The star takes us back to 70s New York to recount his breakthrough, and it’s a great yarn – but it’s laced with angerThe Philadelphia Museum of Art contains a 14th-century Buddhist temple, a one-acre sculpture garden and works by Picasso, Renoir and Van Gogh. Its most famous attraction, however, is a flight of stone steps that draws several million tourists every year. These are the so-called “Rocky Steps”, immortalised by Sylvester Stallone in his 1976 movie about an underdog boxer who needs to build up his strength. The climb is a lung-busting challenge, but if unremarkable Rocky can sprint all the way to the top, he gives hope and encouragement to everyone down below.It’s not just the fans who relate to Rocky Balboa. So too does Stallone, whose entertaining rags-to-riches memoir paints the creator and his creation as all but indivisible, each an extension of the other. Stallone was flat broke and beaten down when he wrote his film about “the forgotten man”, the blue-collar schlub with a good heart and firm chin. Everyone knows that Rocky is being set up as a fall guy. He can’t possibly defeat Apollo Creed, the dazzling, charismatic, undefeated heavyweight champion of the world. Except that Rocky doesn’t care, he only wants to be seen, and in scripting an unlikely redemptive arc for his hero, Stallone wound up transforming his own fortunes as well. Continue reading...

14 Oct 2026 06:00 ✍️ RSS THE GUARDIAN

The studio is swapping the Mushroom Kingdom’s vivid palette for the blood-soaked grit of military action seriesWhere do you go after Mario? It’s a question the team at Ubisoft Paris found itself pondering three years ago after wrapping up work on the charming turn-based tactics adventure, Mario + Rabbids: Sparks of Hope, sequel to its unexpected crossover hit, Mario + Rabbids: Kingdom Battle. By melding a rather specialist genre with video gaming’s biggest household name, the developer introduced chin-stroking strategic play to a whole new audience. “Having the opportunity to work with the Mario franchise was a privilege, and it’s still something I’m very proud of,” says level designer director, Julien Vial. “I still remember seeing the first prototype and being blown away by all the possibilities.”Now, Ubisoft Paris has returned with a new project, but this time the studio is swapping the Mushroom Kingdom’s vivid palette for the blood-soaked grit of military action series Rainbow Six. Where Mario and Rabbids saw squishy creatures bounce harmlessly across levels as Mario encased foes in honey, Rainbow Six Tactics, a turn-based tactical spin-off from Rainbow Six Siege, sees balaclava-clad insurgents take shrapnel rounds to the chest. A seamless tonal shift, then. Continue reading...

15 Oct 2026 09:00 ✍️ RSS THE GUARDIAN

After years of sprawling ‘forever’ games, players are rediscovering the pleasures of more focused experiences. Could a new wave of independent arcades bring back the social side of gaming?• Don’t get Pushing Buttons delivered to your inbox? Sign up hereThere’s an important semi-nostalgic movement happening in games, and I’m excited about where it’s heading. But I don’t want to get ahead of myself here.Over the last five years, major publishers, obsessed with the success of “forever games” such as Fortnite, Minecraft and Roblox, have been throwing hundreds of millions of dollars into their own sprawling, endlessly updating, battle-pass-infested mega franchises – each designed to take all our time and money. The result has been astounding failures such as Concord, Mindseye and Tales of the Shire. Even the good games – Crimson Desert, Path of Exile 2, Blood of the Dawnwalker – are so bloated they have become the unyielding masters of our precious few hours of free time. Continue reading...

14 Oct 2026 14:00 ✍️ RSS THE GUARDIAN

The kingdom of Hyrule has been prettified, the soundtrack is newly orchestrated and our hero feels strikingly different under the thumbs … we play a hands-on demo of Nintendo’s Switch 2 remake of a 1998 game-changerWhen beloved art is revisited and revised, a familiar cry is often heard: “You’re ruining my childhood!” But with Nintendo’s Switch 2 remake of Ocarina of Time, there are also livelihoods at risk: specifically, the man running the shooting gallery in Castle Town. In the original 1998 version of the game, he’d rip off players as they funnelled rupees and fudged the then still novel analogue-stick aiming. But in 2026 we have more responsive frame rates and a motion-controlled slingshot that allows precision adjustments. His targets tumble on the first go, and with them his entire business model. Even in Hyrule, the death of the high street seems inevitable.Bad news for him but great news for Link, a child of the forest who, as in 1998, steps into a vast fantasy kingdom to vanquish a great evil, but now does so with a number of improvements. The boy can now sprint, preventing the ignominy of endless roly-polies to zip across grassy plains. He has a manual jump, free-rotating camera, a scrolling inventory bar that replaces menu screen faff and, crucially, a fatter wallet for holding all those gems he fleeces from struggling shooting gallery owners. Yes, we are being asked to applaud features that have been the norm for decades elsewhere, but it’s undeniably striking to enter familiar territory with a hero who feels this different under the thumbs. Continue reading...

14 Oct 2026 13:00 ✍️ RSS THE GUARDIAN

Evil Empire/Konami; PC, PS5, Switch, XboxThere are buzzsaws and blood pits, bats burst into blood and demons burn to cinders. The series’ new emphasis on twitch-based action may annoy purists but you can’t call it dullA gorgeously gothic Paris swarming with demons should be a perfect setting for Konami’s long-running vampiric adventure series. Unfortunately, while the sights and sounds of this vivid and haunting world leave a bold impression, developer Evil Empire doesn’t always provide an enjoyable experience to go with them. It takes far too long for the most imaginative elements of the game to be revealed.Players take the role of Rose Belmont, daughter of vampire hunter (and Castlevania regular) Trevor Belmont and the witch Sypha Belnades, and her quest is to free Paris from demonic occupation. This murderous noctural journey feels best when you’re fighting monsters; combat is frenetic, sometimes to the point of being overwhelming, while boss fights require considerable focus and skill. Combat is the game’s strongest component and what sets it apart from previous entries. Minimising the series’ role-playing elements (levelling up has never felt more perfunctory) in favour of twitch-based action will annoy purists, but they’d be hard pressed to call battles dull. Continue reading...

13 Oct 2026 09:00 ✍️ RSS THE GUARDIAN

Rising from bluebell woodlands and framed by rolling hills, this cluster of pink and brown brick towers in Croydon is a bittersweet winner of the prestigious RIBA Stirling prizeIf Andy Burnham is looking for inspiration for his great “council housebuilding comeback”, he would do well to visit Croydon. There, nestled into a steeply sloping site, sheltered by a canopy of mature trees, stands a cluster of crystalline pink and brown brick towers, where generous flats look on to a landscape of allotments, playgrounds and to the rolling hills of south London beyond. Designed by Mary Duggan Architects, with Ruff Architects, it is a model of council-led housebuilding – so much so that it has also been named this year’s best building in the UK, confounding the bookies’ outsider odds.Only once before has the RIBA Stirling prize ever been awarded to a council housing project, when Goldsmith Street in Norwich scooped the gong in 2019, for its rows of low-energy brick terraces, designed by Mikhail Riches Architects and Cathy Hawley. This year’s winner, Lion Green Road in Coulsdon, is an entirely different animal, and it puts a welcome spotlight back on housing design at a time when the government plans to pump £39bn into the sector. It is also a bittersweet vindication of Croydon council’s erstwhile housebuilding company, Brick by Brick, a bold and sadly brief experiment by the previous Labour administration, which was halted in 2020 when the council went bankrupt, seeing numerous projects cancelled. Continue reading...

15 Oct 2026 20:30 ✍️ RSS THE GUARDIAN

What is it about music that makes even non-professionals want to hit the dancefloor, and is it disco, funk or even classical that does it best? Four leading choreographers discuss their theories, with the science to back them up‘I don’t know what it is about house music that makes me move, but I just can’t help it,” says Faye Stoeser. “And I don’t care what I look like. I just go for it.” “If a Missy [Elliott] track comes on, that’s me, I’m in the zone,” says Dannielle “Rhimes” Lecointe. “With hip-hop it’s something deep within the gut that makes you want to move. It has so many rhythms to it – a heartbeat, a pulse, a ricochet – that you feel in so many different places of your body.” What is the best music to dance to? Is it house music, it is hip-hop, is it disco or funk? Stoeser and Lecointe should have some insight since, as performers and choreographers, dancing is what they do for a living. When it comes to popular floorfillers, the DJ Intelligence platform found the most-requested track from UK DJs last year was Whitney Houston’s I Wanna Dance With Somebody (with Abba’s Dancing Queen second, and Mr Brightside by the Killers third). In the US, Billboard’s top wedding song is Uptown Funk by Mark Ronson featuring Bruno Mars. A 2013 Mixmag poll named Daft Punk’s One More Time as the ultimate dance track, whereas Radio 2 listeners in 2008 voted for Michael Jackson’s Billie Jean.But what about those for whom dancing is more than recreation? When it comes to dance on stage, there is plenty that isn’t driven by music at all. Back in the 1940s, the US choreographer Merce Cunningham began to disconnect dance and music in his collaborations with the composer John Cage, rehearsing the dancers in silence. Some choreographers use music to create dance in the studio that is totally different from what they’ll perform to on stage. Dance that’s focused on musical connection definitely went out of fashion for a while, but there are a bunch of shows coming up where music is the absolute driving force. Continue reading...

15 Oct 2026 07:00 ✍️ RSS THE GUARDIAN