There are few blockbuster games that are as confident as Gears of War: E-Day. A prequel to one of Xbox's most transformative titles, E-Day knows exactly what it wants to be: a brutal, tense, and self-aware action game, one that is stronger because it doesn't deviate from that premise. Twenty years since the original Gears of War, there's still nothing like its particular brand of up-close cover shooter gameplay, and E-Day shows that it still hits hard two decades later. As Xbox moves into a messy new era focused on its biggest franchises, E-Day could be an early glimpse at the future of the platform. But it's also launching during one of the …

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Do we really need a new version of Carrie? That's the question that plagues any attempt to reimagine the classic horror tale. Stephen King's 1974 novel remains one of his most iconic, and the film version from Brian De Palma and Sissy Spacek two years later remains unsurpassed, despite a handful adaptations that followed in the ensuing decades. Any new iteration of the story bears the burden of proving why it needs to exist in the first place. Mike Flanagan's new Carrie series on Prime Video manages to do exactly that: It not only captures the terror and drama that has made the story so enduring, but updates it in a way that feels perfectly …

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