Game Reviews – Page 4 – My Game Reviews

How to make music with Google Lyria in 2026

Google just released their AI music creator on the Gemini Chatbot platform. I was aware that Google was already getting their feet wet with the AI music, but now its available for the public.

Here is a guide on how to create music with this publicly available tool here.

What is Google Lyria?

Google Lyria is an AI music creator with Google Gemini which will create songs from various genres based on your word prompts, image prompts or video prompts.

This AI music generator is very efficient and easy to use. It is able to create songs within seconds which is better than its closest competitor, Suno, which while a good platform, is too niche. I prefer having everything AI in one app and Gemini provides that right now.

How to make music with Google Lyria

In order to create music. You need to get to the Google Gemini website or app.

There is a new icon avaliable in your options known as “Create music”.

When you click on that button, this screen will appear here.

Google Gemini’s Lyria model gives you multiple tracks to remix in an interface similar to that of Open AI’s ChatGPT ai image generators.

I decided to type in a prompt for making Chinese Traditional music with the guzheng here.

Lyria is prompt at making the music. Each song that is created is 30 seconds long.

Right now, the one area that it differs from Suno AI is that the songs are limited to 30 seconds.

Here is an example of one creation here.

As you can see, Gemini’s music AI model will create an image which represents the essence of that song here.

The quality of the music is very high. The Guzheng is one of my most favorite of all musical instruments.

How should you use Google Lyria?

I have already been using Suno AI to create quick songs for me to put on my MP3 Player. Many of these songs are enjoyable to play. Considering that I have an interest in Baroque and Classical music, these AI songs are not as much of a bother for me.

If you have a YouTube channel, having these AI music creators are a great substitute to taking other people’s music. While the human touch is very important, people have been using stock music and images for many years. Now, we can even more precise usage of such content to enhance your videos.

Considering that these songs are only 30 seconds long, I believe that Lyria is great for making music for intros to your videos here. In this era of YouTube videos, intros are very important for getting people interested in your content and most importantly, increasing interaction with that same content here.

Google Lyria is an amazing tool already

This new release is an amazing tool and shows how powerful Large Language Models (LLMs) can be. That you can attach a video and create a song will reinvigorate the creativity in humanity. AI can be both a companion and tool in this journey to help water the garden of our imaginations.

YouTube is the best place to discover new games in 2026

Steam has been the most dominant platform for buying and selling games since the early 2010s. Retail barely exists for PC games now; consoles are the remaining stronghold for physical releases.

One cannot go into the store anymore to see polished or not polished games on display now. The magazines are generally speaking outdated and more about the culture of video games than about the games themselves. So where does the player go to get the latest information about video games? Steam or so I thought.

Steam is a great platform and one that I truly loyal to in a way that GOG would wish to emulate here. However, there is one issue with it. Finding games which are not AAA quality.

AAA has been not as good as it once was but I still have a bias towards them. Independent games are still quite variable in quality and its tough to know what games on Steam are worth your money.

Enter YouTube.

At this point, YouTube has matured enough that there are many creators who make money professionally reviewing games. They are basically replacing GameSpot and IGN here.

How to get a good feed for game recommendations. Follow a creator who plays games consistently. After a while, you will get videos that show you videos from other creators as well as the one you were watching here.

I have found many more games through this way in comparison to searching on Steam. There are simply too many hobby games clogging up the browser on the site.

So if you wish to see what is happening in video games and to play games that worth your time, seek out the video jungle that are YouTube Creators and gamers.

Why Civilization VII is not a success in 2026

Civilization VII is going to be one year old this week, and it is clear that the game is struggling to compete with the fifteen-year-old Civilization V and also its immediate predecessor, Civilization VI. This is clear sign of a game that has not met the expectations of the fans of the series and the casual audience that should have been flocking to this game which had multimillion dollar marketing and a pedigree behind it. This is a sign that the series in its current trajectory has played itself out and needs to return to what makes Civilization great. It needs to be an experience of constructing a breathing world in an history sandbox.

The developers didn’t even bother to have England as a civilization on launch. They were putting content behind walls and making you, the consumer pay more for at best a mediocre game. This microtransaction method is flying in the face of the fact we used to get a full game on launch with the previous titles. They sold England as an microtransaction like a piece of scrap to make more money on a project which was lacking energy and any sort of vision that went beyond deconstructing their own game.

I have spoken a lot about the issues of Civilization VII and why it is inferior to the previous games:

Another issue that I haven’t really spoken about is the need for competition. Civilization VII’s failure can be seen as the inevitable decadent phase of every human endeavor. The soul of humans extends to the objects we make here.

Civilization VII was taking the fans for granted in a sense. It is decadent style over the shallow substance.

Music is great and graphics are good, but that cannot sell a game anymore like in the past. You need to have good gameplay, especially if you want players to stay around in here.

Civilization VII is basically 3 mini games in one. The game deliberately takes away choice from the player. You reset every single age, and I find such a mechanic not something that really fits with Civilization. The blobbing issue with players becoming too powerful was just a part of the game. The developers were concerned about that too much. Civilization is not a game that is meant to be solved but experienced holistically. The approach they took to fix this issue was taking away the soul of Civilization. These games are sandboxes not linear experiences with some flexibility but one is aware that these games want to focus on the structure of that game.

Civilization games tend to be more focused on making a world rather than just playing a game. That is why the atmosphere of the Civilization games is really important. Civilization II, while an ancient game now, had FMV(Full Motion Video) of actors as the advisors. That creates character and somehow they have taken it out of the recent games. It is too much of a board game. While that may appeal to mostly console gamers, the PC genre is where the true spirit of the Civilization series is. They made a choice of porting it consoles just to squeeze out more money and that did not help the game.

Why is that Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 is still doing well on Steam Charts a year into the game been on Steam? It’s because the game appealed to its audience, regardless of the creative choices. They kept the spirit of the original game alive in the sequel and improved upon its core gameplay mechanics. When you look at the voice actors in the behind-the-scenes videos or promotions, they seem to be putting energy into the project. Caring about a paycheck isn’t enough, you need to impart your own personal spirit into whatever project you are working on. Civilization VII has only a small amount of that in there, mostly in the music in my opinion. Everything else is pedestrian in its quality in comparison to the previous games.

Civilization VII was looking for an audience which doesn’t really care about Civilization. That’s why the game is struggling to compete with the older civilization games.

The game needed real competition. The video industry has been clustering around the same developers who have gotten comfy having no one to challenge them. Civilization VI began showing this complacency and Civilization VII shows that the series needs to be made anew.

To make a new civilization game, the developers need to return to the roots, and that means Civilization I. Make it simple but complex enough for the modern age of gaming. They need to remove the board game mentality and leave that for an offshoot here. would have given us a real Civilization game.

The important thing is that they need to appeal to the fans and expand their audience without sacrificing the spirit of the original games. Simplicity in video games is really though now with Unreal Engine being so popular but there is a hunger for it which is different from previous gaming generations. People want style not photorealism and I think that bringing that back to Civilization would help to revitalize the Civilization series and return the approval of the fans and casual audiences.