, a cat, araccoon ina wheelchair, a dinosaur, and a robot. I have spent a lot of time playing this with various friends, trying to three star every level we come to and often failing to do so for many tries, and it somehow doesn't get old. There is also a versus mode, where you and a partner can face off against two other friends to serve the most dishes, but I will admit I've yet to play it, since we haven't tired of the four-player. I have to imagine it’s even more hectic than when youre all working together. However, for those of you who don‘ always like playing perfectly nice, the dash button in this game lets you move quickly but also knock your teammates over, making it a good way to grief your friends. Even without that, though, this game is a challenge, and a welcome one. Between all of the tasks and the difficulty of getting everyone on the same page while dealing with the level’s unique problems, you will fail sometimes, but I’ve never felt like giving up. The game is available on all the major gaming platforms. I’ve played it mostly on the Nintendo Switch, where you can get it for $19.99, but it is also available on Steam for $18.99 and the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One for $16.99. If you have one dedicated game partner, ora couple friends you love to couch co-op with, it’s worth it to go in together on this game. You'll get hours of fun out of it. Screenshot of ‘Overcooked’ via team17.com Veronnica MacKillop Contributor ou've seen It’s a Wonderful Life more times than you can count, and even though you look forward to Elf and The Grinch every year, you may want Christmas entertainment a little more out of the norm. Or perhaps you hate Christmas movies and are looking for something that doesn’t have such a feel-good ending. Check out this list of Christmas movies and TV shows that you won't see on every channel from now until December 25. If you're an action movie fanatic, of watching Die Hard, the Bruce Willis film that takes an intense twist on Christmas Eve. Tim Burton’s Batman Returns puts the caped crusader in a winter setting, taking place right around Christmas. Reindeer Games features Ben Affleck, Charlize Theron, and a massive Christmas Eve robbery. Holiday movies don't have to be the same every year > Christmas and holiday entertainment to change up some of your traditions you may already have a holiday tradition Maybe youre sick of seeing the jolly Kris Kringle on your screen. Christmas Evil is a lookback at the sad life of a mall Santa-turned-murderer. Silent Night, Deadly Night is about a teenager who goes on a murder spree dressed as Santa to avenge the death of his parents. Krampus features a boy whose lack of holiday cheer unleashes the evil Krampus, a character based on Austro-Bavarian folklore. The classic Black Christmas is a sorority slasher Classic Christmas movies like (1961) is Walt Disney’s first live-action 1964 B-movie Santa Claus Conquers the Martians is perfect if you've ever Soul's got something to say > Why soul music is still relevant Jillian McMullen Staff Writer he media hasn't exactly presented the current international political environment all too positively. Although here in Canada we enjoy relative distance from the source that instability, the constant barrage of scandals feels exhausting. It sometimes feels as though it is undoing the work of past activism, threatening most significantly basic equality. During these times, people turn to the arts for sources of inspiration and hope. That we can still hold up Sam Cooke’s lyrics in “A Change is Gonna Come’ is probably evidence enough that soul music isn’t uniquely relevant to the ’60s and ’7os. Soul music was born out of African- American music from the southern US, particularly with the melding of the rhythm and blues and gospel music. The genre is marked by emotional intensity of the lead vocalist, call-and- response between that lead and the band, and catchy rhythms. Artists like Sam Cooke, James Brown, and Ray Charles are emblematic figures who helped to establish the genre’s popularity in the ’50s, with Solomon Burke and Atlantic Records essentially codifying the movement in the early 60s, according to music critic Peter Guralnick. While pure soul declined in the ’7os, its influence on contemporary genres cannot be denied: Rock, contemporary R&B, and hip hop all owe a huge debt to soul artists like Aretha Franklin and Marvin Gaye. Soul music is important because it speaks to the Black experience in the US. It was the music of the Civil Rights movement—as artists became more politically aware, the more their lyrics sung of equality and black pride. In “A Change is Gonna come,” which was released in 1964 after the singer and his wife were denied a room at white-only hotel, Cooke sings “I go to the movie/ And I go downtown/Somebody keep telling me don't hang around,” an obvious reference to the strict segregation of the Jim Crow South. Each verse addresses similar inequalities, but is framed with flick from 1974, and was remade in 2006. Rudolph are always a favourite, but cult classics are even better. Babes in Toyland musical, based on the 1931 operetta. The arts // no. 7 wondered what Christmas would be like on another planet. The 1984 movie Gremlins is a favourite, but it may have you rethinking your Christmas gifts. If you're more into TV shows than movies, there are plenty of great holiday episodes from your favourite shows. Though not technically a Christmas episode, Seinfeld’s “The Strike” has to make the list, since it popularized the celebration of Festivus. “Xmas Story” from Futurama features a giant robot Santa terrorizing New New York. The Office episode “Christmas Party” is one of the many great Christmas episodes of the show, and warns against the danger of that present- stealing game that everyone hates. Community has some of the best holiday-themed episodes, two of them making this list with “Comparative Religion” and “Abed’s Uncontrollable Christmas.” The first-ever episode of The Simpsons tells the story of how the family gets their beloved dog, “Santa’s Little Helper” “The Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire” solidified the show as an instant favourite. Christmas movies can be funny, but these movies take even more of a humorous twist on the holiday season. A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas argues that stoner movies and Christmas do go very well together. A recent Christmas movie that is somehow even more hilarious than you expect it to be is Seth Rogen’s The Night Before. A neo-noir homage, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang is perfect if you need a little more Robert Downey Jr. in your holidays. Christmas and holiday-themed movies are great, but when you get tired of watching the same ones every year, try some more unconventional holiday entertainment to get into the spirit of the season. the chorus singing “It’s been a long time coming/But I know a change is gonna come,” echoing a hopefulness despite the politics of white America. James Brown took a different angle with his musical activism with the single “Say It Loud (I’m Black and I’m Proud). The title of this song, which was released only four months after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., speaks for itself. These themes still resonate today. The contemporary genres that owe their origins to soul are similarly incorporating protest into their music: Beyoncé’s Lemonade may have never happened if Aretha Franklin hadn't first demanded the respect she deserved in 1967.