You might want to jump on a PC upgrade sooner than later. Prices of prebuilts are expected to go up this year because of the inflated demand for DDR5 RAM and production cuts on Nvidia's graphics cards.

For this week only, Best Buy just dropped the price on the HP OMEN 35L gaming PC, equipped with a GeForce RTX 5080 16GB graphics card, to just $2,219.99 shipped after a $480 off instant discount. This is currently one of the least expensive RTX 5080 prebuilts available.

HP OMEN 35L RTX 5080 Gaming PC for $2,220

I've spent more time than is healthy staring at storefronts, convincing myself restraint is a virtue. It is not. This week’s spread is the rare kind that justifies the lapse, stacked with games that respect your time, your intelligence, and your wallet in roughly that order.

A good sale is not about volume. It is about confidence. These are games I have played, finished, or at least bounced off hard enough to know exactly who they are for. If something is here, it earned the slot.

Contents

• Retro
• Nintendo
• Xbox
• PlayStation
• PC
• LEGO

This Day in Gaming 🎂

In retro news, I've baked a large America-shaped birthday cake for Cruis'n USA, an early N64 arcade racer that's turned 28. This was uncomplicated wannabe 3D Outrun stuff. Just select one of seven muscle cars and then race against time through the checkpoints of 14 different courses. Simple. Fun.

For me, Cruisn' was only really memorable for its rockin' soundtrack, some decent 2P split racing, and a bunch of censorship decisions enforced by Nintendo. Seems they weren't fans of the ability to roadkill wildlife, including a bikini-clad pornstar handing over trophies (a shirt was Photoshopped in), and they also ditched this weird secret ending with Bill and Hillary Clinton partying in a hot tub. Different time, folks.

Aussie birthdays for notable games.

- Cruis'n USA (N64) 1998. eBay

- Arc: Twilight of the Spirits (PS2) 2004. eBay

- Octodad: Dadliest Catch (PC) 2014. Get

- Life is Strange (PC,PS3/4,X360) 2015. Redux

Nice Savings for Nintendo Switch

This review is based on a screening from the Sundance Film Festival.

Padraic McKinley’s first feature, a Depression-era heist western led by Ethan Hawke, is an absolute delight. At turns nerve-wracking and gradually riveting, The Weight is incredibly self-assured in its straightforward plot, following a group of prisoners tasked with stealing gold in exchange for their freedom. It boasts an entertaining ensemble – among them, a scenery-chewing Russell Crowe – each of whom play fully fleshed-out people as much as they portray unexpected symbols of American history, resulting in the kind of slick, sophisticated dramatic thriller that comes about once every so often.

The year is 1933. It’s been four years since the Great Depression thrust single Oregonian father Samuel Murphy (Hawke) and his young daughter Penny (Avy Berry) into poverty, but he keeps her amused by speeding their rickety Ford through open fields, pretending to be an outlaw of the Old West. “I ain’t never been caught!” he playfully boasts, drawing innocent laughter. The film’s introduction is intentionally saccharine and, it turns out, quite ironic, since Murphy is indeed locked up soon after a violent misunderstanding. Sentenced to labor in a prison camp under the watchful eye of the stringent, hard-nosed Warden Clancy (Crowe), Murphy uses his skills as a handyman and mechanic to expedite his roadway building in the hopes of having days or weeks knocked off his six-month sentence. He’s up against a ticking clock: Within 30 days, Penny will be made a ward of the state and put up for adoption.

Impressed with Murphy’s workmanship and sympathetic to his predicament, Clancy presents him with an opportunity. If he and three prisoners of his choosing can help one of Clancy’s associates out of a bind, he’ll sign their release papers early, reuniting Murphy with his child. The catch? As prisoners, they’re considered disposable. Their task is to make a dangerous trek at gunpoint, transporting gold stolen by its own mining overseer before it’s reclaimed by the Franklin D. Roosevelt government – a real executive order forbidding the hoarding of bullion in an effort to inject money back into the US economy. These are the beginnings of not only the movie’s larger plot but the streamlined political backdrop against which the characters wrestle. Some are content to live under the bootheels of capitalism, transporting other people’s gold for a pittance; others, especially those dealing with racial animus, are less enthused, leading to a mood of fomenting rebellion.

Risking life and limb over treacherous terrain, and under fire from bandits, Murphy’s quest takes the form of breathtaking set-pieces interspersed with quiet character moments, which help flesh out the story just as much as the interpersonal banter. The men he chooses to accompany him are his sharp-tongued bunkmates, who, despite their wildly different backgrounds and dispositions, at least get along while playing poker. There’s Rankin (Austin Amelio), a boorish WASP loudmouth; Olson (Lucas Lynggaad Tonnesen), a kindly, trusting Swede; and Singh (Avi Nash), a restless Indian-American socialist lumped in with the trio instead of in the “colored” bunks, since Indians were legally considered “Caucasian” at the time. A pair of armed security guards – the terse Amis (Sam Hazeldine) and the burly Letender (George Burgess) – guides them on their journey, keeping their eyes and crosshairs trained on the prisoners. Along the way, the ragtag bunch also picks up a Native American straggler – the dexterous, headstrong Anna (Julia Jones), who bargains her way into the group and matches Murphy’s penchant for MacGyver-ing his way out of sticky situations.

The film veers deftly between reflective silence and cheer-worthy pandemonium, yielding numerous heart-in-mouth moments. The rotten planks of a steadily-collapsing bridge snap off with the thundering echoes of gunshots – the movie’s sound design is impeccable, enhancing the motion of people and objects – while logs floating down a treacherous river practically assault the motley fellowship like a swarm of sharks. It’s maddeningly intense, and often just as funny.

All the while, Hawke – as usual – puts on a clinic of performance that feels like the polar opposite of his meek, shallow, wordy (and recently Oscar-nominated) Blue Moon character. His conception of Murphy is gruff but never caricatured. He serves the plot precisely, calculating each decision and motive with lucid clarity, and yet he embodies each scene in completely organic ways that create worlds of wordless backstory. Despite keeping largely to himself and to his mission, you know exactly who Murphy is, as though he were Jesse James or some other American outlaw who had risen to the ranks of folklore; perhaps the movie’s opening wasn’t so ironic after all. Would you believe Murphy’s skills behind the wheel turn out to be relevant too?

Cinematographer Matteo Cocco makes tremendous use of space and light, framing forest thickets as labyrinths and hiding sinister intentions behind bonfires and deep shadows. A particularly inventive scene uses the alternating flashes and pitch-blackness of a lightning storm to ratchet up the tension, while the movie’s violence is filthy and raw. Some viewers might miss the expanse of action scenes depicted in their entirety, but McKinley places a rewarding amount of trust in his audience, creating momentum through implication and, on occasion, propelling the film forward by interweaving several moments from adjacent scenes, as though each new sequence were being imagined by the last, and the movie were persistently creating itself anew. If the filmmakers couldn’t shoot enough footage for a traditional presentation, they’ve certainly made the most of it.

The Weight moves with furious focus and rollicking intensity. It never wavers from its characters or their political and historical purviews, and makes its unlikely heroes look phenomenally cool.

Audible's first sale of 2026 ends today, January 29. New and returning Audible subscribers can sign up for three months of Audible Premium Plus for just $0.99 per month, or £0.99 in the UK. This time around it doesn't look like you need to be an Amazon Prime member either. After the three months is up, your subscription will convert to the standard $14.95/mo, so make sure to cancel beforehand if you don't want to continue with the service. You also get a free audiobook of your choice for each of those three months that you get to keep indefinitely.

Note that if you recently signed up for an Audible Premium Plus promotion, you may not be eligible even if your subscription has ended. There's usually a wait period (about 3-6 months) before you are re-eligible.

3 Free Months of Audible Premium Plus

Spoilers follow for Star Trek: Starfleet Academy Episode 4, “Vox in Excelso,” which is available on Paramount Plus now.

So we finally know what’s been going on with the Klingons in the era of The Burn.

The status of Star Trek’s classic villains/frenemies has been a big question mark ever since Michael Burnham and the crew of the USS Discovery jumped 900 years into the future of the 32nd century back in Discovery Season 3’s premiere. That future would prove to be filled with a lot of familiar alien races, and a bunch of characters who were of mixed race as well – like Laira Rillak, the president of the Federation who was of human, Bajoran and Cardassian descent. It made sense that, almost a thousand years after the era of Captain Kirk, many of the people of the Federation would have diverse racial heritages.

And yet, one question that remained unanswered was what happened to the Klingons in the nine centuries since that era. Disco seemed to purposely avoid the issue altogether, after leaning heavily on the warrior aliens in its first two seasons. But Starfleet Academy is diving into the matter bumpy-head first with the introduction of main cast member Karim Diané, who plays the Klingon cadet Jay-Den Kraag, and now with the reveal that the Klingons have become galactic refugees as a result of the cataclysmic Burn.

That’s a long way around to saying that “Vox in Excelso” finally gives us our 32nd century Klingon episode, and it’s a good one where we get not just an update on where the Klingons have been (and where they’re going), but also a focus on Jay-Den and the events that led him to the Academy. And it’s all interwoven into another “school activity” plot involving… debate club!

The Klingons have always run the risk of being one-note, which is why Michael Dorn’s performance as Worf has stood the test of time. Worf was never simply a warrior or a bad-ass, but a complicated character with layers and textures who loved, feared, and learned with the best of them. And Jay-Den now looks to be continuing in that tradition, as he is a Klingon who not only doesn’t want to be a warrior, but who is haunted by his choice to pursue a different life.

So when he has his first shot at debating Caleb (Sandro Rosta) in The Doctor’s (Robert Picardo) class, the fact that he basically has a panic attack is quite telling. “Arguing, standing up for what I believe, makes sweat flood down my face,” he says. (I hear you, Jay-Den.) As “Vox in Excelso” proceeds, we see in flashbacks how Jay-Den’s father constantly pressured him to join the warrior’s way. It’s difficult for him to even say out loud to his family that he does not want to be a warrior, and that pressure and fear of letting them down – and of speaking his mind and talking about his true feelings – takes a toll.

The situation is further complicated when his family is revealed to have been onboard a ship that has recently crashed; whether or not they’ve survived is currently unknown. Meanwhile, the Federation has found a planet that would make a perfect new home for the displaced Klingons, but the Klingons themselves have spent the past century refusing hand-outs. As this news becomes a hot topic of discussion – the crash, the new homeworld potential – it bleeds onto the debate stage where Jay-Den has to work out some issues.

The episode’s flashing back and forth from present to the past is handled in an interesting way by regular Trek director Doug Aarniokoski, as we get bits of introspective voiceover from Jay-Den accompanying flashes of memory and a melancholy score. It actually reminds me a bit of how Battlestar Galactica handled such moments at times (particularly Kara Thrace’s remembrances in the all-time great episode “Scar”). Also notable is Jay-Den’s anger at Caleb, who after all is just trying to be a good friend. But it’s those memories, particularly of his fallen brother, that makes Jay-Den react so strongly to Caleb. The performances across the board are excellent here, particularly with these two.

Holly Hunter also gets a B-story, and fortunately I was able to understand her words much better than I could in last week’s episode, as Chancellor Ake reunites with her old Klingon flame General Obel Wochak (David Keeley). The plan is to get Obel to grease the wheels of a Federation/Klingon agreement to give the Klingons the newly discovered world, Faan Alpha. Hunter and Keeley have fun in their scenes together, and the relationship is also used to explore the long history that Ake has as a 400-year-old Lanthanite.

Unfortunately, while the emotional culmination of Jay-Den’s story is effective as he makes the case in the debate for the Klingon way of life to be respected, even if most members of the Federation can’t understand it, the plan to get the Klingons to accept the gift they cannot accept – Faan Alpha – rings false. A bloodless battle where some ships shoot at each other for a few minutes and then everyone says “Yay, the Klingons won”? Nope, doesn't work.