Victor Wembanyama filled up the stat sheet with 25 points, eight rebounds, four steals and five blocks to lead the San Antonio Spurs to a 112-103 win over the visiting Orlando Magic on Sunday.
The game was originally scheduled to begin at 3:12 p.m. CST but was delayed twice, first to 6 p.m. and finally to 8:12 local time, because of delays on the Spurs’ charter flight out of snowbound Charlotte, N.C., on Saturday and then a mechanical issue on Sunday morning. The Spurs did not arrive in San Antonio until 3:25 p.m. Sunday.
The Spurs were none the worse for the wear in the second part of a road-home back-to-back that opened with a loss Saturday to the host Hornets. San Antonio was up 86-79 after three quarters on Sunday and never let Orlando back into the game. The Spurs’ advantage was 100-87 after Devin Vassell’s jumper with 6:30 to play and then to 17 points, 110-93, on Wembanyama’s alley-oop dunk with 2:10 left.
Vassell contributed 16 points for San Antonio while Dylan Harper added 15 off the bench, Keldon Johnson and De’Aaron Fox hit for 14 points each and Julian Champagnie tallied 11. Fox also had 10 assists for the Spurs, who continued a recent trend of alternating between losses and wins in their last seven games.
Desmond Bane led Orlando with 25 points. Paolo Banchero added 19 points and 10 rebounds and Anthony Black hit for 11 points for the Magic.
San Antonio played without Stephon Castle (adductor tightness) while Franz Wagner missed the game for the Magic to rest his sprained left ankle.
Once the game did get underway, the Spurs rushed to the front, going up 33-15 when Harper canned a runner with 2 minutes to play in the first quarter. San Antonio led 37-21 after one period.
The Magic responded in a big way, closing their deficit 40-38 when Tristan da Silva’s floater at the 8:22 mark of the second period capped a 17-3 run. Orlando took the lead when Black hit a 3-pointer with 6:03 to play until halftime and eventually carried a 61-60 advantage into the break.
Fox’s 14 points before halftime led all scorers while Wembanyama and Harper had 10 points each for San Antonio. Banchero paced the Magic with 10 points in the half.
The Spurs quickly swept back to the front early in the third quarter, with Wembanyama’s dunk at the 8:29 mark giving San Antonio a 70-63 lead.
Victor Timely’s fingerprints are all over Loki season 2, even when he isn’t. As one of the many versions of Kang the Conqueror, Timely immediately feels important to the second season, even before we know it’s his designs that inspired (nay, created?) the Time Loom. Sure, that was by He Who Remains’ design, but still! As we see from his workshop of inventions and the way Miss Minutes tries to come on to him: Timely’s got the juice!
[Ed. note: This post will now spoil the end of episode 4 in some detail, with some speculation of what’s to come. Ye be warned.]
So it’s kind of surprising when, after all the teamwork and effort and Marvel CGI that got him to the TVA with O.B. to build the magic machine that saved the day, he just… spaghetti’d. In just an instant, Timely turns into noodles, and Loki is left dumbstruck, just wondering what the hell they’re going to do without him, while the audience wonders what the heck Loki will do without him.
Still, this season folding in on itself so much has taught us one thing: This moment might have major implications for the space-time continuum. Timely getting the time-space pasta treatment might mean his existence, life, consciousness, or matter has simply been wibbly-wobblied somewhere else. As such, spaghettified Victor Timely might not be gone — or at least, the narrative might not be done with him. So what exactly could have happened to him? Here are our theories.
Theory 1: Victor Timely’s episode 4 fate creates Kang the Conqueror
Image: Marvel Studios
We know that there are seemingly endless Kangs spread across endless realities, but how did they become… you know, Kang? He comes from the future, so his advanced technology (and his supersuit) can account for many of his powers. And we know he has a genius-level intellect, as shown through Victor Timely’s less-than-timely inventions. But his ability to manipulate time and reality? It’s sometimes attributed to his suit, but I think it’s also a little left open to interpretation.
What if we just saw its origin in Loki? The man was, as many have put it before me, completely and totally spaghetti’d as he approached the Loom and the many different branches of the multiverse. Could his essence have been spread out into the multiverse through the Loom, gaining unexpected powers in the process? Or, even more directly, did this event somehow change the brain chemistry of all other variants across the timelines, due to sheer proximity to those timelines? Could this have been the event that transformed Victor Timely/Nathaniel Richards into Kang the Conqueror? It seems like the kind of thing the MCU would do — they love a grand reveal, after all, and Loki has been asked to be surprisingly load-bearing when it comes to the universe’s next Big Bad. So showing his “origin” of sorts in the series wouldn’t be that much of a stretch. —Pete Volk
Theory 2: Victor Timely is going to go somewhere else in the Marvel Cinematic Universe
Image: Marvel Studios
What little we know about the technobabble of the Time Loom is it’s pulling all the various timelines of the multiverse and getting clogged. But unlike an actual sewing machine, the Loom is just sitting in massive space, pulling in whatever strands get near it. So maybe when Victor turns into strands in the vast vacuum outside the TVA, his remnants just also get sucked up into the Loom, like one giant machine-like wormhole.
From there, Timely could plop out… anywhere! My guess is it doesn’t even have to be anywhere big (or certainly shouldn’t be), like the Battle of New York or the fight against Thanos. It’ll just be a quick little end-credits gag, like the original Guardians of the Galaxy tag with Howard the Duck. Hopefully he lands somewhere he can keep making his little inventions; if not, well, there’s always the next Kang. —Zosha Millman
Theory 3: Victor Timely died!
Image: Marvel Studios
I think he’s dead. Which would seemingly present a problem to the timeline: If Victor Timely is really the Kang who invented the TVA, then he’d need to have not died before he invented the TVA. Perhaps we’re about to see the fallout of that — two climactic episodes in which all TVA employees wake up in their normal lives on the timeline, because there was never a TVA to pull them out of it. Maybe Mobius would finally get to ride a Jet Ski. Maybe he’d have to choose between Jet Skis and putting the TVA back into existence somehow.
But honestly, causality only seems to exist when Loki wants it to, so who knows! If Timely is dead, there are plenty more Kangs to go around. —Susana Polo
Theory 4: Victor Timely is spaghetti now, period.
Photo: Luis Robayo/AFP via Getty Images
My theory is short, uncomplicated, and best summarized through the words of Polygon executive editor Matthew Patches when he’s in dad mode: pasghetti.
That’s right, Victor Timely is not He Who Remains, necessarily, but he is an equally if not even more important variant of Kang: the one who started spaghetti. Inside the walls of the TVA, far outside the bounds of regular time, all spaghetti, and possibly all European noodle shapes in general, were discovered chiefly through the disintegration of Victor Timely. Through his sacrifice, the bright divinity of his newly noodly form will slip into the loom and be dispersed throughout the multiverse, sliding right into the perfect place in each universe’s history to help someone discover the holiest form of pasta sauce delivery: the spaghetti noodle.
Of course, it’s important to remember that Victor is but one man, and his corporeal form is limited by its size, even when stretched by the unstable Loom. This means, tragically, that not every timeline will get to experience the magic of spaghetti. Some lost out on its pasta perfection, because their universe was never delivered a horrifying Cronenberg-esque noodle-shaped piece of a man. But thank God we exist in one that did. —Austen Goslin
The Pokémon Company held a new Pokémon Presents showcase to talk about upcoming projects in the series. If you missed the show, you can catch the VOD right here, but if you just want to know the highlights, read on.
PlayStation expanded beyond the console in 2022.Illustration: Angelica Alzona
The decision-makers behind Sony’s console juggernaut spent a lot of 2022 putting down railway for 2023 and beyond, dumping money and time into growing the PlayStation brand beyond the funky-looking device in your entertainment center. The company wants the PlayStation name to be ubiquitous, and that has meant expanding not just in the form of video game acquisitions and new services, but bringing the PlayStation line into new mediums and markets. So, while Horizon Forbidden West and God of War Ragnarök bookended the PlayStation 5’s 2022 on the video game side, the brand was busy throughout the year.
Tom Holland and Mark Wahlberg brought Nathan Drake and Sully (or people going by those names) to the big screen in 2022.Photo: Sony Pictures
PlayStation becomes a movie and TV brand
PlayStation Productions, Sony’s film and television subsidiary dedicated to putting out adaptations based on the company’s video games, released its first project this year in the form of the Uncharted movie. Featuring Spider-Man star Tom Holland as a vague amalgamation of Nolan North’s original interpretation of Nathan Drake and his own version of Peter Parker if he was slightly more stoic, the film also has Mark Wahlberg as a character who shares his name (and little else) with Nate’s father figure, Victor “Sully” Sullivan. The movie is, at best, aggressively fine. It took a critical beating, but did rake in over $401 million globally at the box office. Sony has plans to make Naughty Dog’s cinematic action game series into a full-blown movie franchise.
Whether any of the above will be any good remains to be seen, but Sony is making deals to put PlayStation characters on more screens and subscription services. The company has clearly decided that PlayStation games aren’t enough, and that they can instead be the origin point for an expanded universe that ties into the games its first-party studios are putting out. Speaking of…
Sony and Naughty Dog released The Last of Us a third time with its PS5 remake.Screenshot: Naughty Dog / Kotaku
PlayStation movies and TV get re-released tie-ins
Putting an Uncharted movie in theaters and a Last of Us show on TVs is one piece of Sony’s new business model, but the company is also pairing these live-action adaptations with re-releases of the source material. Just a week before the Uncharted film launched, Sony released the Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection, which brought both Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End and Uncharted: The Lost Legacy to PlayStation 5, a console they were readily playable on through backward compatibility. Oddly enough, this only included the last two games in the series, rather than the three games that preceded them. But it was an Uncharted product that people could buy after seeing the movie, or even before, as it included a free ticket to the film.
The Last of Us Part I, a remake of the 2013 original, launched in September to both praise for the source material and the technical upgrade the release brought to it, as well as a slew of criticism surrounding its $70 price point. The remake carried a cloud over it after a Bloomberg report exposed internal politics at Sony surrounding the project, which began under a PlayStation support studio before gradually becoming a Naughty Dog product. The whole situation stinks to high heaven, but it did conveniently fit into Sony’s business model of making its games into an extended universe. Now, there will be a (near) full-price Last of Us game on store shelves when the HBO show premieres on January 15.
God of War came to PC this year, but its sequel only came to consoles.Screenshot: Sony Santa Monica / Kotaku
PlayStation continues to expand beyond consoles and to PC
Both of these re-releases were part of a PlayStation initiative to get more of its games on PC. Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves brought the series (again, just the last two games, rather than any of the foundational ones that came before) to PC for the first time in October, and The Last of Us Part I will bring Joel and Ellie’s story to a computer near you in March. But it wasn’t just Naughty Dog’s games that got PC love, as God of War, Sackboy: A Big Adventure, and Marvel’s Spider-Man and its Miles Morales spin-off also launched on PC in 2022.
All that being said, we still have yet to see PlayStation release its first-party games on both its consoles and PC simultaneously. God of War launched four years late on PC this year, but its sequel, Ragnarök, only came to PS4 and PS5 in 2022. It’s been heartening to see Sony make more strides in the space, but hopefully in 2023 we see a more immediate commitment to bringing its games to those who play on PC.
Sony paid a lot of money for Bungie, but Destiny 2 will remain multiplatform.Image: Bungie
Outside of the AAA space, Sony also acquired Savage Game Studios, whose founders previously worked on mobile hits like Angry Birds and Clash of Clans, in an attempt to kickstart a new mobile gaming division. The studio is apparently at work on a new project for phones and tablets based on an established PlayStation IP.
The PlayStation VR2 will launch next year, but won’t be usable with old PSVR games.Image: Sony
PlayStation VR2 seems like an upgrade, but with caveats
Sony kicked off 2022 by announcing its second virtual reality headset, aptly named the PlayStation VR2. It sounds like a meaningful upgrade from the original PlayStation VR headset Sony released in 2016, with an impressive-sounding OLED, 4K resolution display, dedicated controllers so you won’t have to use your old PlayStation Move wands anymore, and a single-cord setup that will make using the whole thing more manageable. However, as news has come out about the device, things have gotten a bit more troubling.
The most egregious drawback Sony has confirmed is that original PlayStation VR games won’t be compatible with the PSVR2 headset. Senior Vice President of Platform Experience Hideaki Nishino said on the PlayStation Podcast that this is because “PSVR2 is designed to deliver a truly next generation VR experience,” citing much of the new headset’s tech as being incompatible with old PSVR games. Regardless of whatever explanation Sony has to offer, it’s a bummer that the PlayStation 5 seemed to be developed with more future-proofing in mind and now we’re dealing with backward compatibility issues again. So if you want to keep playing your old PSVR games, don’t throw your old headset out.
PlayStation Plus now has tiers, and whether you’ll get much value on them depends on where you live.Image: Sony
PlayStation Plus launches new tiers with new problems
PlayStation Plus, Sony’s long-running subscription service for playing games online and collecting a vast array of “free” games, saw a revamp this year that put it more in-line with Microsoft’s Xbox Game Pass. It doesn’t seem like it’s gotten the same resounding love as its direct competitor, though. PlayStation Plus now has multiple tiers, which each have different included features and perks.
The cheapest is Essential, which is basically just what PlayStation Plus has been for years: online play, sales, cloud storage, and a few free games each month. The second tier is called PlayStation Plus Extra, which includes all of the above, as well as an on-demand library of PlayStation 4 and 5 games. The most expensive tier is PlayStation Plus Premium, which adds a streaming library of classic games from across all the PlayStation consoles, and even the PlayStation Portable.
The PlayStation 5 is two years old now, but the console is still relatively difficult to find due to supply chain issues that are expected to last well into 2023, if not longer. But as we get further away from the original launch and demand starts to calm down, it’s become marginally easier to track down and buy a PS5 of your own. Brick-and-mortar stores are still hit or miss, but Kotaku had a bit more luck finding the box on digital storefronts. So hopefully by the time Spider-Man 2 launches next year, those still looking for a PlayStation 5 won’t face a massive ordeal.
The PlayStation 4 is nine years old and still got most of Sony’s big games in 2022.Image: Sony
The PlayStation 4 hangs on a little bit longer
That being said, Sony still wasn’t quite ready to let go of the PlayStation 4 in 2023. The company’s biggest games this year, Horizon Forbidden West, Gran Turismo 7, and God of War Ragnarök, all launched simultaneously on the PS4 and PS5 and were pretty alright experiences on the last-gen console. You know, if you’re cool with your PS4 sounding like it’s ready to take off on a flight across the Atlantic.
But looking forward, it seems 2023 will be the year Sony really starts to leave the old system behind. That’s a respectable ten years of service since its original 2013 launch, and PlayStation Studios now seem squarely focused on the PS5. Spider-Man 2, the VR spinoff Horizon Call of the Mountain, and Insomniac’s take on Wolverine were all announced as PS5 exclusive, so hopefully as this transition takes root, the PS5 becomes more readily available next year.
One of Europe’s biggest fighting game tournaments, the Ultimate Fighting Arena (UFA), wrapped up on November 13. The three-day event in France was populated by big-name competitors like Goichi “GO1″ Kishida and Victor “Punk” Woodley, but it was teenage mad lad EndingWalker who ended up making waves by not just taking first in Street Fighter V: Champion Edition, but rushing offstage immediately after. It looked hilariously disrespectful, but EndingWalker said he was just “overwhelmed” by it all.
EndingWalker is a fresh face to the competitive fighting game scene, having only been competing since around January 2021. In the nearly two years since he hit the circuit, EndingWalker has participated in copious online Street Fighter V tournaments, typically placing in the top 10—if not outright winningas the relatively unpopular character Ed, a B-to-C-tier fighter known for his hit-and-run combat style. The UFA Street Fighter V tourney, only his second “offline” event, is his latest and most prominent win to date. Having pummeled folks like Punk and five-time Capcom Cup qualifier Amjad “AngryBird” Alshalabi, he’s clearly a dangerous new competitor.
Fighting game news site EventHubs reported EndingWalker won every single match set he played in, losing only one round to Dhalsim main Nathan “Mister Crimson” Massol. After tearing through the competition, Walker found himself facing Chun-Li player and Street Fighter coach Valentin “Valmaster” Petit.
Major footsies ensued, with each competitor gauging the other’s combat style before going in. EndingWalker gave Valmaster very little room to breathe, constantly stunning him and punishing his whiffed moves. It was brutal to watch. But what was most devastating about the match-up was the way he exited after winning the tourney.
Capcom
My dude straight-up said, “I’m out,” and just…Walker-ed off the stage, casually bypassing his first-place trophy. The crowd went wild for the victory, sure, but what sent me were the commentators, who couldn’t believe what they just saw.
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“Stay on the stage, young man,” one of the commentators yelled. “He just walked off,” the other said before concluding that the mad lad was “amazing.”
Walker eventually did return to the UFA stage to claim his trophy, later tweeting that he was “a bit overwhelmed in the end, which is why I left kinda quickly after winning.” He thanked everyone for the congratulations, said he had “a great time,” and mentioned this tournament was his second-ever offline event. The kid’s got a bright future in the FGC if he keeps this up.
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