Here’s my Metro News reviews for the week of April 20th
Mortal Kombat X
PS4/Xbox One/PC
Rating: Mature 17+
With face-eating and disembowelment fatalities, this tenth entry is now the goriest of the franchise. And yet its fighting is accessible, its characters diverse, and its dense story good-humoured. With combo chains and more interactive arenas it’s perhaps the best in the series, just don’t play it on a full stomach.
Online play is hit-and-miss between lags, patches, and disconnects, but it’s surprising how much the game makes up for it by counting your solo progress towards online Faction teams, a Tower mode of timed ladder fights loaded with fun traps, and a deep, dungeon crawling vault of unlockables proving that fighting games can be just as expansive an experience as any other genre.
Very Good Lives
By J. K. Rowling
Kindle/iBooks/Kobo
Rowling’s Harvard commencement address on failure and imagination was written to be spoken aloud and so this text uses poetic illustrations to visualize the expressive nature of her voice; the way she shares details on the side, releases ideas into the skies, and paints vivid memories both dark and insightful.
Lazy Monster
iPhone
Free
This may be a simple 7 minute workout, with no tracking or customization, but it stars an encouraging cartoon monster who offers clear instruction for a range of home exercises to a very upbeat soundtrack. He makes wall-sits, crunches, squats, and especially shadow boxing seem like good fun.
USDA FoodKeeper
iPhone/iPad/Android
Free
From the US Dept. of Agriculture comes this handy guide to how long you can safely store food in your home. By tracking your groceries with your mobile calendar and following included cooking guides you can use food at peak quality while reducing waste.
Roll
iPhone
Free
By connecting your phone to your friend’s phones so that they can share each other’s camera rolls, you can check in and see what your friends are up to while sharing your own selected photos or making them private with a simple swipe of the screen.
