Month: February 2021

Enlarge / Firefly Aerospace is targeting a launch in mid-March for its Alpha rocket. (credit: Firefly Aerospace)

As Firefly Aerospace nears the debut of its Alpha rocket, with a first launch attempt expected in mid-March from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, the company's chief executive is looking ahead to the future.

"The company is at an inflection point now where we've been in this hardcore development mode for Alpha," said Tom Markusic, chief executive of Firefly, in an interview. "Our goals going forward are to transition from a development company to an operating company. And we're also of course interested in the next growth phase of the company, which is to expand beyond launch vehicles and put increasing emphasis on spacecraft."

To that end the company is moving to aggressively raise new funding and is shaking up its board of directors. Gone is Ukrainian Max Polyakov, and in are two senior members of the US government community. All of this comes as Firefly is expected to roll its completed rocket out to its launch site in California in two weeks and perform one or more hotfire tests. The company is projecting a launch between March 15 and 22.

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  Cars blow up real good in Destruction AllStars, now out on PlayStation 5. [credit: Sony Interactive Entertainment ]

One of the oldest video game subgenres, right beneath "shooting aliens" and "eating yellow pellets," is "destroying stuff while driving a car." Yet, while Mad Max's '80s heyday pushed the needle as the games industry first exploded, we've rarely seen the genre explode on a mainstream level.

Mario Kart may seem like an exception, but when I say "car combat," that's less about green shells and banana peels and more about direct collisions and destruction derbies. The biggest series under that banner, Twisted Metal and Vigilante 8, are minuscule compared to Mario Kart—and don't have many peers.

The genre gets a major jumpstart this week with Destruction AllStars, Sony's first entirely new game for PlayStation 5. (Last year's Demon's Souls doesn't quite count, since it's a remake of a PS3 title.) For a certain class of driving-game savant, this one's a biggie, as it sees Lucid Games finally return to automotive gaming after blazing the genre's trail with Project Gotham Racing. But can they succeed with car combat where so many others have stalled out?

Much like a PS5, you currently can't buy this game

The best thing going for this game is that it was yanked off of store shelves.