Month: June 2022

Enlarge / You know the sweet old nursery rhyme: Mary had a little lamb, but then it was resurrected by the devil and forced to create a murderous cult. (credit: Devolver / Massive Monster)

When I first played Cult of the Lamb, launching August 11 on PC and all major console families, I imagined that its demonic tone originated as an internal joke for its development team. Perhaps the creators at Massive Monster sat around looking at the sim-management likes of Animal Crossing and The Sims, then thought that the only way they'd surpass those games is by striking a deal with the devil.

Then they went ahead and made a sim game where players do exactly that. After 90 minutes spent playing the game's expanded demo, provided by its publishers at Devolver Digital, I'm inclined to think its choices about tone, art direction, and sim-meets-Satan gameplay were the right call. (There's currently a free public demo as well, available on Windows and MacOS, but it's much shorter than what I've sampled.)

The One Who Waits

Seems like a trustworthy entity. Let's make a deal for our soul. (credit: Devolver)

Cult of the Lamb begins with the game's hero, a Disney-like cartoon lamb, being led to its slaughter as a form of religious sacrifice. But death is only the beginning in this game. In the afterlife, you meet a mysterious underground beast wrapped in chains, simply named The One Who Waits. You're given the option to rise from your grave, grow a cult full of devout followers, expand your mastery of the demonic arts, and defeat a series of monstrous rivals. You can answer this call in one of two responses: "yes" and "absolutely."

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  This is the 2022 13-inch MacBook Pro. [credit: Samuel Axon ]

Apple's new 13-inch MacBook Pro is a little tough to recommend given the options in Apple's lineup, but that doesn't change the key takeaway: The new, second-generation M2 chip doesn't disappoint.

While Apple calls the 13-inch MacBook Pro its “most portable Pro laptop,” there’s nothing that’s particularly “Pro” about it. It has too few ports for power users, and it can't touch the 14-inch MacBook Pro in performance—yet it offers little to draw would-be buyers away from the similarly specced and soon-to-be-launched MacBook Air redesign.

That said, the real story is that this is the first laptop Apple released with its second-generation ARM-based processors for Macs. The M2 is an exciting follow-up to the already impressive M1 and a promising herald of what's to come to future Macs that deserve the Pro moniker.