PS2J 339 News – Karts Over Boards

March 19, 2021
Tagged as: 2021, 2d, 4:3, abzu, action, adaptive trigger, Adventure, advertising, AI, Alan, aloy, analog sticks, ancient, app tracking transparency, Apple, arid, art book, astro bot, backup, beetle, Bethesda, Boba Fett, bow, Braid, bullet hell, buy-out, bytedance, cable, caid, caravan of courage, cellular, charm, China, china advertising id, Clone Wars, co-op, Comics, complete edition, computer, controller, couch party edition, crew, database, DC, developer, dexter’s lab, digital, Disney Plus, DLC, Dreamcast, enter the gungeon, Epic Games, ewoks, exception, exploration, Facebook, fallout 76, financial times, First Person, flower, Free Games, friends, frozen wilds, Gamestop, genndy tartakovsky, Government, gradius, grip, hacker, haptic feedback, hbo max, holiday special, horizon zero dawn, idfa, illusion, imax, information, Instagram, Internet, invasive, iOS, Josh, Journey, Justice League, knuckle, LAN, Legend Of Zelda, logic, machine, moss, mouse, Multiplayer, music, myst, Netflix, oculus touch, official, open-world, optica, paper beast, PC, pcloud, Phone, photo, pilot, platform, platformer, play at home, Playstation, pounding, Privacy, procedural, ps+, PS2, PS4, ps5, PSVR, puzzle, quill, rail, redwall, rescue mission, rez, rez infinite, rhythm, rogers, roguelike, role-playing, RPG, Samurai Jack, secret, sharing, Shaw, shoot ’em up, Shooter, side scrolling, sneaky, snyder cut, social, Sony, Space, spatial, spear, Star Wars, subnautica, survival, swimsanity, synesthesia, table, techno, the battle for endor, the fall, the new responders, the story of the faithful wookie, the witness, third person, thumper, tiktok, tracking, trippy, Twitch, two of them, underwater, verify, versus, warning, YouTube, zack snyder

Free Games

Twitch
- Swimsanity – Couch Party Edition
  - 2020
  - Multiplayer 2D underwater shoot-em-up with co-op and versus game modes, and both online and local play. It’s like Gradius in the ocean with your friends
- Optica
  - 2018
  - Puzzle game of logic and illusion with a basic geometric design, that has you putting your spatial thinking to the test with everything from curious shapes to optical illusions
Epic Games
- The Fall
  - 2014
  - Action-adventure side-scrolling platform game where you play Arid, an artificial intelligence installed in an advanced combat space suit, as you explore a decaying industrial facility in search of medical attention for the suit’s injured pilot
Sony Play at Home 2021
- Free for everyone who owns a PS4 or PS5, not just PS+ subscribers
- March 25
  - ABZU
    - 2016
    - From the art director of Journey and Flower, ABZÛ is a wordless underwater adventure that evokes the dream of diving, taking you on a journey through the ruins of an ancient civilization.
  - Enter the Gungeon
    - 2016
    - Roguelike bullet hell with procedurally generated levels, following four adventurers with different special abilities as they descend into the Gungeon to find a gun to kill their past
  - Rez Infinite
    - 2016
    - An expanded release of the musical rail shooter originally released on the Dreamcast and PS2, it has you following a hacker’s journey into a malfunctioning AI system in a way that tries to create a sense of synesthesia
  - Subnautica
    - 2018
    - Open world survival action-adventure game that drops you on an alien planet covered with water where you have to build, survive, and uncover the secrets buried under the waves
  - The Witness
    - 2016
    - First person puzzle exploration game, a la Myst, developed by the creator of Braid
  - PSVR
    - Astro Bot Rescue Mission
      - 2018
      - Third person platformer with a ton of charm that has you exploring 5 different worlds to rescue your lost crew
    - Moss
      - 2018
      - Adventure game that feels like a mix between Redwall and The Legend of Zelda, that transports you to a fantasy land to help a young mouse named Quill defeat a fire-breathing snake and save her uncle
    - Thumper
      - 2016
      - Rhythm game that has you guiding a beetle-like creature along a set of rails and through different obstacles, all to trippy visuals and the beat of pounding techno
    - Paper Beast
      - 2020
      - First person adventure game where you explore a large ecosystem made up of various digital life forms originating from lost internet code
- April 19
  - Horizon Zero Dawn Complete Edition
    - 2017
    - Open world action RPG that follows Aloy, a young hunter in a world overrun by machines, who sets out with her bow and spear to uncover her past
    - The Complete Edition comes with the full game, the Frozen Wilds expansion, a digital art book, a PS4 dynamic theme, and bonus weapons, outfits, and resources

A state-backed group in China wants to get around App Tracking Transparency and track app users with a controversial new “China Advertising ID”, or CAID

There’s currently a feature on iPhones that’s a little sneaky where developers can store text information in your keychain and access it across any of your devices
- The really sneaky piece that’s just ripe for abuse comes in where these objects are not only accessible from any of the developer’s apps (not just the one that stored it), but they’re also not cleaned up when you delete an app
  - So for example if you installed Instagram and deleted it, then installed Facebook, Facebook would be able to identify that you’re the same person
  - And the worst part about this is it applies to things like advertising or authentication code, so if you have an app that uses Google for ads or Facebook for logins then it can read and write that same information shared by all apps by those specific developers
Well in response to Apple giving users control over who can track them by official means, it sounds like Chinese companies may be working with the China Advertising Association to use this information to build a database of users for tracking purposes
ByteDance, the owner of TikTok, released an 11-page guide to app developers that was obtained by the Financial Times, suggesting that advertisers “can use the CAID as a substitute if the user’s IDFA is unavailable”
Apple has denied that they would be granting any exceptions to the new tracking rules, saying that apps found to disregard a user’s choice would be rejected, and one person familiar with the situation said that Apple would be able to detect which apps use the CAID and potentially block them.
- Unfortunately if this takes off it could be Apple vs the Chinese government, and if the majority of apps in China start using the CAID it could lead to some serious repercussions
Yang Congan, the chief executive of a Beijing-based data privacy company, suggested that CAID had been designed to get around Apple’s rules because it might not “uniquely” identify users, but that’s sophistry at best and an outright lie at worst
I think the best way forward to be to rethink how exactly apps from the same developer can access data on your account, and give users more control over that piece as well. The feature may have been designed with the intention of streamlining the user experience and letting developers recover sessions or logins, but using it to smuggle data across apps should be a clear violation of developer agreements

Sony’s unveiled the planned controller for their next generation of PSVR, and it looks pretty slick

The controller looks like an evolution of the latest Oculus Touch, but they’ve put the tracking ring a little further back around your hand and wrist
- It looks like it’ll be pretty well balanced, though after having third-party knuckle grips for my Oculus I can definitely see wanting them here, too
They’ll also have adaptive triggers on both sides, haptic feedback, finger detection, and analog sticks on both controllers
- With modern VR those analog sticks wouldn’t be worth mentioning, but coming from the previous PSVR they’re a big improvement

This Week In Gaming History

March 13 – 2012 – Yakuza: Dead Souls – PlayStation 3 (United States)

The district of Kamurocho has survived gang violence, terrorist bombings, and open mafia war, but the latest threat may be the one that finally destroys the district for good: a zombie apocalypse.
- As the city burns four men search for answers: Shun Akiyama, the enigmatic moneylender from Yakuza 4; Goro Majima, Leader of the Tojo clan’s Majima family; Ryuji Gouda, exiled former-chairman of the Omi Alliance and antagonist of Yakuza 2; and the Dragon of Dojima, Kazuma Kiryu.
Yakuza: Dead Souls is the sequel to Yakuza 4, taking place one year afterwards but with a decidedly more fantastic premise.
- The game also has a radically new combat engine, as the living dead can easily shrug off kicks and punches.
- Each character can equip up to four weapons at a time, from pistols with unlimited ammunition to wide-spread shotguns, powerful anti-armor rifles, and incendiary grenades.
- While inside the quarantined areas of Kamurocho the player can be swarmed by zombies at any time, with more than twenty attacking at once.
- In addition to zombies they will also face mutants, such as the quick and agile Monkeyboy or the zombie-summoning Cry Baby, who are stronger and will require different tactics.
- Even more dangerous Prototypes will appear as bosses during the storyline.
Like previous Yakuza games sidestories are often available between story missions.
- The quarantine has disrupted many people’s lives, and they need help getting back into the infected areas to save someone or finish some business.
- A new feature to Dead Souls are Perfect Partners, as some of these people in need will permanently join the protagonists, entering the quarantine when called and leveling up and gaining new abilities alongside them.
- Most of the minigames of previous Yakuza games, such as dining, hostess bars, batting cages, crane machines, and more are all present.
- The coliseum does not return, but in its place is the Subterreania, a randomly generated dungeon filled with enemies that rewards the player the deeper they go.

March 14 – 1986 – Night Fire – DOS

As artillery games are wont to do, Night Fire sticks each player into the stuffy interior of a tank, placed somewhere on a randomly generated terrain, and pits the participants (2 to 8 of them) against one another in a merry free-for-all of ballistic abandon.
- The objective? stay alive, and prevent your opponents from doing the same by feeding them carefully-measured portions of flaming death.
Each player in turn can either move or shoot – moving is useful for improving tactical positions (and avoiding an untimely demise when enemy shells start getting too close).
- For shooting, the barrel angle and shell velocity can be modified as needed.
- Presiding over the battle is the full moon, which provides more than ambiance: it helpfully displays on its disc two gauges, indicating air friction and the wind’s speed and direction, which also have to be taken into account.
Josh played this, if not a very faithful recreation of it.

March 15 – 1997 – Snowboard Kids – Nintendo 64 (North America)

A racing game where you control one of five cutesy snowboarders competing against each other.
- Being a snowboarding game, each track is a downhill slalom with a ski lift at the bottom which takes you back to the start for however many laps a track has.
The tracks are varied, the first few taking place on snowy mountainsides, while the latter taking you to wackier locales such as grassy countryside, a desert and a theme park.
- The money collected on the course or won at the end of the race can be spent to buy better boards, which differ in stats, or to collect items/weapons while racing.
- There are also stunts that can be performed while racing which earn money as well, and certain parts of each course encourage the player to do so.
Other modes include stunt mode, shoot mode and speed mode, all focusing on a particular part of the gameplay from the main game, and a multiplayer mode where up to 4 players can race each other.
- There are also unlockables for dedicated players.

March 16 – 2010 – Metro 2033 – Windows, Xbox 360

Plot:
- In the year 2013 almost all of humanity was wiped out as a result of a devastating war, and Earth’s surface became a nuclear wasteland.
  - The few survivors in Moscow retreated to the city’s subway tunnels.
  - But even underground, human society continued to develop in predictable ways.
  - Factions were formed, and stations and entire lines were occupied by ideologically opposed groups of people.
  - War continued on a much smaller scale, adding to the difficulty of living under nearly impossible conditions, fearing the dark subway tunnels which harbored terrifying creatures.
- Artyom was born a few days before the apocalypse, but raised in the underground.
  - Up until now he had never left the relative safety of the Exhibition, the northernmost station in the Moscow metro, where he lived together with his stepfather.
  - However, everything changes when a soldier called Hunter arrives at the station, warning its inhabitants about a group of mysterious creatures known as the Dark Ones.
  - When Artyom realizes that Hunter will never return from his mission, he decides to travel through the tunnels to the central Polis station and get help there.
Metro 2033 is a first-person shooter with survival horror elements, based on the Russian book of the same name by Dmitry Glukhovsky.
- Most of the game takes place underground, but several times Artyom will have to venture outside, into the perpetual nuclear winter.
- Game progression is fairly linear, though areas may be explored more thoroughly for items and ammunition.
- Setpieces include a few on-rails sequences, missions that involve defending a location from an onslaught of monsters, and others.
- A few stages can be completed in a stealthy fashion.
Mutants and hostile humans are the enemies of the game; Artyom can use a variety of weapons to deal with them, including AK-47, sniper rifle, automatic shotgun, and others.
- The player can only carry a sidearm and two primary weapons at the same time.
- Dynamite sticks and knives complete the set.
- All weapons come in different variations with scopes, silencer and other upgrades attached.
- While the upgrades cannot be bought individually, already upgraded weapons can be purchased at shops in the stations in exchange for the old weapon and powerful military-grade ammunition, the only currency in the game.
- If Artyom is hit, he slowly regenerates his health automatically; however, medikits are available to instantly heal him and increase the regeneration rate for a few seconds.
When traveling on the surface or through poisoned areas, Artyom needs to equip his gas mask in order to survive.
- The filter of the gas mask wears down as it is being used (indicated by Artyom’s special watch and his heavier breathing) and can even be damaged in melee fights, straining the filter even more.
- Other tools available to Artyom are a pair of night vision goggles, a flashlight, a light-meter, a lighter, his journal with a compass, and a charging device.
- The latter is required to manually recharge the flashlight and the night vision goggles once their energy gets low.
- The light-meter, on the other hand, helps Artyom to determine if he is hidden in the shadows, helping him to avoid some dangers.
Other environmental hazards include seeking anomalies and strange, sometimes deadly visions.
- These visions play a role in the game’s plot, and also serve as moral judgment of Artyom’s behavior, along with his actions during certain situations involving hostile human organizations.
- Depending on these choices, the game will reach one of the two available endings.

March 17 – 1995 – Descent – DOS

Plot:
- The Post-Terran Minerals Corporation (PTMC) digs up minerals on all nine planets of the solar system, employing humans and robots to do its job.
  - Unfortunately, the mining robots are now being controlled by a hacker, and have taken the human workers hostage.
  - The PTMC has tried to get the robots back under their control, but communication with the mining stations has been lost.
  - In desperation, the PTMC modifies a Pyro-GX ship for combat and hires a mercenary, codenamed “Material Defender”, to fly it.
  - The mission is to destroy the infected mines and rescue human hostages, destroying any hostile robot that gets in the way.
Descent is a 3D first-person game that puts the player at the controls of the Pyro-GX spaceship.
- Descent is notable in that the player travels through various interior locations (mines) but can do so in 720 degrees of movement.
  - The ship however only moves forward and backward in any of the directions it is facing.
  - The ship is able to use a variety of weapons scattered as power-ups throughout each level.
  - They include: standard lasers, the Vulcan Cannon (a chaingun-like weapon), the Spreadfire Cannon (a rapidly firing, shotgun-like energy weapon), the Plasma Cannon (a rapidly firing energy weapon more suited for medium-range combat), and the Fusion Cannon (fires a ball of energy that’s more powerful the longer it is charged it up, but could destroy the ship).
  - All of these weapons, except for the Vulcan Cannon, use the ship’s energy supply.
  - The Pyro-PX is also capable of firing regular concussion missiles, homing missiles, proximity bombs (sits in the sky, then explodes when something gets close to it), smart missiles (more powerful homing missiles that fire out homing energy balls upon impact with their target), and Mega Missiles (the ultimate weapons of mass destruction).
The goal of each level is to locate and destroy the mine’s reactor.
- Once completed, there are only 45 seconds to find the escape hatch to get out of the mine before it explodes.
- As progress is made through the game, the AI will adapt to player’s strategies and attempt to prevent the player from reaching the goals.
This was the first 3D game Josh can remember playing.

March 18 – 1992 – Minesweeper – Windows 3.x

Minesweeper is a puzzle game in which the player is presented with a board filled with mines, without knowing what fields they occupy.
- When the player clicks on a field a number appears on it, indicating how many mines are located in the fields nearest to it.
- The player then clicks on other fields, trying to avoid mines.
- If the player makes a mistake, the mine will explode and the game is over.
- The game features three difficulty levels, distinguished by the size of the board – the bigger the board, the higher the difficulty level.

March 19 – 2007 – Tetris Evolution – Xbox 360

Tetris Evolution is one of the many officially-licensed Tetris games. The game features seven game modes, several of which return from Tetris Worlds.
- Marathon – Standard, timeless Tetris, where the goal is to clear as many lines as possible.
- Ultra – Try to earn as many points as possible in a timed game.
- Cascade – Clearing lines can cause placed pieces to fall, potentially clearing more lines for big points.
- Race – Clear a set number of lines as quickly as possible.
- Score – Reach a designated score as quickly as possible.
- Hotline – Clearing specific highlighted lines will earn bonus points.
- Go Low – The lower the stack is, the more points are gained from clearing a line.
Also included are both local multiplayer and online play over Xbox Live for up to four players.
- There are also a variety backgrounds and BGM to choose from.

Tidbits

Fallout 76 role-playing group The New Responders is making an in-game procedural drama, bringing in other members of the community to join the story and solve the mystery
- Episodes are broadcast weekly live on Twitch and then archived afterwards on YouTube
Genndy Tartakovsky’s Clone Wars cartoon is finally coming to Disney Plus on April 2nd, along with other Star Wars side-projects like Caravan of Courage and The Story of the Faithful Wookie
- Though it’s no longer canon to the Star Wars universe, the series of shorts from the mind that brought us Dexter’s Lab and Samurai Jack is just fantastic and very much worth watching
The Snyder Cut of the Justice League movie is out today on HBO Max, so we’ll have to see if doubling the length of movie can make it into a better one
- Don’t adjust your TV when you’re watching though- the whole film is shown in a 4:3 display ratio, because Snyder wanted it fully IMAX-ready
Part of the ongoing GameStop stock saga has seen the leak of new GameStop Social spaces, including mini LAN centres and tables for card and board games (presumably once it’s safe to do so)
- If these kinds of things come to EB Games north of the border as well, along with the new push to digital and same-day delivery, this could be a renaissance for the video game retailer
Photo backup service and self-professed online privacy experts pCloud have apparently run an analysis of Apple’s app privacy labels and determined that Instagram and Facebook are “the most invasive apps” when it comes to third party data
- Surprising no-one
Rogers Communications is apparently looking to buy out Shaw, becoming Canada’s second-largest cellular and cable provider
- Canada already has some of the world’s highest costs for cell phone and internet plans, and the $26B plan probably wouldn’t improve the situation
Netflix is reportedly testing a new feature that will show warnings to anyone allegedly sharing their login with someone outside of their home
- The warning pops up asking you to verify their access through a code texted to their phone, but so far there haven’t been any repercussions to just clicking “Verify later”

For more content, Patreon supports get access to upcoming ideas and more!

And thanks to the ‘fanily’ that support us.

If you want to support us too, its as easy as clicking this link!

We are a proud member of the Alberta Podcast Network. Locally grown. Community supported.

And talk to us in the comments!

PS2J 333 News – Alan’s Epic POTG

February 5, 2021
Tagged as: 14.5, 2018, 2033, 2d, 4K, 60fps, Activision, ads, advertising, Alan, Apple, automatic, avalanche, battlepass, beamforming, beta, Blizzard, cade janus, Call Of Duty, cancer, cartoon, character creator, charging, clayton haugen, controller, controls, copy, copyright, couch party, dating, dating sim, deadly, destruction allstars, development, Devil May Cry, dualsense, EA, enhanced, epic, Epic Games, Facebook, FaceID, first date, First Person, for the king, Free Games, game, God Of War, Google, gorgeous, gradius, hair, hdr, hellscape, hotseat edition, improved, infinity ward, information, infringement, interface, iOS, iPhone, jesse jacobs, Josh, Kirby, last light, legendary edition, lens flare, lobby, makeup, mara, mask, Mass Effect, metro, mi air charge, Microsoft, model, modern warfare, modernized, monster prom, Multiplayer, narrative, notification, november renaissance, nuclear war, performance, physics, platformer, Pokemon, Post Apocalyptic, Privacy, prom, ps5, psychadelic, redux, relationship, restaurant, roguelike, RPG, series, shoot ’em up, Shooter, side scrolling, Silent Hill, SimCoaster, sneak, Sony, spinch, stadia, stealth, stealth bastard deluxe, story, strategy, super meat boy, surgeon simulator, swimsanity, table manners, tabletop, tactical espionage arsehole, the medium, The Sims, third party, tracking, Transmission, transparency, Twitch, ui, underwater, voice chat, watch, wireless, world building, XBox, xiaomi

Free Games

Epic Games
- For The King
  - 2017
  - Strategic RPG with tabletop and roguelike elements and attractive polygonal visuals. Each playthrough is unique with procedural maps, quests, and events. Single player, local, or online co-op
- Metro: Last Light Redux
  - 2015
  - The sequel to Metro: 2033, it’s a post-apocalyptic first person shooter following a young soldier living in the Moscow Metro after a devastating nuclear war has left the surface world uninhabitable
Twitch
- Spinch
  - 2020
  - Side-scrolling psychedelic platformer from the mind of award-winning Canadian cartoonist Jesse Jacobs, that plays like a surreal Super Meat Boy as Spinch goes on a quest to rescue a litter of its missing offspring
- Stealth Bastard Deluxe
  - 2012
  - Subtitled “Tactical Espionage Arsehole”, this 2D stealth platformer has you sneaking through a deadly facility that seems determined to get you
- Monster Prom: Hotseat Edition
  - 2018
  - 2D narrative dating sim with both singleplayer and multiplayer modes with a randomized story that has you deciding how to spend your last six weeks before prom, going through different events and gaining stats while trying to improve relationships with whoever catches your eye
- Swimsanity! – Couch Party Edition
  - 2020
  - Multiplayer 2D underwater shoot-em-up with co-op and versus game modes, and both online and local play. It’s like Gradius in the ocean with your friends
- Table Manners
  - 2020
  - Physics-based dating simulator that puts the hand from Surgeon Simulator into a variety of venues for dates, from conveyor belt sushi to a plane going through a series of dives

Facebook has begun asking users to opt in to activity tracking ahead of Apple’s upcoming tracking transparency changes coming in iOS 14.5

Some iOS users have already begun seeing a new notification when launching the app, set to appear before Apple’s own notification and clarifying why they think you should let them track you
- It basically says that if you let them use your app and website activity you get:
  - Personalized ads
  - “Support businesses that rely on ads to reach customers”
    - That one might carry more weight if the majority of Facebook ads didn’t seem to be knockoffs and scams
- They also mention that it won’t give them access to new types of information, but that’s really just saying they’ve been gathering it without permission so far

Xiaomi has revealed true wireless charging technology with their ‘Mi Air Charge’, able to charge devices from across the room

With no cables or stands this new tech can send 5W of power to each device, using advanced spatial positioning and beamforming energy transmission
- 5W isn’t much, but as a slow trickle-charge throughout the day it would definitely be a nice boost
Xiaomi has apparently developed a special charging unit that can accurately detect the location of a compatible smartphone, then use an array of 144 antennas to transmit millimeter-wide waves directly to the phone
And they say that physical objects don’t do anything to reduce efficiency, though I’d like to see the potential health impacts of getting electricity beamed through your body, especially long-term
Xiaomi has currently developed it with smartphones it mind, but they’re looking to expand the tech to smartwatches and other wearables, as well as smart speakers, desk lamps, and more
Disney Made a wireless powered room
- https://www.iflscience.com/technology/disney-researchers-make-wireless-power-transfer-breakthrough/

Activision could be in some legal hot water after introducing a new character to their Call of Duty: Modern Warfare battlepass

Writer and photographer Clayton Haugen is alleging that the company intentionally modelled the new character, an operator named Mara, after his own character, Cade Janus, from a short story called November Renaissance
Hausen has filed a copyright infringement lawsuit saying that Activision Blizzard and Infinity Ward willfully intended to model Mara after Cade Janus, including hiring the same model, using the same makeup professional, and instructing her to style the model’s hair exactly as she had done for Haugen’s photographs, even using the same hair piece extension

Mass Effect: Legendary Edition is coming on May 14th, with a lot of fanciness and lens flares

The collection includes world-building enhancements, improved interfaces and UI, and modernized controls for the first instalment, along with a ton of visual improvements and changes like pumping things up to 4K and HDR
They’ve also increased the options in the character creator and unified it across all three games
It all looks pretty good, but judging by the screenshots released so far they went a little ham sandwich with the lens flares and really brightening up some of the creepier scenes

Destruction AllStars is showing off the dark side of the PS5’s fancy controller

The colourful, vibrant destruction-derby style game has taken an interesting approach to voice chat, automatically using the Dualsense controller as a microphone and headset by default
This can be turned off for each match, but it will automatically turn it self back on again next time treating you once more to the audio hellscape that is online gaming

This Week In Gaming History

January 30 – 2001 – SimCoaster – Windows

SimCoaster is the third and final game in the Theme Park series.
- It uses the same graphic engine as the previous game Theme Park World.
- It is a theme park management game where players build their own theme park and attract as much visitors as possible.
- This time there are also grandparents of the little visitors who need to be entertained.
This version focuses more on the management side of running a park.
- It contains various types of business related to campaigns and objectives, such as bringing in a certain number of guests to a ride.
- By completing these challenges, promotions can be gained. As with the previous game in the series, players can walk around in their park in a first-person mode and go on the rides.
The game had an appearance in the cool action movie “Cradle 2 the Grave” starring Jet Li and DMX.
- In the movie released in 2003 by Warner Bros. a little daughter Vanessa of main protagonist played by DMX was very interested in playing this game and even several seconds of her playing were watched.
- This action has defined the SimCoaster as an interesting game for smart girls with an art in their minds.
The title is SimCoaster only in the United States
- Elsewhere, it is titles, Theme Park INC.

January 31 – 1999 – Silent Hill – PlayStation

You play Harry Mason, a normal man, with no powers or training of any kind.
- You must search through the town of Silent Hill, looking for your daughter.
- You will come across many people, some friendly, some not.
- mYou must visit many different areas, such as the school, and the church.
- Will Harry find his daughter and safely get out, or is there more to this town than a simple fog layer?
PS2J 162 and 168 are a two part Silent Hill history
- Josh keeps insisting that he will go back through these and remake these as more entertaining content.
- But the more dry example is available if people are interested.
The PS1 version of Silent Hill appears in the book 1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die by General Editor Tony Mott.

February 1 – 1995 – Kirby’s Avalanche – SNES

The First Annual Dream Land’s Avalanche Competition is about to get under way, and as Kirby and a host of characters from the Kirby series, you can join the tournament and become Avalanche king.
Kirby’s Avalanche is a Puyo Puyo variant, and has you stacking colored blobs similar in a way to Tetris.
- When a certain amount of one color is stacked, an explosion occurs and the screen clears of those blobs, which then appear in the other players screen (either the CPU or a second player).
- When the other player’s screen is so full of blobs that they can’t make another move, you move onto the next round, and so on until the final boss.
- The winner of that match is then crowned the Avalanche king.
This game is almost exactly the same as Dr. Robotnik’s Mean Bean Machine for the Genesis.
- Only the Robotnik/Sonic theme has been replaced by a Kirby theme.
- That’s because both games were actually developed by Compile and are based on their Puyo Puyo games.
- Thanks to Roedie on Moby Games to point that out

February 2 – 2009 – 4 Minutes and 33 Seconds of Uniqueness – Windows

4 Minutes and 33 Seconds of Uniqueness is a game created for the Global Game Jam that tests the boundaries of what defines a game.
- If the program runs for four minutes and 33 seconds—no further user input is needed—the player wins.
- The catch is that it must be the only copy running in the entire world at that time—the program checks over the Internet to see if anyone else is running the game, and if someone is, the program will immediately shut itself down.
- The only graphics are a white progress bar that inches across the screen as time passes.
The game is inspired by John Cage’s musical composition 4′33″, which is 4 minutes and 33 seconds of complete silence.
- The uniqueness of the piece is established through the background sounds in the environment, which makes the experience different for each listener.

February 3 – 2015 – Poké Doll Grabber – Browser

Available through the Pokémon Global Link website, Poké Doll Grabber is a simple game in which the player guides the claw of a crane machine up to the top of the screen.
- Along the way, they must guide the claw, which is clutching five Poké Dolls, past obstacles that could knock one of the dolls loose.
- They can move it left and right, or rapidly move it upwards, though horizontal movements can cause the claw to swing and hit an obstacle anyway.
- Upon reaching the top of the screen, the game ends, and the player will be given their score and will receive a random item that can be sent back to the player’s 3DS Pokémon RPG.
Playing the game costs Poké Miles, which are obtained by using multiplayer features in the 3DS Pokémon games and sent to the Global Link by syncing one’s save file to the internet.
- Three different levels of the game are available, which cost the same number of miles but offer differing prizes.

February 4 – 2000 – The Sims – Windows

The simulation game that people, like Josh, started wasting days, weeks, months of their lives to perfecting the experience of digital lives.
The Sims was originally going to be called “Home Tactics,” and would have an entirely different focus.
- Will Wright originally designed it to be completely about building houses.
- When someone suggested a feature involving letting people move in to determine the quality of the house, the focus completely changed.
- Developers were having more fun watching the people than building the house.
- The design goals were directed towards Sims, and architecture was left as a side bonus.
Sims Trivia

- You can put your own MP3s in the music folder in the game’s directory and they will be played on the radio.
- After managing a household for 100 days you will be rewarded with information etc. about the creators of the game.
- The game is listed in the 2008 Guinness World Records Gamer’s Edition as the best selling PC game of all time, with 16 million sales worldwide since the original launch.
- The PC version of The Sims appears in the book 1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die by General Editor Tony Mott.

Febuary 5 – 2008 – Devil May Cry 4 – PS3/XBox 360 (North America)

This time the player gets cast as Nero, a member of the Order of the Sword who worships Sparda, in addition to playing as the previous games’ protagonist, Dante.
- The game follows the story of Nero in which witnesses the assassination of the leader of the Order of the Sword, Sanctus, by no other than Dante.
- The murder causes chaos and Sanctus’ deputy, Credo, orders Nero to go after Dante, who is heading for Fortuna Castle.
Nero is equipped with a sword (Red Queen), a revolver (Blue Rose), and powers from his Devil Bringer arm that works like Dante’s Devil Trigger.
- They also give Nero special abilities: pulling and pushing enemies, slamming them on the ground and zooming across areas.
- Overall gameplay with Nero is still hack-and-slash but with fresh attack styles and techniques.
- Dante joins later in the game for some levels of his own.
- His gameplay stays mostly intact with the four attack styles: Trickster, Sword Master, Gunslinger, and Royal Guard.
Devil May Cry 4 appears in the book 1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die by General Editor Tony Mott.

Tidbits

Google has apparently shut down its internal game development studio that was tasked with making games for the Stadia, leaving many wondering if this is the beginning of the end
- The service will stick around focused on third-party games, but time will tell if this gets added to the list of services that Google pumps up and then lets fall by the wayside
Apple’s upcoming iOS 14.5 update is in beta now, and it’s bringing some cool features like support for PS5 and Xbox Series controllers, as well as the ability to unlock your phone with your watch instead of your face if you’re wearing a mask
- The unlock is pretty slick- if your Apple Watch is unlocked and on your wrist, and FaceID detects you’re wearing a mask, it will just unlock and send a notification to your watch. Best part, in case someone else has grabbed your phone, that notification has a big “Lock iPhone” button on it
God of War 2018’s enhanced performance patch for the PS5 is live now, cranking everything up to 11 with 60FPS and 4K resolutions

For more content, Patreon supports get access to upcoming ideas and more!

And thanks to the ‘fanily’ that support us.

If you want to support us too, its as easy as clicking this link!

We are a proud member of the Alberta Podcast Network. Locally grown. Community supported.

And talk to us in the comments!

PS2J Show

PS2J 328 News – Year in Review

December 4, 2020
Tagged as: 19, 2020, 2d, 4g, 5g, a short hike, action, ad, Adventure, advertising, agency, Alan, all access, allthestreams.fm, amnesia, Animal Crossing, anthem, app store, Apple, april, Arcade, Art, auction, august, backdoor, battery, battlefield 3, Bethesda, BioWare, Bitcoin, Black Lives Matter, box office, Breath of the Wild, bullet hell, Cat, cave story+, cd, CD Projekt Red, cellular, ces, children, China, Chromecast, class-action, Clone High, close to the sun, Cloud, Comic-Con, conspiracy, contact tracing, control, controls, covid, Cyberpunk 2077, delay, derek chauvin, desolate, Detective Pikachu, DICE, digital edition, Disney, distrated driving, diversity, dodge, Doom 64, doom eternal, drift, DS, dualsense, dumpster fire, dungeon, EA, edison, email, Encryption, enhanced, epic, Epic Games, Epic Mickey, expensive, exploration, exposure notification, Facebook, farmville, fast, FBI, february, First Person, Fortnite, Free Games, futuristic, game, gaming, gato roboto, george floyd, giant, global cold war, Google, Government, greykey, hey.com, highlight, historical, hitman 3, hollow knight, Horror, hyperdot, id, Indie, intelligence, Internet Archive, interrogation, iOS, iran, iraq, january, Josh, journalist, joy-con, july, june, juneteenth, juul, keylogging, la, Las Vegas, Law, Law Enforcement, Lawsuit, lost horizon, Luigi, m1, Macbook, magic, Mainframe, Malware, management, march, Mario, May, mech, melee, Metal Gear Solid, metroidvania, MGS, Microsoft, military, minimalist, misleading, Mobile, monolithic, Moon, mountain, murder, Mushroom Men, narrative, narrator, NASA, nintendo, No Mans Sky, north america, october, Oculus, office, oil rush, open library, opressive, Origin, pay, PC, peer-to-peer, performance, performance standards, Personal, phishing, Playstation, point and click, Portable Ops, Privacy, ps5, pull the pin, puzzle, quest 2, quibi, relic, rescue, respect, reuters, rip & tear, robot, roguelike, samsung galaxy note, scam, security, september, series x, Shadow of the Colossus, Shadows of the Empire, Shooter, sigma theory, silicon, sim, simon weckert, simulation, singularity, Smash Bros, Sonic the Hedgehog, Sony, soulsborne, Spam, spectrum retreat, square, stadia, stanley parable, Star Citizen, Star Wars, strategy, Streaming<, subscription, Super, surreal, Switch, Tesla, third reich, tiktok, top-down, traffic jam, Trump, truth, turmoil, Turn Based, Twitch, Twitter, UK, united states, unsettling, ups, vhs, Virtual Boy, war of 2014, Wario Land, Wii, wink, wizard, wizard of legend, XBox, year in review, zenimax media, zoom

This is our last episode of the year before we take our traditional December vacation, but we’ll be running feed drops through to the end of the year of some other great episodes from the Alberta Podcast Network. Hope you enjoy them, have a fantastic holiday season, and we’ll see you in January!

Free Games

Twitch
- Battlefield 3 (on Origin)
  - 2011
  - First person military shooter set during the fictional War of 2014, taking place in the Iran-Iraq region, with missions framed as flashbacks during your interrogation
- HyperDot
  - 2020
  - Minimalist action arcade bullet hell with one rule- dodge everything
- The Spectrum Retreat
  - 2018
  - First person narrative driven puzzle game set in the near future that has you exploring the peaceful yet unsettling Penrose Hotel, trying to unearth the truth
- Wizard of Legend
  - 2018
  - Indie top down 2D roguelike where players take control of a wizard travelling a procedurally generated dungeon, killing monsters and collecting spells to become the Wizard of Legend
- Lost Horizon
  - 2010
  - Historical point and click adventure game in 1936 where you have to travel the world protecting powerful relics while staying one step ahead of the Third Reich
- Sigma Theory: Global Cold War
  - 2019
  - Turn-based strategy game in a futuristic cold war where you have to run an intelligence agency to secure control of the singularity
- Turmoil
  - 2016
  - Indie strategy and management sim inspired by the 19th century oil rush, that has you drilling for oil to become North America’s next big entrepreneur
- Close to the Sun
  - 2019
  - First person horror adventure game set in an alternate 1897 that has the journalist Rose Archer setting out to save her sister
Epic Games
- Cave Story+
  - The enhanced 2011 release of the 2004 title
  - Metroidvania style game that has you playing Quote, a robot who has suffered amnesia and must blast his way through cavernous areas to find his backstory. Often considered the quintessential indie game because of its one-man dev team and influence on gaming

2020 year in review

290 free games across PC, Xbox, and Playstation platforms
- Some highlights I’ve personally enjoyed are:
  - Gato Roboto (Xbox) – Streamlined Metroid-style game where you play a cat in an armoured mech trying to save your stranded captain and his crashed ship
  - Shadow of the Colossus (PlayStation) – Gorgeous remake of the action adventure game that has you taking down a series of monolithic enemies
  - A Short Hike (PC) – One part Animal Crossing and one part Breath of the Wild, it’s a small exploration game that has you exploring an island and (eventually) climbing a mountain
  - The Stanley Parable (PC) – An exploration game with many endings, that starts with you exploring an office building and going along with the narrator, then can get pretty surreal
  - Hollow Knight (PlayStation) – Metroidvania by way of Soulsborne, with tight controls and a nice art style
January
- Quibi was introduced at CES 2020 in Las Vegas, but unfortunately its dynamic portrait/landscape video player couldn’t keep it afloat among so many other streaming services and it was shut down in October
- The Xbox Series X was unveiled, the PS5’s logo was shown off, and the FBI kept trying to convince the world that encryption is bad because the only way to stop a bad guy with a lock is a (hopefully) good guy with omniscient, unblinking access to everyone’s data
- CD Projekt Red pushed back Cyberpunk 2077 for the first time, saying it’s done but just needs more polish
  - Despite that and even though they went ahead with crunch time development, it was delayed two more times but should hopefully be here in another week
Feburary
- Simon Weckert managed to simulate a traffic jam in Google Maps by carting a wagon with 99 smartphones around, causing vehicles using the service to avoid his route
- E-cigarette maker Juul was sued for predatory advertising, including ads on sites like Cartoon Network and Nick Jr
- Bioware announced that they would halt Anthem’s seasonal updates in favour of an overhaul, and if they pull it off we could see another No Man’s Sky style rebirth
- Sonic the Hedgehog achieved the biggest opening weekend of any video game movie at $57M in the US, dethroning Detective Pikachu’s $54M
March
- Apple settled with the US class action lawsuit regarding performance throttling on devices with older batteries
- A Nintendo PlayStation prototype, the planned CD system for the Super Nintendo, sold at auction for $380,000
- allthestreams.fm launched in a weird experiment, playing content from the six major streaming services but not letting you choose what each of them played
  - The site is still up, but all the streams have been replaced with the old VHS FBI warning
April
- Zoom’s video conferencing app had a lot of shady practices come to light, including Facebook data harvesting, bypassing normal installation procedures on Mac, not properly encrypting chats, and exposing thousands of videos online thanks to easily-predicted file names
- The Internet Archive shifted its online Open Library to allow two-week book checkouts of any ebooks, regardless of how many copies were purchased by the library or how many are checked out
- Sony’s DualSense controllers were first unveiled, and it turns out the haptics and triggers are even nicer to use than we were expecting
- Apple and Google first announced their joint exposure notification effort to make reliable, meaningful contact tracing easier for the COVID-19 pandemic. This has seen decent adoption, but some jurisdictions are still adamant on using their own home-rolled solutions regardless of efficacy or efficiency
May
- We started to see spam and phishing attacks related to fake COVID exposure notifications, cementing why it’s important to have this kind of thing standardized
- Wink, a smart home hub manufacturer went from a buy-once system to a subscription model requiring $5/month or your smart home would no longer work with less than a month’s notice
  - Based on the winkhub subreddit, this marked the beginning of the end and had many users migrate to alternatives that don’t rely on the cloud
- Reports found a new piece of keylogging malware used by law enforcement to trick people into revealing their phone passcode, hidden behind nondisclosure agreements and protective orders
- Conspiracy theorists began attacking 5G cell phone towers under the impression that the new frequency was somehow causing the coronavirus outbreak
June
- George Floyd was murdered by Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, who spent almost nine minutes kneeling on Floyd’s neck asphyxiating him while Floyd did not resist, sparking protests and reigniting the Black Lives Matter movement
  - We can’t forget how law enforcement evolved from oppressive practices in white societies, be it union busting, slave catching, or the relocation and elimination of indigenous people, and we need to do better
  - The tech world tried to show respect by delaying events, posting supportive messages, making donations, and even shutting down online services during the memorial
  - There has also been a push to include underrepresented and marginalized people in corporate leadership, with the SEC considering regulations forcing diversity
  - And Juneteenth has become a more widely recognized holiday milestone in the US, celebrating the federal order declaring that all slaves were to be set free and marking a true independence day for the country
- Star Citizen became the most expensive game in history, reaching $350M invested and still no release date in sight
- And we got our first taste of Apple’s new processors, which have since proven to be a radical jump in computing
July
- A reboot of the cult classic series Clone High was announced, but we still have yet to hear many details about what it will look like
- Nintendo’s president officially apologized for the Nintendo Switch Joy-Con drift issues
- Apple’s iOS 14 beta began highlighting just how common it was for apps to access your phone’s copy/pasted data without permission, or even use your camera and microphone when you’re not expecting it, leading to many updates and “fixes”
- High profile Twitter accounts were hacked as part of a bitcoin scam, including Barack Obama, Elon Musk, and Apple
August
- Trump first announced his planned TikTok ban / forced sale, citing security concerns, which has been pretty messy with the US and Chinese governments trying to affect who it’s sold to and if the sale will even go through
  - The original deadline was September 15th, but there’s still no end in sight
- Epic threw down the gauntlet, violating Apple’s App Store guidelines with the iOS version of Fortnite in a seemingly calculated move to look like the little guys getting smacked down but really it looks like they just got greedy and wanted to stop paying the industry-standard 30% on in-app purchases
  - Their lawsuit against Apple for removing the game from the App Store is slated to move forward in the Spring, but with Apple recently announcing that developers making <$1M a year only need to pay 15% their case doesn’t look good
- Republicans in the US tried yet again to pass laws against proper digital encryption, trying to make the case for adding backdoors that magically only good guys can use
September
- Microsoft and Sony released all the details on their new consoles, with Xbox All Access looking like a solid choice for a good console with no money down, and the PS5 Digital Edition competing with the Series S on Price but the Series X on performance
- Apple announced that they were delaying the cross app tracking prevention features originally slated to be part of iOS 14, much to the relief of advertising companies like Facebook and Google, but we should be seeing them early next year
- Facebook announced the Oculus Quest 2, a very, very shiny piece of hardware luring many into the clutches of the social network
  - There’s a reason it’s the cheapest VR out there
- Microsoft purchased ZeniMax Media for $7.5B, one of the largest purchases in gaming history, and brought a whole slew of IP under their control, including everything from id and Bethesda
October
- Google announced a new standalone ChromeCast model that doesn’t need your phone to control it, but were suspiciously silent about Stadia support
- The quintessential Facebook game, FarmVille, announced that they would be shutting down at the end of 2020
- LA Comic Con announced that they would be hosting their full in-person event in December, but then two weeks later completely cancelled any events for 2020
- The UK started closing the loophole in their distracted driving laws that allowed people to play mobile games or record video while driving
- NASA announced plans to install a 4G cellular network on the Moon
November
- Cloud gaming on the Switch came to North America, with triple-A titles Control and Hitman 3 announced for the console through a <100MB download
- Google revamped their Google Pay app, highlighting peer-to-peer payments, and including a bunch of data-scraping features if you want it to show nearby deals and discounts
- The UK set up a ban on misleading mobile game ads, like those pull-the-pin ones that don’t actually show the real gameplay of the app

And hey.com gave us all the ability to email a literal dumpster fire

A comment on YouTube summed up what happened since Cyberpunks announcement

https://www.reddit.com/r/cyberpunkgame/comments/k0qloh/lol

Cyberpunk 2077 – Teaser Trailer
- 10 Jan 2013
Fiii Rahman 3 weeks ago (edited)
Things that have happened since Cyberpunk was announced:
- 2 Resident Evil Remakes
- 2 The Last of Us
- 2 Rockstar open world games
- 2 Dark Souls
- 3 Gears of War
- 11 Call of Duty’s
- 9 Assassins Creeds
- 2 God of wars
- 3 Miyazaki games
- 2 Uncharteds
- 2 Devil May Crys
- 3 Watch Dogs
- 2 games and 1 Kojima demo
- 2 Nomura games
- 1 The Last Guardian
- Announcement that Final Fantasy Versus 13 became FFXV and launch
- Baldurs Gate 3 launched
- Diablo 4 has been announced
- Kingdoms hearts and a prologue
- Announcement and launch of Shenmue 3
- Announcement and launch of FF VII Remake
- 2 Fallouts
- 4 Battlefields
- Ouya was born and died
- 2 World Cups
- 1 entire Star Wars trilogy
- Crash came back with a remastered trilogy, won a racing spin off and a mainline sequel.
- 6 Yakuzas
- 5 JOJO animations
- 2 Popes
- 2 Spider-man reboots in theaters
- 3 Avengers movies
- Death of the Wii U and birth of the Switch
- Launch of PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5
- Xbox One and Xbox Series launch
- Stadia’s birth and his future death
- Shingeki no Kyojin was in its first season and now Cyberpunk will launch 3 days after its last season
- Skyrim in the Fridge

This Week in Gaming History

November 28 – 2005 – Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time – Nintendo DS

The famous Mario Brothers return in this sequel to the humorous Superstar Saga. In this adventure, Princess Peach takes a trip in a time machine, but when it returns, there’s only a monster inside!
- The heroic brothers travel back in time only to discover that evil alien life forms known as the Shroobs have taken over the Mushroom Kingdom, and no-one is safe!
- They soon meet up with their younger selves, and set out to stop the alien menace, not to mention rescue the Princess!
Although the game has turn-based battles, it follows the tradition of the previous Mario RPG games, in that button commands can be pressed during battle to increase your attack, defend, and counterattack, to give the impression of a more interactive battle.
Battling can also become quite hectic, as players now have to control the each of the four brothers with the four different face buttons.
- This can make for some very tricky situations when using special power-ups that randomize the brothers’ turns.

November 29 – 1975 – Square – Mainframe

Square is a game for two players. Players take turns claiming free points in a grid.
The first player to have four points that together make a square wins the game.
The game allows for multiple grid sizes and an expert mode where the centre position is unavailable to both players.

November 30 – 2010 – Disney Epic Mickey – Wii

Disney Epic Mickey is an action-adventure platforming game for the Wii console that sends Mickey Mouse on an epic journey of creativity and discovery.
- As Mickey, the player is propelled into Wasteland, an alternate world made up of Disney’s long forgotten characters and attractions, and is given the power to wield paint and paint thinner to dynamically change the world while determining Mickey’s path to becoming an epic hero.
Features:
- Use paint and paint thinner to change the world, interact with friends and enemies and solve challenges
- Choose the best path to become an epic hero because “Playstyle Matters” and choices will change the outcome of the game
- Explore and solve challenges in an alternate Disney world ruled by Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, Walt Disney’s first cartoon star
- Travel between lands in Wasteland through classic platforming levels inspired by animated films and shorts
- Experience an innovative mix of platforming, action-adventure and light role playing game elements
- Collect over 75 virtual Disney pins in the game by completing specific challenges, quests and discovering hidden collectibles
Josh says:
- “This game was released right when the rights to a bunch of Disney properties were about to enter public domain. And the new original use of these characters put a reset on everything going free. Disney may have the lawyers to keep him theirs though”

December 1 – 1995 – Virtual Boy Wario Land – Virtual Boy

On a vacation in the Awazon river, Wario stumbles across a hidden cave filled with treasure.
- Of course, being Wario, he wants it all to himself.
- But the treasure is guarded and soon he finds himself deep within the Earth as the floor crumbles underneath his feet.
- Now Wario must find his way back to the surface, all the while collecting the treasure he believes rightly belongs to him.
This 3D style platform game, following the tradition of the Mario and Wario platform games of the Game Boy, will have you using Wario’s unique abilities (butt stomping for one) to crash his way through the earth to the surface.
- His other abilities depend upon the hard hat he wears, and different ones are available that can come as an advantage.

December 2 – 2001 – Super Smash Bros.: Melee – GameCube

The hit sequel to the N64 smash hit party fighting game.
- Made such an impact, people still play it as their preferred Smash Bros.
The game is a Nintendo fighting game with different rules to it. Instead of knocking your opponent’s health down, you knock him or her out of the battle field.
- You choose from the wealth of Nintendo characters like Mario, Bowser, Yoshi, different Pokémon, and even Link and then either fight through the single-player portion, featuring modes like Classic, Adventure, and Event Mode or battle it out with your friends in a four-player frenzy.
- More characters and stages are unlocked as hidden objectives are met, and coins rewarded for playing in all modes can be spent on a capsule toy machine.
- The toys in the machine represent games from Nintendo’s entire video game history, and each can be viewed in 3D with a brief description.
- Also, with the simplified fighting controls, it’s pretty easy for even your non-gaming friends to just pick-up and play.
Default characters
- Mario
- Donkey Kong
- Link
- Samus Aran
- Yoshi
- Kirby
- Fox McCloud
- Pikachu
- Ness
- Captain Falcon
- Bowser
- Princess Peach
- Ice Climbers
- Princess Zelda
- Sheik
Unlockable characters
- Luigi
- Jigglypuff
- Mewtwo
- Marth
- Mr. Game & Watch
- Dr. Mario
- Ganondorf
- Falco Lombardi
- Young Link
- Pichu
- Roy

December 3 – 1996 – Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire – N64, Windows

Set between The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire tells the story of Prince Xizor’s quest to replace Darth Vader as the leader of the Sith, and wipe out the Rebels’ chances of victory.
- The only man that can stop him is the interstellar bounty hunter Dash Rendar.
- The game is based on the novel of the same name, with locations including ice planet Hoth, Mos Eisley and the sewers of Imperial City, all in full 3D.
Levels each have very different objectives, ranging from piloting snowspeeders on Hoth and racing speeder bikes on Tatooine to shooting stormtroopers and droids on foot throughout the galaxy.
- Dash primarily uses a blaster with unlimited ammo, but can also find more powerful weapons with limited ammunition.
- Each level has optional “challenge points” that are hidden throughout the level, and finding all of them will unlock a cheat dependent on which difficulty setting the save file is on.

December 4 – 2008 – Mushroom Men: The Spore Wars – Wii

In Mushroom Men: The Spore Wars is a 3D platform game.
- After a comet passes Earth, narrowly missing it, but leaving a trail of green dust that enters earth’s atmosphere.
- The dust causes plants and fungi to become sentient and forming tribes in order to survive the harsh human world.
After a period of peace however, a war begins between four mushrooms tribes, the Boletes, Amanitas, Leopiota and the Morels.
- The player takes control of a Bolete Mushroom named Pax who travels out into the giant human world in order to find a new meteorite for a mushroom village who’s meteorite he absorbed, but soon realizes there is more at stake.
The gameplay includes a platforming, exploring levels, defeating enemies, complete certain objectives and collect normal household items.
- Some of these Items can be fashioned into weapons, while others like the green meteorite chunks make the player stronger.
- Along the way Players must also avoid obstacles and defeat smaller and boss enemies such as insects, animals and other mushrooms that can easily crush and kill the character.
- A telekinetic ability can be used to pick up items and throw them at enemies or to activate switches.
- The game can also be played in co-op mode and a number of mini games is included under options.
Josh says:
- “I remember this game getting advertised really hard, like it was the next big franchise.”

December 5 – 2006 – Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops – PSP

The two previous Metal Gear Solid games for PSP, were not the MGS experience people expected like in this game.
- Portable Ops was the tactical espionage action, people wanted
- While Ac!d was a turnbased card strategy game
It’s been six years since the events in Snake Eater.
- Snake has been captured and imprisoned in an abandoned missile silo in Colombia, and with no support this time. At least, not at first.
- With the help of a fellow prisoner, Snake escapes and the game truly begins.
Portable Ops is a classic Metal Gear game in almost every sense.
- The controls will be familiar to anyone who has played previous console entries in the series.
- Snake can peek around corners, sneak up behind guards… they even carried over CQC (Close Quarters Combat) from Snake Eater.
Gathering supplies is also essential due to the main new mechanic found in Portable Ops: recruiting.
- While Snake starts out on his own, he can enlist disgruntled guards, frustrated technicians, stubborn doctors and more.
- These soldiers can be used in your “Sneaking Unit” (the team you take into battle for each mission), or in one of the many support units, with certain soldiers having a more natural talent for certain areas.
- If you put someone who has medical bonuses in your Medical unit, they can produce rations, help your troops recover faster between missions and more.
- Technicians can create new items for your team, and Spies can steal ammo and give you intel on specific maps, which can open up new side missions or allow you to grab some heavy weaponry.
Missions themselves range from recon to rescue to demolitions and beyond.
- You can only take four troops into a mission, and usually one of them has to be Snake.
- However, you don’t have to always use Snake during the mission, he just has to be present.
- You can only control one character at a time, while the rest of the team hides safely inside boxes (usually right by the entry point).
- On the field, the soldier you use can make a big difference.
- Many times you can totally bypass a building’s defenses just by playing as a guard.
- If you do not do anything to draw attention to yourself, you can oftentimes walk right past the enemy, plant some TNT, and walk away.
The game supports multiplayer for up to six player simultaneously, over WiFi Ad Hoc and Infrastructure, with game modes such as Team Death Match, Death Match and Capture Mission.

Tidbits

With so many shopping online this year, apparently it’s reached the point where UPS told its drivers to stop picking up packages at some major retailers including Nike and the Gap to maintain performance standards
- Amazon is even offering small rebates on some products if you select a “No-Rush Shipping” option, to reduce strain
Reuters is reporting that the Samsung Galaxy Note series may be discontinued as early as next year, with styluses coming to the S21 and next foldable phone instead
More than 8.5 months later, Doom Eternal is finally launching on the Switch next week
- It will be a 19GB digital-only release, and if you get it before December 23rd it includes the early purchase bonus Rip & Tear Pack, as well as a playable copy of Doom 64

For more content, Patreon supports get access to upcoming ideas and more!

Thank you so much to Dalton. Our longest Patron, we love ya bud, and I hope you are like OMG me? When and if you eventually read this.

And thanks to the rest of our ‘fanily’ that support us.

And if you want to support us too, its as easy as clicking this link!

We are a proud member of the Alberta Podcast Network. Locally grown. Community supported.

And talk to us in the comments!

PS2J 322 News – Anarchy! Only If I Run It

October 16, 2020
Tagged as: 11, 12, 2d, 3D, 5g, a14 bionic, acid, Adventure, Alan, aluminum, amnesia, api, Apple, apple maps, apple music, apple tv+, ar, at&t, audio, augmented reality, back door, ban, banking, block, brick, camera, ceramic, charging, cinematic, class-action, Cloud, companies, computational photography, Computer Operator, criminal, daring fireball, dark descent, deadlight, department of justice, detective, directions, director’s cut, DLC, doj, dolby vision, Doom, DOS, drive, driver’s license, Duck Dynasty, duckduckgo, earpods, Encryption, end-to-end, epic, Epic Games, Facebook, FaceID, federal, fever dream, fly, Fortnite, Free Games, freedom, freud, ftc, Gamecube, Gamepass, Gold, gone, gonzalez, Google, grudge, hack, hdr, headphones, hi speed, homepod, homework, Horror, hypocrite, identity, intercom, invasive, iOS, ipad pro, iPhone, Jet Force Gemini, john gruber, Josh, ju on, judge, jung, kind of, Kingdom, kona, lead time, League of Legends, lidar, lightest, loading screen, lurk, m2, machine for pigs, MacOS, magsafe, May, Microsoft, microsoft store, miles morales, mini, mmwave, mod, Monster, N64, new lands, nightmare, nights into dreams, Oculus, one way, pandora, Paper Mario, passport, personalize, phone number, Pixel, platforming, playlists, playstation 5, Pokemon, power adaptor, Privacy, private investigator, Pro, proraw, ps5, qi, quebec, quest 2, rebirth, rem, Saturn, search engine, seattle, security, Sega, sequel, shipwrecked, sidescrolling, Silver, Siri, sleep, smaller, smallest, smart data, solid state, songshift, Sony, Spider-Man, Spotify, ssd, Steam, steel, stereo, sub-6GHz, surveillance, survival, Tech, thinnest, third party, Thousand Year Door, touchid, trial, Twitch, united states, USB, USB C, usb-a, Verizon, video, Wii, wild rift, Windows, wireless, wizeman, xbox series x, xcloud, youtube music, Zombie

Free Games

Twitch
- Kona
  - 2017
  - Adventure game set in the 1970 centred around a private investigator who arrives at a snowy town in northern Quebec only to find it deserted, except for some thing that’s lurking
- Deadlight: Director’s Cut (previously free in October 2019)
  - 2016 rerelease of the 2012 title
  - Side-scrolling cinematic platforming survival horror game that has you attempting to traverse a zombie-infested Seattle to rejoin your family
Epic Games
- Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs
  - 2016
  - Survival horror game originally meant to be a mod of The Dark Descent, it instead became an indirect sequel set in the same universe with a new cast and in a new time. It has you exploring eerie locations and solving puzzles while trying to maintain a grip on your own sanity
  - Amnesia: Rebirth is out on October 20th
- Kingdom: New Lands (previously free in June 2019)
  - 2016
  - 2D pixel survival game that has you playing as a shipwrecked monarch trying to establish a long-lasting kingdom while being attacked by otherworldly monsters
Sega
- As part of their 60th anniversary they’re giving away NiGHTS into Dreams if you sign up for their newsletter on sega60th.com
  - 1996
  - Action game that has you flying through a fever-dream acid trip to stop the evil ruler Wizeman from destroying the dream world and consequently the real world too
  - The development team conducted research on dreaming and REM sleep, and was influenced by Freud and Jung
  - The HD remaster is playable on Steam, and even includes the original Sega Saturn version

Apple: Hi Speed

HomePod Mini
- Little ball with a flat touch surface on top
- Lots of fancy tech to support better audio in a smaller package
  - It’ll also automatically keep in sync with other HomePods and play stereo audio if two are in the same room
- Siri has voice recognition to personalize responses according to who’s asking
- New Intercom features let you send messages to HomePods in other rooms
- $99 USD, preorder on November 6 and ships on November 16
iPhone
- 5G is here, for what that’s worth with the infrastructure not fully rolled out
  - We also get Smart Data Mode, so if you don’t need the 5G speed it saves battery by switching back to 4G
  - Unfortunately mmWave 5G, the tech that they were really talking up with Verizon on stage, isn’t available outside of the US so we just get sub-6GHz 5G (a boost over the old 4G LTE and with better range than mmWave, but not as fast)
- iPhone 12
  - Design is similar to the iPhone 5, or the iPad Pro, with flat edges and curved corners
  - Same screen size as the iPhone 11, but still 15% smaller and 11% thinner
  - Screens are made of a new ceramic shield material to improve toughness (4x better drop performance)
  - Blazing new A14 Bionic processor that enables console-quality games
    - Showed off League of Legends: Wild Rift quickly, which could become the next Fortnite if Epic doesn’t get their situation sorted
  - Better camera lenses, and improved computational photography
  - MagSafe is back (kind of)
    - Similar to the Apple Watch, the iPhone now has a magnet array in its back to automatically line up with supported wireless chargers and cases
  - They’re now no longer including wired headphones or power adaptors with new iPhones, ostensibly to reduce waste and minimize packaging
    - Apparently the changes cut the equivalent of 450,000 cars worth of carbon emissions annually
    - Unfortunately the phones are coming with Lightning to USBC cables, whereas most people probably have a ton of USBA bricks laying around
    - On the plus side, the wall adapters and EarPods both went down by about $10 each
- iPhone 12 Mini
  - Smaller and lighter than the iPhone 8, but with a bigger screen and all the same features as the full-sized 12
  - Reportedly the smallest, thinnest, lightest 5G phone in the world
  - Mini starts at $699USD $979CAD, 12 starts at $799USD $1129CAD
  - One big asterisk on those prices, in the United States at least, is that those prices are if you buy the phone through AT&T or Verizon. Any other carrier, or an unlocked phone direct from Apple, costs $30 more
- iPhone 12 Pro
  - Stainless steel edge instead of aluminum
  - 6.1” Pro, 6.7” Pro Max (slightly bigger screen than the 11 Pro Max)
  - Even better cameras than the 12, with an additional telephoto lens
  - They’ve combined RAW photo formats with their special sauce to make Apple ProRAW, which can be edited directly in Photos and other pro tools
  - First phone camera to record in Dolby Vision HDR
  - LiDAR
    - 3D sensing tech we’ve seen in the iPad Pro, which adds a lot of features for computational photography and augmented reality
    - And it improves the focus and light quality in low-light conditions
  - Pro starts at $999USD, $1399CAD with 128GB, Max starts at $1099USD, $1549CAD
- 12 and Pro preorder on October 16, shipping October 23
- Mini and Max preorder on November 6, shipping November 13
Unfortunately there was no mention at all of putting TouchID in the power button, which would have been a killer feature right now

Epic slApple fight

A federal judge in the United States has officially ruled that Apple can continue to block Fortnite from its app store as they fight Epic’s antitrust lawsuit
Judge Gonzalez also ruled that Apple must not punish Unreal Engine or Epic’s affiliates though, so the fight remains focused on Fortnite and Epic’s decision to bypass Apple’s App Store payment system
The suit is expected to go to trial in May 2021

The United States Department of Justice has officially issued a statement asking tech companies for back door access to encrypted systems

Ringing the gong of “exploited children”, multiple governments are now demanding that tech companies “embed the safety of the public in system designs”
- Translation: add even more surveillance of all your users and give us access
In effect, the group is asking for access to encrypted data via some form of backdoor meant just for law enforcement, while still keeping it secure to prevent access by hackers and other online criminals.
It boils down to the same fight that’s been happening for years- technology has given people a locked box that the government can’t access and some people have used that box to do bad things, so they want to take that box and drill a hole in the side labelled “Hackers keep out plz”
That would be adding a hell of a weak link to the kind of chains people use not just to message their loved ones, but also do their banking and keep their homes secure

Spotify, while they bang the freedom drum and crusade against Apple for allegedly tyrannical practices, has decided to threaten third party services built to transfer playlists between streaming services

SongShift is a slick little utility you can use to move your playlists and library between Apple Music, Spotify, Pandora, and more, but Spotify has decided that unless they remove the ability to transfer out of Spotify they’ll be completely blocked from the service
- Transferring in to Spotify is, shockingly, unaffected

With the release of the Quest 2 VR headset, more reports are coming in of seemingly random Facebook bans bricking devices

The worst instance I’ve read about was a reddit user creating a brand new Facebook account after never using the service before
- They then merged it with their 4 year old Oculus account
- 10 minutes later, they were banned
- After sending in their drivers license, which is an absurd requirement for any gaming service, the ban was updated to say “We have already reviewed this decision and it can’t be reversed.”
- And just like that, all previous Oculus purchases were locked away by Facebook with little to no recourse
Another redditor in the comments reported that they had something similar, where they created a Facebook account for the first time to play with their new headset but didn’t add a phone number
- 10 minutes later their account was disabled and required a phone number to verify
- Then Facebook demanded a video of the user so they could verify that they’re a real person
Facebook’s invasive data requirements have really snuck up on a lot of people, but when you have to send your passport to a social network in order to play games you’ve already paid for it just highlights the absurdity of their data gathering

Sony’s released more specs for the upcoming PS5, and the new solid state drives look amazing

Load times in next-gen games will likely be all but eliminated now, with their specs showing double the data loading in about 1/8th the time
Footage posted from the PS5 version of Spider-Man: Miles Morales shows what used to be a loading screen between areas now just throwing you in immediately
And since they didn’t go the proprietary route like Microsoft, you can use any M2 drive that hits at least 5.5GB/s
- Granted that’s not a lot at the moment, but as the market catches up they’ll get much more common and Sony will be releasing a list of specifically supported models
- And a little extra salt for the console wars, the Xbox Series X is quoted as running at 2.4GB/s

This Week in Gaming History

October 10 – 1994 – DOOM II – DOS

In this sequel to the original DOOM, the protagonist is still the same hero – the last remaining space marine.
DOOM II looks and plays very similarly to its predecessor, utilizing the same 3D graphical engine with 2D sprites for enemies.
- The gameplay once again consists entirely of navigating the hero from first-person view through 3D environments and shooting at the demons while attempting to find the way out by flipping switches and looking for keys.
- Unlike in DOOM, which is divided into three episodes, the 30 levels of this game (plus the 2 secret levels) form one long episode.
It took 24 years for someone to find the final secret for the first 100% completion, confirmed by series creator John Romero.
- August 31st, 2018, Romero Tweeted:
- CONGRATS, Zero Master! Finally, after 24 years! “To win the game you must get 100% on level 15 by John Romero.” Great trick getting to that secret!
- and a follow up Tweet:
- Secret explained: A secret teleporter is marked as a discoverable “secret”, but when you touch it, you never enter the sector. So you would never get inside the teleporter sector to trigger the secret. The only way to trigger this secret is to be pushed by an enemy into it!

October 11 – 2004 – Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door – GameCube

A thousand years ago there was a city.
- One day the city was buried.
- Another city was built on top, and all that remains of the previous city is a door.
- This is where the title “the thousand-year door” comes from. It’s not known what could be behind this door, but everyone has different theories.
Mario can jump, run, hammer, talk to people, etc..
- Mario finds many partners on his quest.
- Battles play out on a stage in front of an audience.
- In battle, Mario must keep his fans happy by executing action commands (hitting buttons at the right time during his attacks).
- Occasionally, in battle, the crowd will throw things at Mario.
- The player can attack the crowd at this time.
Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door appears in the book 1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die by General Editor Tony Mott.
It also has rave reviews, from 4.5 to 5 out of 5.
- From gamer’s I know of, this is the best of all the Paper Mario games.
- Out of the 6 that have been released.

October 12 – 1999 – Jet Force Gemini – N64

Twins Juno and Vela, and their dog Lupus, are Jet Force Gemini, intergalactic police.
- Their mission? Stop the evil space bug, Mizar, from his goal of galactic conquest with his seemingly-infinite army of Drones.
- They’ll have to stop along multiple planets along the way, and assisting King Jeff and rescuing his subjects, the Tribals.
Jet Force Gemini is a third-person shooter which revels in making gigantic creepy bugs explode into dribbly mucousy bits.
- The Jet Force team are given progressively more powerful weapons, from the Machine Gun, which rips through both enemies and ammo, the Plasma Shotgun, which you can charge up for some explosive fireworks, and the Tri-Rocket Launcher, which fires three rockets with every shot, sending explosive doom in the direction of your target.
- There’s also the Fish Food, which, as the name implies, is used to feed fish.
Each member of the team has their own special abilities – Juno can walk through lava without any trouble, Vela can swim underwater, and Lupus can hover for short distances and travel through tight spaces.
- These abilities are required to fully access areas that they previously couldn’t reach.
- The team also get the help of Floyd the Droid, a hovering robot that can be controlled by player two as a floating gun with infinite ammo when he joins your team.
The game also includes three different multiplayer modes: Battle – featuring most options of an average First Person Shooter but with a third-person perspective, Target Shoot – a shooting gallery with a first-person view, and Racing, which includes some kart-like racing as well as old-school top down racing games.
I feel like this game gets forgotten a lot.
- When people make lists of Rare Ware Titles for the N64, it rarely includes this bug stomping adventure.

October 13 – 2009 – Ju-on: The Grudge – Wii

When someone dies with a powerful grudge, a curse is born.
- A series of Ju-On horror movies all by the same director have been popular since 2000 first in Japan and then remade in Hollywood first in 2004 as The Grudge.
- This is a “haunted house simulator” adventure game where Erika Yamada comes into contact with a curse when looking for her dog in an abandoned warehouse.
- Then when she returns home, all her family members who she meets also become cursed.
- You play as each in first-person view encountering their own challenging episode.
The locations vary from a rundown factory to an empty hospital, an apartment building, a mannequin factory, and the cursed house from the movie.
- The game is basically an interactive horror movie which tries to scare you as you explore the locations and attempt to survive against the supernatural forces.
- The Wii remote controls the player’s flashlight and movement through the game.
- If the player flinches at scare moments with the remote, their score goes down.
- A person with a second remote can also trigger scary events for the main player.
- The player must keep moving while finding keys to open doors and also find batteries to replenish the flashlight or else you will be attacked and die.

October 14 – 2014 – Duck Dynasty – PS3, PS4, Windows, Xbox 360, Xbox One

Because
Hunt, race and prank to become a Robertson!
Take on the role of Willie’s son John Luke as he learns how to become one of the Robertson men!
- Interact with Willie, Uncle Si, Jase and the rest of the family from the hit TV show Duck Dynasty®. Go duck hunting, varmint shooting, off-roading and play office pranks in the Robertson’s hometown of West Monroe, LA. Will you learn the way of the beards?
Call in ducks to your blind using a variety of calls and then fire away.
Hunt Louisiana wildlife including squirrels, frogs and fish for Miss Kay to cook her famous dishes.
Join Jase in duck call room antics as you sneak around the warehouse to trick Willie.
Race against Willie in an airboat as you drive across the Robertson family swampland.
Uncover Uncle Si’s bizarre “treasures” with a metal detector.
Track down pesky beavers with Phil to stop their damns from ruining the duck ponds.
Play through 3 game modes including the main story, duck shooting galleries and airboat racing.

October 15 – 2000 – Pokemon Gold and Silver – Gameboy Color

Pokémon Gold takes place several years after Red, Blue and Yellow, and puts the user into a brand new world, Johto.
- The gameplay is very similar to the previous games, but with several improvements.
- These include new functions for the player’s PokéGear, a Pokédex that can now be sorted by evolution type, and, of course, new Pokémon.
- Once again, the objective of the game is to become the champion trainer, and try to complete the Pokédex.
- To become the champion, the player battles Gym Leaders to obtain various badges.
- Completing the Pokédex requires a different set of actions, and involves capturing wild Pokémon, battling various trainers to obtain money, and trading Pokémon with NPC’s and other owners of Pokémon games.
As many people our age, Pokemon was a big deal.
- Pokemon Yellow was my first Pokemon game, but I would say Gold is my formative Pokemon game.
- The IR mystery gift had me meeting with kids I barely knew, and forming new relationships.
- And it was huge, literally having the new region Johto, to explore, while being able to revisit the previous region of Kanto.
- This game has set me up for disappointment, as more powerful consoles have had Pokemon games, but never the ability to return to an old region.

October 16 – 1982 – Computer Operator – DOS

This BASIC game simulates the experience of running a large, multi-user mainframe system of its day.
- As the operator, you first configure the system by choosing the memory size, the number of disk and tape drives, the maximum number of concurrent users, and the overall game speed.
- These factors determine the difficulty of your job – which is to cope with user demands and keep the system running. If too many problems pile up, the system crashes and you lose.
After the system is booted, users begin to log in and do their work; you monitor the system’s status in real time, and carry out your maintenance tasks using text commands.
- User jobs place demands on CPU time, on storage devices, and on the printer; you’ll need to balance the load, repair failed equipment, bring devices offline and online as needed, and meet the users’ storage requirements.
- You can also force users offline, and even communicate back when they complain at you through the messaging system.

Tidbits

If you have an Apple TV+ subscription set to end or renew in November through January, Apple is reportedly extending them for free through February 2021 instead
Microsoft is working on a browser-based solution to bring xCloud to iOS early 2021, which could also mean it would run on macOS as well
People looking for Google alternatives will be happy to hear that DuckDuckGo, a popular privacy-first search engine, now has walking and driving directions through a partnership with Apple Maps
Sony announced that they’re revamping their web and mobile offerings with a brand new PlayStation Store
- October 21st-28th we’ll no longer be able to use those systems to buy
  - PS3 games
  - PSP games
  - PS Vita games
  - Apps
  - Themes
  - Avatars
  - And the Wishlist feature is going away too
- You can still access everything you already own, and you can buy new things through the PS Store directly on each device

Homework

Microsoft’s new “10 principles for the Microsoft Store on Windows”, with translation provided by the Daring Fireball
- https://daringfireball.net/2020/10/microsoft_principles_translation
- John Gruber: “Nothing is changing on Windows, which remains every bit as open as it always has been. Nothing is changing on Xbox, which remains every bit as closed as it always has been (which is actually quite a bit more closed than even iOS). But we’re sure hoping government regulators will force Apple to open up iOS and treat it more like a PC platform where third-party developers are free to do what they want, because we know Apple won’t do it of their own volition because we wouldn’t either if we were them.”

For more content, Patreon supports get access to upcoming ideas and more!

Thank you for your continued support Karen, we may not be podcasting today without your drive to make a podcasting community in Alberta. Listen to her and her daughter on Thats A Thing?!

And thanks to the rest of our ‘fanily’ that support us.

And if you want to support us too, its as easy as clicking this link!

We are a proud member of the Alberta Podcast Network. Locally grown. Community supported.

And talk to us in the comments!

PS2J 291 News – Boring School Stuff Folder

March 6, 2020
Tagged as: 2d, action adventure, agency, AI, aids, Alan, Alien, ALS, app store, Apple, apple store, arstechnica, avro lancaster, benchmark, best buy, biometric, block, bomber crew, britain, bullet hell, buzzfeed news, cancel, cancer, carekit, certificate, China, class-action, clearview, computer, conference, coronavirus, corporate takeover, covid-19, customs, delay, demo, detective, developer, economic, Encryption, enslave, Epic Games, epistory, exceptional access, facial, facial recognition, FBI, final fantasy vii, fold.it, folding@home, foldingathome, foldit, Free Games, freedom, furi, game, game developer, generated, giant fox, gonner, Google, Hack and Slash, humanity, huntington’s, i/o, ice, identification, immigration, international, Internet, interpol, iOS 11, iOS 13, jailer, Josh, key, Law Enforcement, laws, lazy, leak, loan, mars, messages, mi5, mobile world congress, monitoring, mrmclargehuge, mugsters, murder, nba, new york, Nocturne, noir, nordic, offworld trading company, Online, origami, Overwwatch, parkinson’s, pcgamer, performance, physics, platformer, point and click, Police, pool, postpone, probable cause, procedural, protein, puzzle, rcmp, recognition, regulations, remake, replacement, research, rhythm, roguelike, RTS, sabotage, sallu, sandbox, Sci-Fi, secret, security service, shoot ’em up, sins of a solar empire, social media, spelunky, spy, stardock, stream, supply chain, suspect, tech companies, throttling, transparency, twinstick, Twitch, typing, typing chronicles, united arab emirates, Virus, walmart, warfare, whale, whispers of a machine, wide, wild west, world, world war ii, wwdc

Free Games

Epic Games
- GoNNER
  - 2016
  - A roguelike game often described as a shooter version of Spelunky- a procedurally generated 2D platformer that has you journeying in deep and dark places for a trinket to cheer up a giant landbound whale named Sally
- Offworld Trading Company
  - 2016
  - A sci-fi RTS from the publishers of Sins of a Solar Empire that has you waging economic warfare on Mars, using anything from corporate takeovers to sabotage
Twitch
- Bomber Crew
  - 2017
  - Strategic simulation game that has you picking the right crew to keep your Avro Lancaster bomber in tip top shape and complete your World War II era missions
- Whispers of a Machine
  - 2019
  - A point and click sci-fi nordic noir that tells the story of a cybernetically augmented detective investigating a string of murders in a post-AI world
- Mugsters
  - 2018
  - A physics-based sandbox puzzle game that has you outrunning, outmanoeuvring, and outsmarting the aliens that have taken over Earth and enslaved humanity
- Furi
  - 2016
  - A twin-stick hack and slash shoot ’em up bullet hell consisting entirely of boss fights. The jailer is the key, kill him and you’ll be free.
- Epistory – Typing Chronicles
  - 2016
  - An atmospheric action-adventure typing game following a girl riding a giant fox fighting insectile corruption in an origami world

With the COVID-19 coronavirus concerns in full swing, Google has cancelled their annual I/O developer conference and many are speculating that Apple may at the very least modify their own WWDC this spring

Other events like this year’s Game Developer’s Conference and Mobile World Congress events were previously postponed or cancelled due to concerns about the virus
With supply chains in China certainly being affected, it might just make sense to delay the product announcements as well and keep the developer portions of the presentations limited to online sessions
- It’s gotten to the point where Apple Stores have been warned that replacement devices will be facing supply constraints for the next 2-4 weeks, so be warned if your phone needs a repair you might be caught with a loaner device in the meantime
Apple’s even sent care packages, called CareKits, to staff they have currently stranded overseas, that include things like coffee, tea, cookies, facemasks, and an iPad
If you’re interested in helping fight COVID-19, you can donate your unused computer resources by downloading the Folding@home client. That will add your computer to a pool that lets researchers farm out processing tasks to see how the virus attaches itself to human lungs, which they need to understand if they’re going to stop it
- Similar efforts have contributed to research on diseases like cancer, ALS, Parkinson’s and Huntington’s
- Check out the full details at foldingathome.org
There’s also a similar piece of software available called Foldit, but instead of just using your extra processing power it’s actually a puzzle game that has you changing a protein’s shape to block how the virus infects people. According to PCGamer, Foldit helped researchers decode the AIDS virus back in 2011
- If you want to take a crack at it, with no medical degree required, you can go to fold.it and give it a go

What do US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the FBI, Best Buy, Walmart, the RCMP, and a sovereign wealth fund in the United Arab Emirates have in common? Well according to Buzzfeed News they, along with thousands of other organizations, have been using a controversial facial recognition startup that’s facing legal threats and violating App Store regulations left and right

Clearview AI is apparently on a quest to create a global biometric identification system by scraping social media and the internet at large, and it’s for sale to anyone who wants it
- They have paid contracts with organizations like ICE, US Attorney’s offices, and Macy’s, and have users at the FBI, Customs and Border Protection, Interpol, and the NBA
The New York based startup has claimed it’s tech is meant as a tool for North American law enforcement, but it’s been used by more than 2,200 government agencies and companies across 27 countries
- So we have this product featuring a treasure trove of identifying information on a ton of people, accessible to anyone that can pay, oh and also they’ve been breached at least once so presumably a few people that haven’t paid as well
The hardest part here is that the US just doesn’t have any laws or regulatory framework for this kind of biometric tracking- there’s literally no accountability for their ability to gather up this information and sell it, leading to government agencies running literally thousands searches and most likely acting on the information received
- We could have ICE agents walking into a supermarket, scanning people, and immediately deporting them without due process or investigation
- And this is all based on the tech of a company that can’t even keep their client list confidential
- It’s one thing to have a database of internally gathered mugshots, or even shared between agencies, but when you outsource it to a third party whose interests are purely monetary and scrapes the internet at large for information it gets really scary
All in all there’s a complete lack of transparency here- Clearview is providing free trials to anyone who wants them, even officers in police departments that have explicitly banned the app, and provided its software to private and public institutions all over the world
This stuff is so shady that they didn’t even want their iOS app distributed through Apple’s App Store- they abused the developer program, similar to Facebook’s Research app that paid users to spy on their information early last year, so that users could sideload the app without it being reviewed by Apple
- In a response to Buzzfeed’s inquiry Apple investigated and suspended their developer account, effectively preventing the app from running

Overwatch Competitive Play Hero Rotation

To make competetive Overwatch more dynamic, Blizzard has implemented a Hero Rotation
First banned characters are
- Orisa
- Hanzo
- Mei
- Baptiste

Cool looking game: Nocturne

For free on Steam, try Nocturne: Prelude
- https://store.steampowered.com/app/883590/Nocturne_Prelude
The game caught my eye with a bright colour pallette
- Cool high quality pixel graphics
- and rhythm based combat
Here is the copy thy have on their Steam page:
- Rich Narrative
  - The digital afterlife survived humanity’s extinction.
- Nocturne: Prelude is the first chapter of a story-driven RPG set within a digital afterlife. Millennia have passed since humanity’s extinction; but somehow you’ve only just arrived.
- Your conscience was uploaded to a world where a sentient AI has taken control, twisted creatures roam the land, and a vast corruption spreads.
- Rhythm Combat
- Master an entirely skill based rhythm combat with fierce battles and unexpected challenges. With multiple difficulty options, Nocturne: Prelude is a game suitable for beginners and veterans of the rhythm genre.
- Find equipment to unlock powerful combat buffs or special abilities. Defeat enemies to unlock them in Arcade mode, where you can challenge them again for highscores.
- Classic RPG
- Make friends, battle enemies, and traverse a beautiful world as it falls apart around you. The perfect balance of heart-pumping musical combat, magnificent worldbuilding and deep story.
- Nocturne: Prelude was inspired by decades of traditional RPG’s that immerse you in fantasy worlds.
- FEATURES
- Meet a cast of unique characters who’ll challenge what it means to be alive.
- Explore a vast and beautiful pixel art world.
- Master an entirely skill based rhythm combat system.
- Fierce battles with unexpected twists.
- Challenge your highscores in Arcade mode.
- Multiple difficulty modes suitable for beginners and veterans of the rhythm genre.
- Original soundtrack composed with a mix of digital and live performances.
- Befriend a giant orange fish.
Nocturne: Prelude is the first chapter of Nocturne, released for free. The main story contains about 1-2 hours of gameplay.

Tidbits

Final Fantasy VII Remake’s demo of officially available now, ahead of its April 10th release
- I specify ‘officially’ available, because there was already a sizeable leak at the end of last year, with many getting their hands on the full playable demo at the time
Apple has agreed to pay up to $500M to settle the class action lawsuit over throttling the performance of older phones
- - https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2020/03/did-apple-throttle-your-iphone-settlement-will-give-you-a-whopping-25/
- The whole issue came about when iOS 11 hit, when it had an undocumented feature that managed the battery life of older phones to prevent unexpected shutdowns- benchmarks took a hit, but the devices stayed reliable
- The problem was that they didn’t give any feedback or options for this feature until iOS 13 came out late last year, so while they’re not admitting any wrongdoing they’re still willing to pay each affected user $25 if the settlement is approved
  - As MrMcLargeHuge said in the arstechnica comments section, “They were correct from a technical standpoint, but wrong from a PR standpoint.”
The director of MI5, Britain’s Security Service has called on tech companies to find a way to allow spy agencies “exceptional access” to encrypted messages, and that he finds it “increasingly mystifying” that intelligence agencies aren’t able to easily read secret messages of suspects they’re monitoring
- While he refers to cyberspace as an unregulated “Wild West” that is largely inaccessible to authorities, it kind of seems like they’ve gotten lazy with how easy it’s been to spy on users up to this point. Now that we’re putting locks on our messages they want a copy of the keys

For more content, Patreon supports get access to upcoming ideas and more!

Thank you to Darren, we want to make things you’ll find interesting!

And thanks to all our ‘fanily’ that support us.

And if you want to support us too, its as easy as clicking this link!

We are a proud member of the Alberta Podcast Network powered by ATB

And talk to us in the comments!

PS2J 284 News – We’ll Blow It Up Ourselves!

January 17, 2020
Tagged as: 2c54, 2d, Adventure, airpods pro, Alan, Apple, attorney general, back door, Bitcoin, Byleth, CD Projekt Red, congress, crew, Cyberpunk 2077, Danger Gazers, daring fireball, debris, delay, Dragon, Encryption, Epic Games, eu, european union, Falcon 9, FBI, Fire Emblem, firmware, fit, Free Games, gift, GrayKey, hack, horace, in-flight abort, Indie, Jeff Kaplan, Josh, Law Enforcement, Lunar, math, micro usb, minigame, narrative, NASA, new, nintendo, noise-cancelling, Overwatch, passcode, pedophiles, Pirate Bay, Pixel, platformer, polish, Privacy, puzzle, replacement, ring, smart battery case, Smash Bros, SpaceX, ssmbu, standard, superdraco, Switch, terrorism, three houses, Trump, united state, USB C, weaken, xr, xs, xs max, year

Free Games

Epic
- Horace
  - 2019
  - 2D pixel platformer with a surprisingly long single player narrative that includes puzzles and minigames, touted as a contender for Indie Game of 2019

Things are continuing to heat up between the FBI and Apple over the latest iPhone unlock demands related to the Pensacola shooting have gained more publicity

Every time this hits the public eye government institutions and anti-encryption advocates use these examples as reasons for installing backdoors, while at the same time claiming that’s not the exact thing they’re asking for
- They say they’re not trying to weaken encryption, and that they come up against this problem frequently, but there’s no magic way to let law enforcement in without allowing everyone else to use the same path. Daring Fireball put it really well: “Mathematics doesn’t discern between “good guys” and “bad guys””
- We’ve even seen classic Trump rant-tweets on the subject, saying ‘they refuse to unlock phones used by killers, drug dealers and other violent criminal elements’, and the US Attorney General claims that Apple has provided no substantive assistance
- This is even after they’ve successfully used devices like the GrayKey box we’ve talked about previously to access locked devices regardless of their passcodes, and the phones in question are even older, less-secure models (a 5 and a 7), so it really begs the question why are they so bound and determined to weaken encryption for everyone else
  - The iPhone 5 doesn’t even have the extra encryption hardware, called the Secure Enclave, of newer devices!
Law enforcement is even slowly shifting the language from “terrorism” to “pedophiles” in an attempt to work from the moral high-ground
- It’s not that these aren’t serious crimes, but strong encryption is necessary for personal and national security.
- Not only that, but law enforcement has other avenues for investigation than eavesdropping on communications and poring through stored devices. There’s a great example where people unravelled a dark-web site and arrested hundreds by analyzing Bitcoin transactions. Or another involving the arrests of members of a WhatsApp group.
  - But then we get people like New York District Attorney Cyrus Vance testifying before Congress with: “In fact, we were never able to view the contents of his phone because of this gift to sex traffickers that came, not from God, but from Apple. As a result, our investigation of sex trafficking was blocked by encryption.”
Apple’s stance remains clear- in a statement released this week they’ve said that they responded to each request from the FBI, often within hours, resulting in many gigabytes of information turned over. They’re giving everything they can
- This hasn’t stopped people from demanding that Apple unlock the iPhone itself, but that just isn’t possible
  - It also doesn’t help that the FBI didn’t even request the device be unlocked until almost a month into the investigation, well after anything other than the full passcode could be used to unlock it
- By design, if you use a passcode on your iPhone it should keep everything private from everyone. That’s the security and peace of mind that every single person should have.

Players Are Pushing Their Bodies to the Limit Speedrunning Nintendo’s Fitness Game

Article by Patrick Klepek, Published on VICE

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/jge8kp/players-are-pushing-their-bodies-to-the-limit-speedrunning-nintendos-fitness-game

On December 15, a player in Tokyo, Japan calling themselves Sakinyan turned on their Switch and started playing Ring Fit Adventure, Nintendo’s terrific exercise game hybrid from last year.
- For most people, a session with Ring Fit Adventure lasts somewhere from 15 minutes to an hour, depending on when you collapse into a pool of sweat.
- Sakinyan was not engaging in some light exercise, however, but attempting to pull off the first world record run for playing through all of Ring Fit Adventure’s surprisingly long story mode.
Ring Fit Adventure asks if you want to stop every few minutes. This staggering feat took Sakinyan a little over 18 hours, nearly a complete day of nonstop exercise.
- At times, they took a moment to snack. Other times, they sipped water. There was even time for a bathroom break, though so far as I could tell while scrubbing through the speedrun, Sakinyan only headed to the bathroom once during the marathon.
- And because Ring Fit Adventure can’t take a hint, they’re also forced to tell the game they don’t want to take a break over and over.
At 18 hours and 55 seconds, Sakinyan defeated the game’s final boss, walked over to their timer, and clicked stop.
- After dabbing their face with no doubt a completely soaked t-shirt, they performed a few stretches as the game’s credits rolled. There was no big celebration, no fist pump.
- Instead, Sakinyan sat on the ground and started scrolling through their phone.
Most of us play games in chunks at a time, a few hours at most.
- Though the term “speedrun” suggests one is going fast, lots of games take a long time to speedrun, requiring dozens of hours of careful and deliberate play.
- Speedrunning is a test of skill and endurance, and while tapping buttons and analog sticks is physically draining in its own right, it’s hardly on the same level as, say, having to perform a plank over and over again.
It’s what makes the slowly growing world of Ring Fit Adventure speedrunning so fascinating. In its early days, it’s not one defined by glitching through in the world in weird ways because no one’s discovered anything like that yet.
- The only “shortcuts” are to scroll the menus faster—a staple of speedrunning JRPGs—and to manage your stamina.
- A workout that might be more effective at taking out a group of enemies might be more personally draining, forcing you to take a costly break while your energy returns. It’s a very different way to play.

Indie game dev sees big boost in sales after he uploads it to The Pirate Bay

Article By Andy Chalk, Published on PC Gamer

https://www.pcgamer.com/indie-game-dev-sees-big-boost-in-sales-after-he-uploads-it-to-the-pirate-bay/?utm_content=buffere66c9

My default position on piracy is that it’s bad and you shouldn’t do it.
- Entertainment has value, and if you are entertained then you should be willing to pay for it.
- That said, I also acknowledge that it’s not always a simple, black-and-white situation.
- Which brings us to the story of Danger Gazers, “a post-apocalyptic roguelite top-down shooter” released earlier this month that saw a big boost in sales after its developer uploaded it to The Pirate Bay.
Danger Gazers is $10 on Steam, but if you don’t feel like dropping a tenner, that’s okay too. “This torrent was officially brought to you by ShotX.
- This is the latest DRM-free version of Danger Gazers (1.1.0), there’s no catch here, no Steam only features, just the fully functional game,” the torrent description says.
- “As a developer, my only request would be to consider supporting and buying in case you like Danger Gazers and want more indie games in the future.”
The developer, Shota Bobokhidze, went deeper into his reasons for sharing the game on TPB last week on Reddit.
- “There are people who can’t afford the game, some want to play the game before buying, some that never buy games. Just trying to help those people out and make the best of the situation,” he wrote.
- “There are a lot of ways to show support if you want to without buying the game, such as spreading the word about DG, sharing the torrent, feedback, whatever it is you can come up with. And finally, I hope you have fun and enjoy the game!”
The TPB release wasn’t a “planned PR move,” Shota told TorrentFreak, and he didn’t promote it on social media or his studio website, as he wanted to reach out to the pirate community specifically.
- Nonetheless, the response so far has been “amazing,” There’s also been “a noticeable boost in sales,” which he specified to Polygon as a 400 percent increase in sales over launch day.
- “And it didn’t stop there, some kind individuals went out of their way to donate more than twice as much (as the $10 purchase price) and I received countless emails from all the people who showed their support,” he said. “I’m thankful that my message was clear and thankful for all the support.”
The Steam numbers are still dire: Steam Charts indicates that Danger Gazers’ all-time peak concurrent player count is 7, which isn’t great. But it’s also available (and currently on sale) on Itch.io, which is apparently where supporters ponied up extra cash. (Itch.io enables purchasers to pay more than the list price for games if they want to.)
Shota said in his Discord server that he’s also planning on setting up a Patreon so fans can support ShotX’s work more easily.

SpaceX is nearing the next milestone towards sending a human crew up to the International Space Station, by blowing up one of their rockets

As part of the safety requirements from NASA, they need run an in-flight abort test to prove that they’re prepared in the case of a rocket malfunction during launch
What will happen is partway through the test launch the crew module will fire a set of escape engines and separate from the booster, going off to land in the ocean
The Falcon 9 booster will fall back to Earth, being torn apart as it descends into the water
It should be a pretty interesting show for anyone watching at 8AM ET on January 18th

Overwatch Lunar New Year starts!

The Year of the Rat hits Overwatch from day of recording, January 16th, and goes all the way to February 5th.

The announcement was followed by a clip of the Sombra skin. It is called Face Changer Sombra. She has a headdress an the mask changes periodically. It is based on someone performing Bian Lian, which translated to ‘Face-Changing’, an ancient Chinese dramatic art that is part of the more general Chinese opera. Performers wear brightly colored costumes and move to quick, dramatic music. They also wear vividly colored masks, typically depicting well known characters from the opera, which they change from one face to another almost instantaneously with the swipe of a fan, a movement of the head, or wave of the hand.

Doomfist’s Epic skin is called Monk, and his Doom Fist is gold with purple highlights. It also has the chinese character, Jingang, which is a Buddhist monastery in Kangding, Sichuan, China. He has a shaved head, white eyes, and his clothes have the style of being held on with bindings.

Winston’s Epic skin is called Ancient Bronze. The metal looks like an old patinaed bronze with Jade decoration in it.

Hammond’s Epic skin is called paper cutting. It looks as if the red paint was cut away to reveal a white floral pattern. Paper-cutting is an old art form that has roots all over the world, but is popular decoration during Chinese New Year.

Brigitte has a Legendary skin called Opera. She appears to be dressed as if she were performing in a Chinese Opera. Her shield is very ornate, with a fine China like border, and a large flower in the center.

Lucio’s Legendary skin is called Samul Nori. Samul nori is a traditional Korean style of music. Samul means for objects, and nori is To Play. It involves performers playing music on: a kkwaenggwari which is small gong; a Jing which is a larger gong; Janggu which is an hourglass-shaped drum; and a Buk, and a barrel drum similar to the bass drum. This music is commonly played for traditional festivals, which Lucio looks dressed for. And his gun, looks like a drum.

Moira has a Legendary Skin called Mask Dancer. It is in the same vein as Orisa’s skin last year, where they are both Mask Dancer performers. Her belt has a mask look at the buckle. And she wears a red mask that has a yellow fire effect coming from the eyes.

Other event unlocks:

Bastion Emote: Kite Flying
- Bastion flies a rectangular Korean style kite, and it flies away on him
Hanzo Emote: Sky Lantern
- Hanzo pulls out and lights a paper lantern that flies gently into the sky
Bastion Victory Pose: Hot Soup
Pharah Victory Pose: Lion Mask
Torbjorn Vistory Pose: Fire Work
And a Junkrat gets a new Highlight Intro: Feast
- It is Junkrat, suffed full of dumplings, and is a mirror of Road Hog’s Highlight Intro where he eats all the steam buns.
And a handful of sprays and voice lines

Jeff Kaplan talked about Role Queue changes they have been testing

https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/overwatch/t/blizzard-save-your-game-go-132/446226/100

On the Overwatch Forums, Jeff dropped a huge comment about changes they have tested internally. These are his words.

In early December, we were brainstorming ways to shorten DPS queue times and the idea was proposed to try changing the role queue team composition to be 1 Tank, 3 Damage, and 2 Support.
- Our matchmaking engineers did some modeling around queue times, expected behaviors etc. and all indications pointed to an overall positive improvement to all queue times under a scenario like that.
From a design perspective we were reluctant for a number of reasons. Before implementing 2/2/2 role queue, we had done experiments with the team compositions being 1 Tank, 1 Support and 4 damage.
- The playtests under a 4-1-1 comp were terrible. The problem was the solo support.
- As a solo support, you felt unable to keep the rest of the team alive.
- Added to that, at all times, you had 5 very aggressive players prioritizing you as the target every time.
- As soon as the support player on one side died, the entire team would fall like a house of cards.
So when the idea of trying 3-2-1 came up, we were hesitant because of our poor playtests with 4-1-1. But we did something interesting in December and I am really proud of the team for sticking with it.
Internally, for the past two months, we changed the game to be based on 3-2-1 composition.
- When we queue for our playtests, we only get 1 Tank per team for each match. We decided to “live with it” for December and January because we felt like the easy and natural thing for us all to do, is just say, “hey this is different and here are all the problems with it” and dismiss the system.
- But by forcing the team to try it out and live with it for so long, it’s challenged us to try to solve some of the problems that have surfaced.
And there are a number of challenges.
- First, there is the issue of what players have come to call “off tanks”. The biggest issues center around D.Va, Zarya and Roadhog. The current playstyle of those tanks (if you’re adhering to various metas that have existed) is to pair them with other “main tanks”.
- Roadhog is a great example.
  - Is the correct thing to do for Roadhog under that design to try to make him more “main tanky” or is the correct thing to do to simply move him to the Damage role and balance him as a damage character?
  - We’ve tried both in our months of testing.
  - If you were to come and play Roadhog today with us in our 3-2-1 experiment, he’s moved from the Tank to the Damage category, he only has 400 health, Take a Breather only heals and does not do damage reduction and there were a bunch of DPS changes to his scrap gun.
  - Now, don’t freak out. We’re not doing this for 2-2-2… I am only sharing the design experiment that’s going on here. Maybe a better direction for Roadhog under 3-2-1 is some sort of team damage reduction ability?
  - How do you take what is essentially an “off tank” and make him a “main tank”? That is what we would have to explore with any of these tank characters.
  - Since the Tank roster is already one of the more limited character selections, we’re obviously not crazy about removing choice from Tank players. And if our stated goal is to improve queue times, did going to 1 tank actually remove a bunch of otherwise tank players from the queue?
  - Or were some of these “tank” players actually damage players who wanted a faster queue time so they picked Roadhog? Obviously, complicated questions and it is even more complicated to be confident in an answer.
The other fear around a 3-2-1 comp is the importance it places on the Tank player.
- In our playtesting, this has manifested itself in two notable ways.
  - 1) Some players feel a lot of pressure to choose the “correct” tank. If there is only one tank, the team has a very strong opinion about who that tank should be. Another fear around this issue is that metas will be even more limited as players tend to take the “path of least resistance” towards their hero choices. If Reinhardt is deemed meta, do we only see Rein from now on? Are we all mad at our tank player if they play the hamster?
  - 2) Some tank players felt a tremendous anxiety about their performance in the match. They felt like being the lone tank put a lot of pressure on them and if they died, it was a really big deal.
- Some of our tank/support players who would occasionally play tank stopped playing tank during 3-2-1 and only gravitated toward support because they felt intimidated to be “the main tank” and have so much focus on their play. Conversely, there are a number of main tank players on the team who actually enjoy the added spotlight.
- Traditionally in video games there are different personas that are attracted to roles in games: Tank, Support, Damage etc. We saw this in WoW and we see it in OW.
- While these are stereotypes (and you have to be really careful assuming too much here), there are many Tank players who love being the “lone tank” and carrying the team to glory. Watching this play out in our weird, internal experiment has been fascinating.
Our support players have given mixed feedback on the experiment as well.
- On the negative side, people feel bad when the lone tank dies.
- On the positive side, many support mains have commented that they feel like they have more freedom to focus on other players and not just “try to keep the big bags of hitpoints alive all match”.
- In general, these matches are more chaotic and (I’ll touch on this later) feel “more FPS-y”.
- The result is good or bad, depending on the type of player you are. For some of our support players, this makes matches more exciting.
- EVERYONE is taking a lot more damage under 3-2-1. for some support players, the chaos causes negative anxiety and they prefer just healing tanks.
Speaking of Teamplay, one of our testers who did not like the experiment made a comment that he felt like 3-2-1 detracted from teamplay too much.
- I found this fascinating because in 2013/2014 every decision we made was to embrace/encourage/force teamplay at all costs. We put so much effort into putting the focus on team victory/defeat rather than individual performance.
- But in 2020, I feel like the over-emphasis on teamplay (while great for hyper competitive players and situations such as OWL), causes a lot of psychological pressure for your average player just looking to blow off steam in a video game.
- I guess what I am saying is, that in 2020, feeling like you can deviate from teamplay a little bit in OW and have some success feels like a good thing, not a bad thing to me. The other analogy I’ve used (and I know you all hate my sports analogies) is that OW – in it’s current evolved form – feels like a football game (American) to me where every match is 4th down on the goal line.
- The amount of team synergy and execution required to pull off a victory is exciting… but also a little intense.
- There is something nice about a more loose/skirmishy version of the game – but again, it’s all opinion and perspective. Not everyone on my team agrees with me and that’s a good thing.

Tidbits

It sounds like Apple’s latest AirPods Pro firmware has improved audio performance, but at the cost of noise cancelling quality
- It’s so bad that Apple has since pulled the update, but many users likely already have it installed as the update is automatic with no way to opt out or even be notified
- If you go to Settings > General > About > AirPods Pro, and see firmware 2C54, then you’re unfortunately already affected and there’s no way to roll back- you’re stuck until Apple releases a fixed version
Apple has launched a replacement program for their iPhone XS, XS Max, and XR Smart Battery Cases
- Apparently cases manufactured between January and October 2019 are experiencing charging issues, including problems with the case itself charging or it not charging the iPhone properly, so if you’re seeing similar issues you should go to an Apple Store for a free replacement
Lawmakers in the EU are debating standardized portable device ports this week, after their relatively weak encouragement toward micro-USB back in 2014
- This might even be a good time for it as well, with USB-C becoming the de-facto standard for a lot of phones, tablets, and even laptops already
Cyberpunk 2077, originally slated to be released on April 16th, has been pushed back to the 17th. Of September.
- CD Projekt Red released a statement saying the game is playable but needs more testing and polish

Star Realms Deluxe edition is a Kickstarter only version of the game. The box comes with all the cards, with foil art. A play mat, physical trackers for authority and cardsleeves for everything!
- I got mine, and I hope you can get yours too!
- https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1172937197/star-realms-deluxe-nova-collection

Smash Bros Update

Smash director Masahiro Sakurai has announced that Byleth from Fire Emblem: Three Houses will be the 5th DLC fighter for Super Smash Bros Ultimate!
Both male and female versions will be in the game. Byleth wields 4 weapons from the game including the Sword of the Creator.
Byleth comes with the Garreg Mach Monastery stage and several Fire Emblem: Three Houses tracks.

Who is Byleth?

Byleth is a playable character and the main protagonist in Fire Emblem: Three Houses.
As an Avatar, their name, gender, and birthday are customizable.
Byleth serves as a professor at Garreg Mach Monastery.
They possess the mysterious Crest of Flames and can wield the Sword of the Creator.

With Fighter Pack 2 on the horizon

Who would you love to see in Smash Ultimate?
Both realistically and fantasy?

For more content, Patreon supports get access to upcoming ideas and more!

A huge thanks to Dalton, for supporting us for so long. We really appreciate his support over the years.

And thanks to all our ‘fanily’ that support us.

And if you want to support us too, its as easy as clicking this link!

We are a proud member of the Alberta Podcast Network powered by ATB

And talk to us in the comments!

PS2J 273 News – My Glasses Are Vibrating

September 28, 2019
Tagged as: 13.1, 2d, AccuWeather, action, Activision, Adventure, AirPods, Alan, alan watts, Amazon, apocalypse, Apple, apple arcade, automation, badass elephant, bandai namco, baseball, beats, blood drive, Bloomberg, bolt, broken, buds, bug, Chrome, civilization 6, code vein, cordyceps, damage, dangerous, daringfireball, dark age, dave limp, Death Stranding, Disney, dot, drift, echo, el capitan, energy, enhanced, Epic Games, everything, exclusive, fallout 76, frames, Free Games, freemium, friday the 13th, full access, Gamestop, gatchapon, Google, headphones, helmet, home screen, Horror, infection, iOS, iPadOS, jason voorhees, Josh, keyboard, kotor, l.a. noire, last of us part ii, lining, lootbox, lyrics, MacOS, Mario Kart, medievil, Metro 2033, Microsoft, Microtransactions, missions, mlb, Mobile, modern warfare, mold, moscow, movie, mrmacintosh, multitasking, music, naughty dog, ninja gaiden, nintendo direct, nintendo switch online, Nuka Cola, pair, philosophy, picture-in-picture, playpass, Playstation, poisonous wasteland, power armour, Privacy, PS4, puzzle, razor’s edge, red cross, redux, remaster, remastered, Samsung, security, share eta, Shooter, shortcuts, show, side scrolling, Sigma, simulation, smash, Sony, Stardew Valley, state of play, steering, stomp, studio, subscription, superdog, supply drop, survival, survival mode, swipe, system integrity protection, tablet, team ninja, tembo, the last of us, the show, tour, trunk, tvos, twitchcon, underground, users, vr case files, wattam, weapon, WiiU, Xbox One, zombies

Free games

Xbox
- Tembo the Badass Elephant
  - 2015
  - 2D side-scrolling platformer that has Tembo smashing and stomping his way through enemy structures and vehicles, and solve puzzles using his trunk to progress
- Friday the 13th: The Game
  - 2017
  - Asymmetric survival horror game based on the film franchise, pitting up to seven counsellors at Camp Crystal Lake against Jason Voorhees in a semi open world fight to escape
- Disney’s Bolt
  - 2008
  - Based on the movie of the same name, you play as Bolt the superdog going on various missions using your powers to take down enemies and make it through the levels
- Ninja Gaiden 3: Razor’s Edge
  - 2013 re-release of the 2012 WiiU title
  - Punishingly difficult action-adventure game from Team Ninja that has you jumping, climbing, fighting, and assassinating
  - Razor’s Edge is an enhanced release of the original NG3, in line with the Sigma games, taking a lot of cues from Ninja Gaiden 2
PS4
- MLB: The Show 19
  - 2019
  - Baseball sim that’s the 14th in the The Show franchise, bringing new features to let players relive and recreate famous moments in MLB history
- The Last Of Us Remastered
  - 2014 remaster of the 2013 title
  - Action adventure third person shooter by Naughty Dog that has you escorting a teenage girl across a post-zombie apocalypse United States where survivors have managed to make ends meet, it’s earned a lot of praise for not just its gameplay but also its characterization and storytelling
  - The remaster brings graphical improvements, a higher framerate, and some new features to take advantage of the PS4’s controller’s touchpad and lights
Epic
- Everything
  - 2017
  - A simulation game where you have the ability to explore a procedurally generated universe and control various objects within it, exploring and changing while quotes from philosopher Alan Watts are played
- Metro 2033 Redux
  - 2014
  - Post-apocalyptic first person shooter that turned the Earth’s surface into a poisonous wasteland, and has the survivors living in a new dark age, populating the depths of the Moscow underground

Google managed to push a Chrome update recently that could make your Mac completely unbootable

Apparently the automatic update was released including a bug that damaged the file system on macOS machines that have the built-in System Integrity Protection disabled (or any versions before 10.11 El Capitan, where SIP was first introduced), deleting an important file at the root of the startup drive
Google has since paused the release until they address the problem, but this raises a bigger question- why is a web browser’s software updater doing anything at the root level?
- Daring Fireball put it nicely- “This is like hiring someone to wash your windows and finding out they damaged the foundation of your house.”
End of the day unless you have a really good reason you should probably leave SIP turned on, since this is the exact kind of problem it was introduced to prevent
If you’re a Chrome user on Mac you should check out the blogpost on MrMacintosh.com (https://mrmacintosh.com/google-chrome-keystone-is-modifying-var-symlink-on-non-sip-macs-causing-boot-issues/) for steps on how to see if you’re affected and how to fix it.
- Above all, do not logout, shutdown, or restart your Mac before running the repair if you’re affected. You’ll have to boot into recovery to fix the problem introduced by Chrome

Sony’s Nintendo Direct-style State Of Play livestream hit again this week, so here’s some of the highlights courtesy of Kotaku:

The Last Of Us Part II is coming February 21st
A demo of the MediEvil remake is available today, and you can get a special item in the full game by playing it
A limited-edition Death Stranding PS4 Pro bundle is hitting November 8th, with a pretty cool dripping-handprint design
Wattam, the next game from the creator of Katamari Damacy, is coming this December
L.A. Noire: The VR Case Files is available now for PSVR
Civilization 6 is coming to the console on November 22nd

iOS 13.1 is here! Already! Because for some reason we needed a new version 5 days after the previous release!

Before we get into the new features, it comes with a BIG security warning for everyone: the new iOS has a flaw that enables third-party keyboards to get full access to your device even if you haven’t approved it
- Full access means that they keyboard isn’t just a standalone piece of software and can provide additional features through network access, meaning that they could theoretically send what you type over the internet to another system
- The problem apparently doesn’t affect the official built-in keyboard, but the exploit is currently public and Apple has yet to find a fix so be very, very careful when using iOS keyboard replacement apps
- On the plus side, iOS 13 added some new features like swipe-typing that users previously needed third-party apps for, so fewer people will need those keyboards going forward
- You can check out Settings > General > Keyboard > Keyboards to see what you currently have installed. If in doubt, it’s definitely worth deleting them
So, on to the new stuff!
- iPadOS is officially here, bringing more multitasking abilities like having the same app open twice, improved browsing in Safari, and a bunch of other tablet-exclusive features to the iPad
  - It also has an updated home screen to take advantage of the extra space, instead of just showing a big grid of apps
- We’ve also got tvOS 13, updating the home screen to make it easier to discover new content, a new picture-in-picture mode to let you watch videos while using a different app or adjusting settings, and supporting multiple users for the first time
  - It also supports Xbox One and PS4 controllers, alongside the new Apple Arcade service which gives you unlimited gaming for $5-6 /month
- Share ETA is now more powerful, automatically updating selected contacts if your travel time changes
- There’s a new lyrics view in Apple Music that follows along with your music, turning your iPhone into a karaoke machine
- You can now temporarily pair two sets of Airpods or Beats headphones (anything with an H1 or W1 chip) to your phone to share audio with a friend
- And the Shortcuts app is getting even more powerful, with automatic triggers based on things like location or time of day now available
Overall it’s a solid improvement over iOS 13, also fixing a bunch of things like the email issue I mentioned in the last episode, with the only caveat being “be careful with third party keyboard apps”

Amazon has announced a whole bunch of new hardware including Echo devices and more

Among the announced devices are an Echo Dot with a built-in digital clock, and a high-end Echo Studio set to compete with the HomePod for giving you audio optimized to whatever room it’s located in
They also updated their line of Echo Show devices, including screens with HD resolutions, and announced the Echo Glow, a multicolour smart lamp that works with your Alexa devices
And now Alexa can live in your glasses with the Echo Frames, that has directional microphones and vibration motors on your face meant to connect to your phone on the go. This is a weird one, since it doesn’t really do anything that headphones don’t already while being more limited in other ways
Finally, Amazon’s released their Airpod-competing Echo Buds- truly wireless earbuds with 5 hour battery life and up to 20 hours with the included charging case
One funny part of the whole announcement came with Amazon executive Dave Limp being interviewed by Bloomberg about the new products while clearly wearing an AirPod instead of the new Echo Buds
- It’s right up there with Samsung promotional tweets marked with “via Twitter for iPhone”

Google Assistant coming to Xbox

https://news.xbox.com/en-us/2019/09/26/expanding-xbox-voice-capabilities-with-google-assistant/

Currently in Beta, I was not able to get it working between getting home and starting the show

Tidbits

Google launched their Apple Arcade competitor, Play Pass, this week; a subscription app service for $5-6 /month
- Contrary to Apple’s strategy of being the only mobile source for their games and providing brand new content, Play Pass includes many existing apps like Stardew Valley, KOTOR, and AccuWeather, so though they get to launch with a larger library it somewhat seems like more of a subscription ad removal system than something really comparable to Apple Arcade
Activision is under fire this week after a leak came out saying that Modern Warfare lootboxes won’t be just cosmetic
- Supply drops will apparently include weapon unlocks alongside filler content like emotes and sprays
- They’ve also announced that PS4 players will have exclusive access to Survival Mode until October 2020, which has a lot of people cancelling their preorders
Bandai Namco is holding a blood drive with the American Red Cross during Twitchcon this week, gifting a free copy of Code Vein and a “promo blood kit” for everyone that donates
Continuing the mess that is Fallout 76’s merchandising (the terrible collector’s edition bag, the disappointing Nuka rum), the Nuka Cola branded power armour helmet is being recalled due to the lining containing dangerous levels of mold, posing a risk of respiratory or other infections
- Good news, apparently though there were 20,000 produced for sale in GameStop stores, the manufacturer has stated that only 32 were sold

Alan recommends Mario Kart Tour

Nintendo’s latest mobile game, Mario Kart Tour, released this week on iPhone and it’s pretty fun!
There are definitely some freemium aspects to it, with a couple different currencies and gatchapon-mechanics to get new drivers and karts (spend the freemium currency to launch a random thing out of a pipe)
- One extra piece to file under “bold choice” is their $5 monthly subscription, which nets you access to exclusive characters, extra bonuses, and the 200cc mode (the fastest in the game)
- Considering that costs more than Nintendo Switch Online, which gets you access to a bunch of free games, it’s a hard piece to justify
The steering is also a little strange, with the two main options being either swipe to steer or swipe to drift
- There’s also an option for gyroscope steering, but in practice I found that it just messed me up
- Swipe to drift seems to be the pro option, and you just need to hold your drift and adjust your swipe to get around different angles and corners
On the plus side of things it looks like the gatchapon mechanics aren’t a core pay-to-win feature, with different courses giving bonuses to different drivers each time
They also didn’t put in an energy system, so you can race as much as you like.
Overall it’s a fun game that I wish didn’t have microtransactions, but it seems like they’ll be easy to avoid going forward

Literally Misleading

Last week:

Game – A hard working lady is stuck going back and forth to clean up the trash. (Super Metroid)

This week:

Movie – A man led astray by his employer takes out his frustration on his family.

For more content, Patreon supports get access to upcoming ideas and more!

A huge thanks to Zane, for supporting us and Podzilla.

And thanks to all our ‘fanily’ that support us.

And if you want to support us too, its as easy as clicking this link!

We are a proud member of the Alberta Podcast Network powered by ATB

And talk to us in the comments!

Or… Discord Server

Twitter and Instagram @ps2jshow

A Facebook Page exists as well.

PS2J 271 News – Life Without 3D Touch

September 14, 2019
Tagged as: 2d, 3d touch, a game of clones, Adventure, Alan, always on, Amazon Prime, antarctic, Apple, apple arcade, apple tv+, Apple Watch, at the mountains of madness, balloon, Battery Life, beat-em-up, blinking, brawler, breathing, brown, business, by innovation only, California, camera, camera bump, cancelled, ceramic, chicken assassin, clean, clicker, clones, conarium, core, dating, deep fusion, Disney, employee, Epic Games, Facebook, facility, fingerprint, font, Free Games, galaxy fold, gaming, gig worker, Google, gross, haptic touch, Horror, ipad, iphone 11, iphone 11 pro, iphone 11 pro max, iphone xr, iphone xs, jason momoa, Josh, jump, Kickstarter, Law, liquid retina, lovecraftian, lte, manual, manual samuel, metroidvania, midnight green, Mobile, Netflix, nintendo, oled, open-world, oprah, philips, pinball, platformer, preorer, Privacy, PS4, puzzle, qwop, racing, reloaded, rhythm, RPG, Samsung, Saviour, sayonara wild hearts, see, series 5, sidescrolling, sonicare, Sony, stealth inc 2, Steam, Streaming<, subscription, Switch, tangerine, telephoto, tile, titanium, toothbrush, tracking, Twitch, Uber, ultra wide, ultra wideband, very fancy super duper crazy bright and accurate fancy display, WoW, yoku’s island express

Free games

Twitch
- Yoku’s Island Express
  - 2018
  - Side-scrolling Metroidvania platformer where you can only jump by using pinball paddles to push a ball that drags your character behind, in an open world with many bumpers, tracks, and ramps for different pinball mechanics
- Stealth Inc 2: A Game of Clones
  - 2015
  - 2D puzzle platform stealth game that has you taking control of multiple clones to explore the facility in which you were born
- Chicken Assassin: Reloaded
  - 2016
  - An RPG beat-em-up that plays like a clicker- you can upgrade your stats, weaponry, and equipment, then mash buttons to beat up the bad guys and get your girl back
- Manual Samuel
  - 2016
  - 2D adventure sidescroller where you try to make it through a normal day performing all your bodily functions completely manually, a la QWOP
Epic
- Conarium
  - 2017
  - Lovecraftian horror adventure game inspired by At The Mountains of Madness, that has you exploring an Antarctic base to discover the fate of your expedition through notes, journals, and and strange visions

Apple’s By Innovation Only event was this week, and here are some of the highlights:

Apple Arcade looks fairly solid and will only cost $5 a month with full family sharing. None of the games will include in-app purchases, and they’re all exclusive to Apple Arcade on mobile
- The big standout for me was Sayonara Wild Hearts, a neon rhythm racing game with a ton of style, that’s also coming to Switch and PS4
Apple TV+ is also hitting for $5 a month, which makes competing services look pretty expensive by comparison, but the content is slowly coming together
- Netflix and Amazon Prime are a fair bit more with a ton of back catalog, and Disney+ is only slightly more expensive with their huge vault of works
- One interesting note though, every Apple device sold from now on will come with a free year of Apple TV+. Whether that means only the first time or every single purchase remains to be seen
There’s a new entry-level iPad model that works as an updated alternative to the fancy iPad Pro
The Apple Watch Series 5 will officially have an always-on display, with the screen staying dim until you raise it, and apparently the exact same battery life as current models
- They’re also bringing in more case materials like ceramic and titanium
- And the Series 3 seems to be the new budget model, with the Series 4 being completely replaced
And, of course, the iPhone
- We’ve got three new iPhones:
  - iPhone 11, which is the updated iPhone XR, has the same liquid retina display with a ton of new guts to make it even faster than before
    - They’ve also tweaked the dual camera system on the back to use a standard and ultra-wide angle lens, instead of the old telephoto, so they can use their computational photography to work with even more information
      - It also allows them to finally have a Night Mode, which Google’s been rocking for about a year now
      - The new camera system does come with a gigantic square camera bump, which leaves many wondering why not make the whole device the same thickness and add more battery life (though they did manage to add an additional hour, which is nothing to sneeze at)
  - Then the iPhone 11 Pro, the new OLED model replacing the XS, with a very fancy super duper crazy bright and accurate fancy display ™
    - It also comes in a new color, midnight green, that feels Boba Fett-esque. Pretty slick
    - For the most part it’s got the same new fancy guts as the iPhone 11, but in addition it’s got a third lens to keep the telephoto in play with the other two.
      - Apparently it will use a feature called Deep Fusion to fuse 9 separate exposures with the combined lenses into a single image
    - It’s also got slightly faster cellular data, which is kind of whatever at this point. It gets to a point where the speed gains become less and less noticeable
    - Unfortunately this model is also killing my baby- 3D touch is dead, replaced by haptic touch
      - 3D touch was brilliant, where you could press slightly harder on the screen to do things like get shortcuts or move your cursor around with your thumb on the keyboard, but required an extra suite of sensors under the display
      - Instead all the Pro models have the same Haptic touch brought to us originally in the XR because the display just didn’t work with the tech- you just do a long press, and the haptics give you a light tap on the thumb. So it’s a glorified long press, which we’ve had pretty much the whole time anyway
    - All this comes alongside 4-5 more hours of battery life for the base and Max models, respectively, which is bonkers year-over-year improvement while adding more tech
  - This year’s iPhones also bring a new chip for ultra wideband technology, leading many to think that their Tile competitor is coming soon since that would allow for much more accurate location tracking of devices
    - One demo found inside the new iOS files has the ability to look around your room for a red balloon, then follow the string to the missing device

Awesome looking game that’s got about a month left on Kickstarter, called Savior.

Kickstarter | Steam

Story

Savior is an open-world, action-adventure platformer, centered on rebuilding the divided planet of Arcadia. You’ll be empowered to save the people you discover from problems like hunger, superstition, tyranny and destruction. As you help the Arcadians regain their lives and thrive, you’ll earn experience, abilities, powerful tools and allies to aid you in your quest.

You play as Sam, a stranger with no possessions or memory. As you explore, you’ll learn of your origin and place among the characters you encounter. Battle, evade and persuade your enemies to join you in rebuilding a broken world.

Combat

We wanted combat to feel as real and engaging as possible. To that end, every block, dodge and strike is clean and reactive. NPCs have attack patterns that you’ll learn over time, so fights are quick as you come to anticipate your opponent’s reactions.

Strike 6-Directions – Strike up, high (standing), low (crouched), down (when airborne), or behind you high and low. Hit targets all around you with ease.
Block – Auto-block most attacks with one button. Blocks will cost you ground and stamina. If you block exactly on the strike timing, you’ll instantly counter-attack.
Dodge – By crouching before a high strike or jumping just before a low strike you’ll open up a window of vulnerability in your opponent. Strike fast for a guaranteed hit!
Be Unconventional – When encountering an aggressor, you’ll have options. Douse them with water, intimidate them with staff spins or impress them with epic dance moves!

Parkour

Savior is an open-world game where you’re free to cover the same ground multiple times. So we’ve made simple travel as fun as possible. We’ve added a flurry of movement enhancements to make running and jumping more thrilling and varied.

Context-Sensitive Jumps – Jumps to walls, ledges, high targets, low targets, water, off cliffs etc. will get their own animations that flow together.
Wall Jump – Special gear will let you cling to walls and climb ravines like a spider monkey that sweats crazy glue.
Slide/Roll – Explore every crevice of Arcadia by learning to get small and round. Push down at a run and you’ll slide through your opponents legs!
Dash/Double Jump – Add a second boost to your jump or your run. Blast up or forward to reach new areas, just get around faster, or knock over foes.

Diplomacy

You can win opponents to your cause with your words and actions. They’ll remember encounters and build a positive or negative relationship with you. Over time you can convince them to abandon hostility and help you rebuild Arcadia.

Complete Quests – Quest to gain favor, secrets, and powerful items. Plus you’ll change your surroundings in lasting ways that will make your way forward easier.
Choose Your Style – Talk people into joining your cause. Fight them until they relent. Or make their favorite meal or douse them in water. Get creative!
Debate – Part of your arsenal will be solid arguments. Only some will respond to a good argument right away, but you can plant seeds of doubt that grow over time.
Build Reputation – As you become known, NPCs will treat you differently. Get discounts at shops, help with quests and access to secret areas and equipment.

You can back the project until October 10th, 2019. Then as Kickstarter does, they get the funds to work on it, or pledges are not taken.

They will release on Steam, but they have added Xbox One, PS4 and Switch as stretch goals. My speculation, is that those goals are to pay for the license for those platforms.

Tidbits

Facebook’s released their new dating service in the US, and as usual it had a ton of security and personal information pitfalls
- If you really want to check it out, Lifehacker has a great breakdown of what information is visible to whom
Apparently the Galaxy Fold, that $2000 terrible phone tablet thing, is rolling out slowly around the world this month after an announcement on the 5th
- Unfortunately it looks like Samsung is cancelling everyone’s preorders dating all the way back to April
- They’re saying they’re revamping the entire purchase experience, along with the slow rollout, so everyone that did preorder gets $250 in store credit
Ironically, after Google went on about needing tracking cookies to prevent users being fingerprinted by things like fonts (we discussed in 269), Google-owned app Crashlytics has started installing fonts with a custom identifier embedded that any app can use to identify users
New legislation is coming to California forcing independent contractors in gig-worker roles to be treated as employees, and Uber is trying to say it doesn’t apply because drivers aren’t a core part of their business, which seems like a bold choice

Alan Recommends Philips Sonicare

For more content, Patreon supports get access to upcoming ideas and more!

A huge thanks to Karen, for believing in us for so long.

And thanks to all our ‘fanily’ that support us.

And if you want to support us too, its as easy as clicking this link!

We are a proud member of the Alberta Podcast Network powered by ATB

And talk to us in the comments!

Or… Discord Server

Twitter and Instagram @ps2jshow

A Facebook Page exists as well.

Free Games Of September 2018

September 1, 2018
Tagged as: 2, 2d, 3, 360, action, Adventure, another, architecht, audience, baron, block, boy, brawler, Bungie, cinematic, clone, collection, construction, cut, daemon, dashforth, Destiny, Diablo, director’s, eden, extrusion, foul, Free, games, god, greek, guns, hack, History, humanity, hunter, iii, iv, Lego, livelock, management, matching, Microsoft, Monster, Multiplayer, mythology, of, One, Online, orb, out, outer, physics, platform, play, prison, private, PS3, PS4, puzzle, qube, quick, remastered, RPG, scampwick, scrolling, Sega, Shooter, side, sidekick, slash, Sony, sparkle, star, stick, tales, the month, theatre, this, traveler’s, twin, understanding, vintage, Vita, War, wars, wonder, world, XBone, XBox, zuma

Get your free games if you are subscribed to Microsoft of Sony premium services!

PS2J 212 News – Same But More Secure

September 1, 2018
Tagged as: 2, 2012, 2020, 2d, 3, 343, 360, 4K, ability, action, Adventure, air, Alan, another, Apple, architecht, arlive, audience, baron, base, bastion, block, boy, brawler, breach, building, Bungie, busan, challenge, chief, cinematic, clone, cola, collection, construction, content, controller, cool snake, cosmetic, county, customization, cut, cute, d.va, daemon, dashforth, decal, delivery, Destiny, Diablo, director’s, Disney, donut, drifter, eden, emote, entity, ep, extra, extrusion, faster, fired, foul, Free, Galaxy, games, god, greek, Guardians, gunn, guns, hack, Halo, hate, hello, History, hold, humanity, hunter, hyper, icon, iii, Indie, intelligent, into, iOS, iv, james, Josh, katamari, LAN, Lego, light, livelock, Macbook, MacOS, management, man’s, master, matching, menu, Microsoft, Monster, Multiplayer, mythology, nada, nano, nindies, nintendo, no, of, One, Onirim, Online, orb, out, outer, Overwatch, physics, platform, play, polo, poster, priest, prison, private, Pro, PS3, PS4, puzzle, qube, quick, quicksilver, Reach, remastered, repair, reverse, ridiculous, RPG, scampwick, scrolling, seasonal, Sega, Shooter, side, sidekick, skin, sky, slash, smash, Sony, sorcery, spaghetti, sparkle, specialist, spray, star, steelbook, stick, stream, superbrothers, Switch, sword, tales, the month, theatre, this, to, towerfall, transistor, trashopedia, traveler’s, twin, Twitch, Two Points, ui, ultimate, understanding, Update, vintage, Vita, wallpaper, War, wars, Wasteland, Windows, wonder, world, XBone, XBox, zuma

New update to the Master Chief collection. Josh thanks a listener and gives a site update. Alan recommends a cute indie game, and Josh has a free boadgame app to check out.

For more info, Patreon supports get access to our show notes!

A huge thanks to Dalton, our favourite fan. And thanks to all our Official Fans that support us.
And if you want to support us too, its as easy as clicking this link!

Also, make sure to check out RIPT Apparel for sweet 24 tee shirt designs. And don’t forget to use the coupon code PS2JSHOW for 10% off!

We are a proud member of the Alberta Podcast Network powered by ATB

And talk to us in the comments!
Or…

Discord Server
Twitter and Instagram @ps2jshow
Facebook

Tag: 2d

Free Games

Twitch

Swimsanity – Couch Party Edition

Optica

Epic Games

The Fall

Sony Play at Home 2021

March 25

ABZU

Enter the Gungeon

Rez Infinite

Subnautica

The Witness

PSVR

Astro Bot Rescue Mission

Moss

Thumper

Paper Beast

April 19

Horizon Zero Dawn Complete Edition

A state-backed group in China wants to get around App Tracking Transparency and track app users with a controversial new “China Advertising ID”, or CAID

Sony’s unveiled the planned controller for their next generation of PSVR, and it looks pretty slick

This Week In Gaming History

March 13 – 2012 – Yakuza: Dead Souls – PlayStation 3 (United States)

March 14 – 1986 – Night Fire – DOS

March 15 – 1997 – Snowboard Kids – Nintendo 64 (North America)

March 16 – 2010 – Metro 2033 – Windows, Xbox 360

March 17 – 1995 – Descent – DOS

March 18 – 1992 – Minesweeper – Windows 3.x

March 19 – 2007 – Tetris Evolution – Xbox 360

Tidbits

For more content, Patreon supports get access to upcoming ideas and more!

Free Games

Epic Games

For The King

Metro: Last Light Redux

Twitch

Spinch

Stealth Bastard Deluxe

Monster Prom: Hotseat Edition

Swimsanity! – Couch Party Edition

Table Manners

Facebook has begun asking users to opt in to activity tracking ahead of Apple’s upcoming tracking transparency changes coming in iOS 14.5

Xiaomi has revealed true wireless charging technology with their ‘Mi Air Charge’, able to charge devices from across the room

Activision could be in some legal hot water after introducing a new character to their Call of Duty: Modern Warfare battlepass

Mass Effect: Legendary Edition is coming on May 14th, with a lot of fanciness and lens flares

Destruction AllStars is showing off the dark side of the PS5’s fancy controller

This Week In Gaming History

January 30 – 2001 – SimCoaster – Windows

January 31 – 1999 – Silent Hill – PlayStation

February 1 – 1995 – Kirby’s Avalanche – SNES

February 2 – 2009 – 4 Minutes and 33 Seconds of Uniqueness – Windows

February 3 – 2015 – Poké Doll Grabber – Browser

February 4 – 2000 – The Sims – Windows

Febuary 5 – 2008 – Devil May Cry 4 – PS3/XBox 360 (North America)

Tidbits

For more content, Patreon supports get access to upcoming ideas and more!

Free Games

Twitch

Battlefield 3 (on Origin)

HyperDot

The Spectrum Retreat

Wizard of Legend

Lost Horizon

Sigma Theory: Global Cold War

Turmoil

Close to the Sun

Epic Games

Cave Story+

2020 year in review

January

Feburary

March

April

May

June

July

August

September