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  • PS2J Show

PS2J 309 News – Dance Dance Immolation

  • July 17, 2020
  • Tagged as: 13.6, 25, 6.2.8, action, adhesive, Adventure, AI, Alan, alchemist, alyx, android, anniversary, Apple, Apple Watch, Asa, assassin’s creed valhalla, assault, audio, auroa, backdoor, bahrain, barack obama, battery, bill gates, bird, Bitcoin, bmw, brawlhalla, Brazil, brightness, bug fix, camera cover, carkey, cat recruitment, catch, cco, child, class-action, clearance, covid-19, crew, damage, dance dance, dark ages, Diablo, director, display, dns, double, dungeon crawler, ecg, elite squad, Elon Musk, email, employee, Encryption, end-to-end, Epic Games, era of chaos, experience, explore, fanily, far cry 6, forward, Free Games, games, ghost recon breakpoint, giancarlo esposito, gizmodo, grabbity gloves, green light, gunplay, gus fring, hack, half-life, halo 3, Hardware, Health, health ambassador, hr, hyper scape, immolation, internal, inventory, iOS, iPhone, jeff bezos, joe biden, Josh, Journey, Kanye West, legion, light sensor, Limbo, login, Macbook, mask, master chief collection, maxime béland, might & magic, mike bloomberg, moff gideon, Multiplayer, narrated, news, nfc, oculus quest, open beta, paper, PC, pcgamer, presentation, puzzle, raid, rainbow six siege, random, register, resign, resistance, resume, RPG, saskatchewan, satisfying, Sci-Fi, security, series 5, server, sexual misconduct, Shooter, sling, soundtrack, south africa, Steam, story, stream, symptom, sync shots, team, the division 2, tom clancy, torchlight ii, tracking, truetone, Twitch, Twitter, two-factor, tyrant, Uber, Ubisoft, united states, Update, Valve, vane, vast, verified, vice president, Viking, virtual desktop, wallet, walmart, watch dogs 2, Windows, xr
http://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/http://ps2jshow.fushigiyami.com/podcasts/PS2J-309-DDI.mp3

Free games

  • Twitch

    • Vane

      • 2019
      • Adventure game where you play a child that can turn into a bird to explore a vast expanse and solve puzzles with an aesthetic like Journey meets Limbo and a great soundtrack
  • Epic Games

    • Torchlight II

      • 2012
      • Action RPG dungeon crawler similar to the Diablo series that has you playing as one of four classes as you explore randomly generated dungeons and hunt down the Alchemist

High profile Twitter accounts were hacked this Wednesday as part of a bitcoin scam, including the likes of Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Elon Musk, and Apple

  • No one’s quite sure of how all the accounts were compromised, or to what extent Twitter’s internal systems may have been affected, but Twitter was forced to temporarily block all verified accounts after their employee tools were used to hack even accounts using two-factor authentication
    • Anonymous sources claim that a Twitter employee was paid to either give access to other parties or post the tweets themselves, and a Twitter spokesperson says that the investigation is ongoing
    • Either way, this is a good example of why these kinds of tools and backdoor access can wreak havoc in the wrong hands. This may be one of the better arguments for end-to-end encryption
  • It all started when Elon Musk’s account was compromised by a hacker using it to run a bitcoin scam, saying that any bitcoins payed to a specific address would be paid back two-fold (pay $1000, get $2000, was the example in the tweet)
  • Bill Gates’ account was also hit, posting new tweets almost as fast as the old ones were deleted
  • Shortly after that the accounts of Apple, Uber, Obama, Jeff Bezos, Joe Biden, Kanye West, Mike Bloomberg, and many others including major online Bitcoin exchanges started all promoting the same scam
  • The bitcoin wallet linked to the tweets has had its balance fluctuating up and down as it does seem to be sending money somewhere, but it seems to have received nearly $120,000 USD worth of the cryptocurrency with more flowing through even up to Thursday evening when we’re recording
  • https://www.blockchain.com/btc/address/bc1qxy2kgdygjrsqtzq2n0yrf2493p83kkfjhx0wlh

Ubisoft Forward

  • Apparently the initial plan was to track how many minutes of the presentation each user watched and then reward them accordingly
    • Watch Dogs 2 for 1 minute of viewing, and so on for in-game rewards for The Division 2, Watch Dogs: Legion, and Assassin’s Creed Valhalla
  • After some issues with their login portal, Ubisoft changed things up so that you just had to register your Ubisoft account at a particular URL (we tweeted it earlier this week) and you would eventually get all the rewards
    • A lot of users have been grumbling that they haven’t received their rewards but their initial line of “it may take up to 24 hours” has slowly shifted to “Rewards will be delivered by the end of the week”
    • I just received mine a few hours before recording, so if you managed to register in time you should check your inbox
  • Recap
    • Ghost Recon Breakpoint is getting AI teammates this week, with full customization, sync shots, and the ability to revive the player, along with some improvements to Ghost War and a new live event called Resistance
      • Resistance offers limited-time missions that will affect the presence of rebels in Auroa, as well as offer exclusive rewards for participating
    • Watch Dogs: Legion looks pretty cool, giving you the ability to build you own crew of up to 40 operatives, but as noted by Fanily member Asa its October 29th release date is butting right up against Assassin’s Creed Valhalla and Cyberpunk 2077
    • Valhalla is coming November 17th, letting players lead Viking raids, assault castles, assassinate targets, build alliances and make their mark on England’s Dark Ages
      • Most importantly you can recruit a cat to join your raiding party and keep the ship free of rats
    • Rainbow Six Siege is celebrating its 5 year anniversary with a message of thanks for the community’s dedication
    • Hyper Scape is now in open beta, bringing the sci-fi multiplayer shooter to PC players for free
    • Far Cry 6 will hit on February 18th and have you fighting to free your homeland of Yara from a brutal tyrant played by Giancarlo Esposito (Gus Fring in Breaking Bad, Moff Gideon in The Mandalorian), and I’m tempted to buy the game just because of him
    • Ubisoft’s going all-in on mobile
      • They showcased last year’s Might & Magic Era of Chaos
      • Brawlhalla is coming to Android and iOS on August 6th with cross-play and special rewards for early-adopters
      • Tom Clancy’s Elite Squad is a F2P tactical RPG hitting Android and iOS on August 27th with a roster of characters spanning the Tom Clancy universe

Apple Updates

  • iOS 13.6
    • Introduces more options for controlling automatic updates, so instead of either having it download and install automatically or you do everything manually, now you have have your device download future updates and then prompt you that it’s ready
      • Updates will only be downloaded on Wifi
    • They’ve also brought in support for CarKey, which can let you use your iPhone or Apple Watch instead of your key fob for NFC-enabled cars
      • Not a lot of people will be able to take advantage of this, since it’s pretty much limited to BMW at the moment, and requires at minimum an iPhone XR or Apple Watch 5, but once it’s more widely available you’ll see people unlocking their cars by tapping their phone on the handle, and starting them by putting their phone on the car’s charging tray
      • You’ll also be able to set up limitations on young drivers and share or revoke keys with up to five other users
    • Health now has a new Symptoms section that you can use to track things like aches, appetite changes, coughing, nausea, and more
    • Apple News can now save your place in long articles, letting you get back into things where you left off, and also has a new audio feature for News+ that has professionally narrated content
    • There are also a bunch of bug fixes, like one that had some phonecalls from Saskatchewan appearing as if they were from the US
  • watchOS 6.2.8 gives us support for those CarKey features, as well as ECG support in Bahrain, Brazil, and South Africa

Apple has posted a support document this week warning customers against using camera covers on their MacBooks, saying that it can lead to display damage due to the small amount of space allowed between the screen and body

  • Even if you don’t see physical damage, it can also affect the light sensors used for screen brightness and the TrueTone display
  • They say anyone concerned about their camera should keep an eye out for the green light beside the lens, which is engineered so that the camera can’t be access without it turning on
  • They also say that, if you really need a cover, they recommend one no thicker than a piece of printer paper that won’t leave adhesive residue

This week in past game news:

July 11 – 1993 – Goof Troop on SNES

  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goof_Troop_(video_game)
  • Goof Troop is an action-adventure video game, developed and released by Capcom in 1993 for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, and based on the television series of the same name. The game can be played in multiplayer mode, wherein one player controls Goofy and the other Max.
  • Goof Troop is one of the first games designed by Shinji Mikami.
    • Shinji Mikami is a Japanese video game designer, director, and producer. Starting his career at Capcom in 1990, he went on to direct many of the company’s biggest titles. He directed the first installment of the survival horror series Resident Evil in 1996 and the first installment of Dino Crisis in 1999. He returned to Resident Evil to direct the critically acclaimed remake of the first game in 2002. He returned to direct third person shooter Resident Evil 4 in 2005. In 2006, he directed his final Capcom game God Hand, a beat ’em up action game. Mikami worked at PlatinumGames to direct the third person shooter Vanquish in 2010. After that he created his own studio Tango Gameworks. Under that company, he directed the third person horror game The Evil Within. The company has since been acquired by the American company ZeniMax Media.

July 12 – 1985 – Acclaim acquires Sculptured Software, renames it Acclaim Studios Salt Lake City

  • https://www.mobygames.com/company/acclaim-studios-salt-lake-city
  • This studio is responsible for the Super Star Wars games, which are terrible representations of Star Wars and games made difficult to extend play time.

July 13 – 2010 – Fruit Ninja on iPad Releases

  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fruit_Ninja
  • iPhone version released a few months prior, this mobile game dominated peoples attention when it blew up on iPad. And still is being remade and released, as recently as April 2019, for Oculus Quest.

July 14 – 1998 – Civilization Name Case settled

  • MicroProse, Avalon-Hill, and Activision have settled the Civilization name issue out of court. MicroProse is the undisputed owner of the franchise (both computer and board games). Activision gets a license for “Civilization: Call to Power” and one add-on. Avalon-Hill relinquishes all rights to MicroProse.

July 15 – 2003 – Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic

  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Wars:_Knights_of_the_Old_Republic
  • The story of Knights of the Old Republic takes place almost 4,000 years before the formation of the Galactic Empire, where Darth Malak, a Dark Lord of the Sith, has unleashed a Sith armada against the Republic. The player character, as a Jedi, must venture to different planets in the galaxy to defeat Malak.

July 16 – 2005 – Dance Dance Immolation

  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dance_Dance_Immolation
  • Dance Dance Immolation was an interactive performance piece by fire art group Interpretive Arson based out of the artist work space known as NIMBY in East Oakland. It is a modified version of Dance Dance Revolution where players are shot with fire if they perform poorly. Participants are not harmed since they wear a fire proximity suit with forced-air respirators. Numerous other safeguards are built into the system to ensure the players are not subject to direct flame exposure or inhalation of superheated air. The piece was premiered in 2005 and ran at various festivals and private events internationally. It was retired in 2013 at Burning Man, where all the components were gathered into a pile and a piano was dropped on it.

July 17 – 2017 – Redneck Deer Huntin’

  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redneck_Rampage#Redneck_Deer_Huntin‘
  • Redneck Deer Huntin’ is a hunting game for the PC using the same engine as the previous games in the series. It was developed by Xatrix Entertainment and released in 1997.

Tidbits

  • The class action lawsuit against Apple’s silent performance throttling has concluded, and eligible iPhone owners can get about $25 each if they submit a claim online
    • The class includes any US resident who owned any iPhone between 6 and 7 Plus before December 21, 2017. You must also have experienced “diminished performance” on your device
    • If you want your share, or you want to opt out so you can sue Apple individually (good luck), you can go to smartphoneperformancesettlement.com
  • Walmart is bringing their weight into the mask-wearing debate, requiring customers to cover their faces in all locations
    • Since governments have failed to set the tone and tell citizens to wear a mask whenever they need to leave the house, businesses like Walmart, Costco, and Apple have been cracking the whip to prevent COVID outbreaks
    • Walmart will apparently be bringing on specially trained “health ambassadors” stationed by store entrances to enforce the new rules
  • According to PCGamer, Halo 3 is the best PC port of the Master Chief Collection so far
    • Many were worried, especially after Reach’s issues with sound and frame rate since it runs on a modified Halo 3 engine, but apparently Halo 3 runs perfectly with a full 144fps without the animation issues of some of the other MCC titles
  • Gizmodo hit the panic button this week, screaming about a major Windows security patch that everyone needs to install, if they’re running Windows Servers, anyway
    • The bug is related to the Windows Domain Name System, and it is a pretty nasty one, so if you’re running Windows Server you should absolutely update as soon as possible. Most people won’t need to do anything, though
  • Ubisoft’s chief creative officer, managing director of Canadian studios, and their global head of HR have all resigned effective immediately following a review centred around sexual misconduct charges
    • This follows the departure of their vice president, Maxime Béland, after similar allegations

Review

  • Half-Life: Alyx is damn good.
    • Played on an Oculus Quest using Virtual Desktop
    • It takes a little finessing to get things running smoothly for wireless PC VR, but after a little guess-and-check (H.264 vs HEVC) I spent a couple hours in the game with no issues at all
    • The environments are great, locomotion is solid, gunplay and reloads are satisfying, there’s no melee combat so far, but the grabbity gloves are fantastic
      • The gloves let you point your hand at an item out of range, press a button, and flick your wrist to have it launch itself toward you
      • Then it’s really intuitive to catch it on its way past your head and either put it in your ammo inventory over your shoulder or your item inventory in your wrists
    • Overall this really feels like a triple-A VR game, and I very much hope we can get more like it

 

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

Thank you Breanne, our podcast friend and someone we don’t want to miss out on! 😉

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. Locally grown. Community supported.
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  • Podcast
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PS2J 300 News – Facebook Error Battleship

  • May 7, 2020
  • Tagged as: 2fa, 2nd factor, abtracetogether, action, adobe, Adventure, agents of light, ahs, Alan, Alberta, alberta health services, all systems red, android, Animation, anxiety, api, app, Apple, artificial condition, artistic, assassin’s creed, auction, Australia, avicii, avivii invector, Banksy, battery, beach, bike, bluetooth, California, Call Of Duty, challenge, charity, child, climate change, coins, console, contact tracing, covid-19, crash, daily tasks, daughter, death, death coming, developer, display, disposable assassin, dj, download, dreamkeeper, EA, earn, emergency, England, Epic Games, exit, exposure notifications, f2p, Facebook, father, final destination, foreground, fractured minds, framework, Free, Free Games, freemium, gaming, generation, Google, gym, hand drawn, Health, Hospital, infinity ward, Josh, Like a Dragon, lock, login, MacOS, martha wells, mental health, Microsoft, Mobile, modern warfare, Murderbot Diaries, network effect, new world, Niantic, nightmare, non-linear, novel, novella, Online, Painting, pankapu, patch, PC, Phone, physics, platformer, playstation 5, Pokemon Go, Privacy, ps5, psyche, puzzle, racing, rez, rhythm, rob schrab, rogue protocol, scud, sdk, slither, smart delivery, Snake, snake pass, Sony, spark, Spotify, steamvr, storage, strategy, stunt, suicide, superhero, sweden, the little acre, thumper, tiktok, tim bergling, tracking, Twitch, Ubisoft, upgrade, urban trial playground, valhalla, Valve, video card, waze, wwdc, xbox series x, yakuza, zuckerberg
http://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/http://ps2jshow.fushigiyami.com/podcasts/PS2J-300-FaceSink.mp3

Free games

  • Twitch

    • Urban Trial Playground

      • 2019
      • Stunt bike racing game set on the sunny and colourful beaches of California, with more than 50 levels to stunt on
    • The Little Acre

      • 2016
      • Adventure game that has you playing a father and daughter lost in a strange new world looking for eachother, with full voice acting and hand-drawn animations
    • Avicii Invector

      • 2019
      • Rhythm action game similar to Rez meets Thumper, that has you flying through 25 of Swedish DJ Avicii’s electronic hits
      • Launched to support the Tim Bergling Foundation, founded by Avicii’s parents Klas and Anki Bergling after his death to advocate for the recognition of suicide as a global health emergency, as well as other issues that Tim had a passion for like climate change, endangered species preservation, global hunger, and more
    • Pankapu

      • 2017
      • Narrative action-platformer that takes place in the dreams of a child troubled by a tragic incident. Upgrade your skills, find new competencies, fight as a Dreamkeeper to get rid of Nightmare’s invasion.
    • Fractured Minds

      • 2019
      • An immersive artistic short game, exploring anxiety and mental health issues. Embark on a journey through the human psyche to experience the everyday challenges associated with these conditions.
    • Snake Pass

      • 2017
      • Physics based puzzle-platformer where your controls mirror the movement of a snake- you use the unique controls to slither, curl, and climb your way through increasingly challenging worlds
  • Epic Games (requires 2FA)

    • Death Coming

      • 2017
      • Non-linear puzzle game where you must harvest human souls ‘Final Destination’ style. However, pesky mortals are not your only problem, as the Agents of Light will do everything they can to stop you.

Alberta has officially entered the contact tracing business, but they’ve followed in England and Australia’s steps instead of using the upcoming framework from Apple and Google

  • ABTraceTogether is a mobile contact tracing app, that will exchange Bluetooth tokens with nearby devices to track who you’ve been in contact with over the last 21 days
    • Similar to the Apple/Google framework, data is kept on your device and encrypted. The only thing associated with your account that the government can see is your phone number
  • If an Albertan tests positive for COVID-19, Alberta Health Services staff will get in touch with them and ask to have their data uploaded to AHS, so they can use that information to contact others that may have had close contact and identify next steps
  • Unfortunately, even though they’re not hosting the data centrally and have somewhat aligned with the Apple/Google privacy guidelines, because they’re not using the specific framework the app is still somewhat limited
    • Android devices can have it run in the foreground or background, but iPhones need to have it running and onscreen at all times, without being locked, for it to work
      • Considering Alberta is asking its citizens to use the app for the duration of the pandemic, this is a pretty annoying ask. Battery life will be affected and you can’t use your iPhone for anything else or have it locked to protect your privacy
  • All in all it’s not a bad attempt, but by pushing to release before using the proper frameworks they’ve handicapped themselves in the iOS market. I’m appreciative of their app from a privacy perspective, but they still just aren’t there if I need to have the app open and active at all times

Niantic is making changes to how players can earn coins in Pokemon Go, with a small nice change and a big nasty one

  • They’ll be adding the ability to earn coins from daily tasks, like taking a snapshot or evolving a pokemon, to a maximum of 5 per day
  • Unfortunately, even though they’re increasing the cap on daily earnings from 50 to 55 coins, they’re drastically cutting earnings from holding gyms
    • Rather than earning 6 coins per hour for every pokemon left in a gym, you now get 2
  • The changes will roll out to Australia first while Niantic gathers feedback and makes tweaks, but it really looks like another freemium cash grab in the guise of something actually useful

Facebook made some changes to a piece of their software used by many mobile apps to allow logins through Facebook, breaking things like Waze, Spotify, TikTok, and Adobe Spark

  • Apps using affected code seem to be crashing on load, even if you don’t use your Facebook account in any way
  • They’ve since fixed the issue, but it’s a nice reminder to developers that they shouldn’t make themselves reliant on things like Facebook when they don’t have to

Banksy still at work

  • Banksy usually saves social media for a tease
    • To help people find his latest work
    • Show off how a piece looked before it was stolen or removed
    • And sometimes show how it was done
  • His last piece was about self isolation
    • showing a bathroom being wrecked by his iconic stencil rat
    • they are hanging off objects
    • in the toilet
    • counting the days on the wall
    • and even running on a roll of toilet paper
  • His latest reveal has been a gift to healthcare workers
    • Delivered to University Hospital Southampton was a framed Banksy original
      • Titled: Painting for Saints
    • In black and white, a little boy sits with a basket of superhero toys
      • which clearly depict Batman and Spiderman
      • The boy is playing with a nurse doll
        • dressed in a medical mask and cape
        • the only colour is the red cross on her outfit
  • As reported to the BBC
    • A note from Banksy read:
      • “Thanks for all you’re doing,”
      • “I hope this brightens the place up a bit, even if it’s only black and white”
  • The Hospital will have the painting up until later in the fall
    • Then they hope to auction it off to raise money for the National Health Service
    • I am interested in how much it will end up auctioning for

Tidbits

  • EA has confirmed that its upcoming games for the current generation can be “upgraded free” to run on next-generation consoles like the PS5 or Xbox Series X
    • This joins Microsoft’s Smart Delivery system for bringing cross-buy to more and more games, with titles like Assassin’s Creed Valhalla and Yakuza: Like a Dragon already announced as offering free upgrades if you buy the current-gen version
  • Infinity Ward is taking heat this week for the latest Call of Duty: Modern Warfare patches bringing the game up to a grand total of 180GB on PC and consoles
    • They’ve now exceeded the listed space requirements for the game, and are nearing half of the total internal storage capacity of both the PS4 and Xbox One S
  • SteamVR has officially ended support for macOS.
    • In other news, apparently SteamVR used to support macOS
    • This isn’t really a surprise, since no Macs ship with a video card that support VR gaming, and macOS doesn’t even support the frameworks that many popular VR games are based on
  • Apple’s WWDC 2020 event will kick off online June 22nd
    • Developers are encouraged to download the Apple Developer app where additional info, including keynote details and session schedules, will be shared next month
    • It’ll be interested to see what comes of their new “everyone is invited” format, and how they’ll handle the influx of traffic now that it doesn’t cost $1,600 plus flights and accommodations
  • Martha’s Wells’ first full Murderbot novel, Network Effect, is out now!
    • I’m re-reading the four previous novellas before I dig in, and I’ll be giving you my impressions once I’ve finished it
    • Recommended back in September 2017, episode 156
    • Fourth novella game out November 2018 and felt like a good endcap, so it’ll be interesting to see where things go
      • A manufactured security unit hired out to prospectors exploring new planets
      • It’s managed to jailbreak itself so that it can watch TV that it downloads secretly, between doing its job and dealing with the neuroses of working with humans
      • It’s just such a relatable, human character that has no interest in being human

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

Thank you to Breanne, for being so kind and helpful!

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!
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PS2J 295 News – Seamless Infringement

  • April 3, 2020
  • Tagged as: 2020, 35th, 76, 90’s, action, Adventure, Alan, anniversary, Apple, april, author, best buy, Blizzard, book, bookstore, browsing, bug, choices, clues, Color Splash, company, copyright, covid-19, d&d, delivery attempted, demake, digital, Dinosaur, directory, dirt rally 2.0, DLC, dm, drawful 2, dungeon, dutch, early, earthlock, ebook, emergency, end-to-end encryption, Epic Games, etherborn, exploration, Fable, fable anniversary, Facebook, facetime, Fallout, final cut pro, final fantasy vii, First Person, fools, free books, Free Games, games with gold, Gone Home, googly eyes, Grand Theft Auto, gravity, GTA, guild wars, hero, hob, https, hunter, iMac, intelcom, Internet Archive, investigate, iOS, iPhone, jackbox, Josh, journalism, JRPG, kathy rain, king of all cats, knights of pen & paper, lateral thinking, Legal, Lego, library, light, lightmatter, lionheaqd studios, logic pro, login, Mac, machinery, Mario, Mario 64, master, micro machines, Microsoft, mystery, N64, nathan drake, nintendo, Online, open library, Overwatch, Paper Mario, party pack, physics, picohot, piracy, planet, Playstation, point and click, preinstall, Privacy, private, project cars 2, ps plus, PS4, publishers, puzzle, racing, ragdoll, rally, rallycross, rdr2, Red Dead Redemption, remake, remote desktop, remote support, repair, RPG, sales, scan, security, shadows, silent, simulator, snow, snowball, Sony, spinning, spoiler, Square Enix, stream, Sunshine, SUPERHOT, surprise, Switch, tabletop, Tech, terrible, thief’s end, third person, Tomb Raider, torchlight, totally accurate battle simulator, totally reliable delivery service, toybox turbos, Toys, transport, Turn Based, turok, Twitch, umbra, unc, Uncharted, Update, url, video conferencing, villain, virtual training, wastelanders, web server, Wii, WiiU, XBox, Xbox Live, zoom
http://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/http://ps2jshow.fushigiyami.com/podcasts/PS2J-295-Seamless.mp3

Free Games

  • Twitch

    • Earthlock

      • 2016
      • Earthlock is a turn-based adventure RPG inspired by the classic 3D JRPGs of the late 90’s, with a fresh take on turn based combat and character progression. Embark on a journey to save the beautiful world of Umbra, a harsh planet that stopped spinning thousands of cycles ago.
    • Kathy Rain

      • 2016
      • Set in the 90’s, Kathy Rain is a point-and-click adventure that tells the story of a strong-willed journalism major who has to come to terms with her own troubled past as she investigates the mysterious death of her recently deceased grandfather. Armed with her motorcycle, a pack of cigs, and a notepad, Kathy begins to delve into a local mystery surrounding her hometown that will take her on a harrowing journey full of emotional and personal turmoil.
    • Turok

      • Visually enhanced version of the 1997 release
      • First-person dinosaur hunting teeming with cunning enemies, traps, puzzles and deadly weapons all within a vast 3D environment ready to explore.
    • Etherborn

      • 2019
      • Third-person environmental puzzle platformer built on exploring and understanding gravity-shifting structures. You are a voiceless being that has just been born into a world where a bodiless voice awaits your arrival. Go forth and seek your purpose.
    • Lightmatter

      • 2020
      • An atmospheric first person puzzle game where you use lateral thinking to solve mind-bending puzzles with lights, shadows, beams, platforms, and lightmatter.
  • Epic Games

    • Totally Reliable Delivery Service

      • 2019
      • Delivery Attempted. That’s the Totally Reliable Delivery Service guarantee! T.R.D.S. is a ragdoll physics simulation about terrible package delivery couriers. Work together using odd machinery, useful gadgets, and the wonders of physics to reliably deliver packages to their destination.
    • Drawful 2

      • 2016
      • A streamable party game for 3-8 plus an audience of thousands, it gets players to draw pictures based on ridiculous prompts on their smartphones and tablets and then everyone votes on what they think the prompt was
    • Gone Home

      • 2013
      • A first-person exploration game that has you arriving home after a year abroad to find your house completely empty. You’ll have to solve puzzles and look for clues to unravel the mystery
    • Hob

      • 2017
      • Action adventure game from the makers of Torchlight that tells a story without any text or dialogue and has you solving puzzles and repairing the planet
  • Xbox

    • Project Cars 2

      • 2017
      • Motorsport racing simulator featuring dynamic tracks with temperature and weather variations between laps, 60 locations, and 189 cars to race
    • Knights of Pen & Paper Bundle

      • Includes 1 (2012) and 2 (2015) as well as all their DLC
      • Turn-based RPG’s that have you taking on the roles of in-game players taking on the roles of their characters in a traditional pen and paper RPG session in a meta roleplaying experience.
    • Fable Anniversary

      • 2014 remaster of the 2004 title
      • Choice-based action RPG that lets you follow whatever path, hero or villain, you choose, with fully remastered audio and video as well as a new Heroic difficulty setting
    • Toybox Turbos

      • 2014
      • Micro-machines style combat racing with a single-player career mode, 35 different vehicles, and split-screen multiplayer races
  • PS4

    • Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End

      • 2016
      • A continuation of the Uncharted trilogy that was free under the Nathan Drake collection back in January, the series is known for its Tomb Raider style third-person action adventure gameplay including shooting, combat, and puzzle solving
    • Dirt Rally 2.0

      • 2019
      • Racing game focused on rally and rallycross races that has you competing in timed stage events on tarmac and off-road terrain in varying weather all around the world

PSA

  • It sounds like devices that have been updated to iOS 13.4 and macOS 10.15.4 are currently unable to make FaceTime audio and video calls with older devices running iOS 9.3.5 or 9.3.6, so if you need FaceTime to stay in touch with people stuck on those versions with older, unsupported devices while staying at home you may not want to upgrade until a fix is found

April Fools 2020

  • In light of the current situation many chose to skip April Fools this year, so we ended up with mainly fun little digital offerings rather than the usual tricks and “damn, I wish that was real” products
  • Blizzard gave all of the Overwatch heroes googly eyes, and I kind of wish that was a setting we could have all year round
  • GTA Online and RDR2 got some snow this year, letting players break into impromptu snowball fights
  • Guild Wars 2 brought players a message from the King of All Cats, along with a potion that has cats appear around you
  • The makers of Superhot released Picohot- a playable Pico-8-based demake that brings the excellent Superhot gameplay to a virtual 1980’s style game console
  • Totally Accurate Battle Simulator introduced their new Bug DLC, adding 11 new bugs to the game

With the massive spike in people working from home, we’re discovering more and more shady practices from the unfortunately “best in breed” video conferencing app Zoom

  • Without including any disclosure in their privacy policy, the Zoom iOS app was sending data to Facebook whether or not you linked it to your account
    • The info included the model of your device, your time-zone, city, phone carrier, and unique advertising identifiers
    • They removed it, blaming the ‘Login with Facebook’ feature, but to use something like that without understanding the impact to your users is at the very least negligent
    • Keep in mind that this same company last summer was found to be secretly installing a web server with the Mac version of their software, which remained installed and running even if you removed the app from your machine – we originally talked about it back in episode 261
      • They called this a feature, not a bug, to allow users to automatically reinstall things when joining a conference
      • This one was nasty enough, allowing hackers to take control of your computers camera, that Apple used their macOS security features to silently remove it for all users
  • Another piece that’s come to light recently is the fact that, when installing Zoom on a Mac nowadays they’ve snuck the entire installation process into the preinstall checks
    • Normally when an app uses an installer it runs a check to see if it can be installed and, if so, lets you follow the prompts to choose what’s being installed and where, and follow through the process
    • With Zoom, inside the preflight check script they’ve bundled in code that just throws the app into your system without user intervention- it goes right from checking if it can be done to being done
  • And Zoom’s claims of end-to-end encryption have been proven laughably false, as they’re using their own definition of “end-to-end”
    • Normally, end-to-end means that the company offering the service can’t see what goes on- data is encrypted on your end and decrypted on the recipient’s with keys that the host doesn’t have access to
    • What Zoom actually does is use transport-security, similar to secure websites, where data is encrypted between your device and their server but then it could be decrypted, processed, read, or modified before being encrypted again and sent to the recipient
      • They say that they’re referencing the connection being encrypted from Zoom endpoint to Zoom endpoint, but that doesn’t offer anything like actual end-to-end encryption for users
  • In addition to all that, another poorly thought out feature of the service is exposing people’s email addresses and photos to complete strangers
    • There’s a Company Directory setting in the app that is supposed to automatically group people and add them to eachother’s contact lists if they sign up with an email address in the same domain
    • In theory this would let people using their corporate accounts easily find eachother, and they’ve disabled it for super common email providers like Gmail or Hotmail, but there are thousands of people seeing the issue with email addresses from their internet provider
      • Several Dutch ISP’s in particular have been identified as having users appear for eachother in the Company Directory list
      • Apparently Zoom needs to manually blacklist specific domains, but really that kind of manual gruntwork means the feature should be opt-in, not opt-out
  • And finally, there’s a vulnerability in Zoom chat links and how the URLs are converted that hackers can use to collect your Windows login credentials and potentially access your computer remotely
    • Basically if someone drops a link in the chat that uses a file path instead of a web URL, Zoom converts it into a clickable link anyway
    • If you click on it Windows will try to access the remote files by sending your computer’s username and encrypted password. If it’s a malicious link, then all they have to do is decrypt your password and they have everything they need to log in to your computer remotely
    • There’s no word on if Zoom is working to fix this one at all, and the only workaround is pretty technical and involves editing your PC’s registry, so you’ll need to be very careful about the links you click in Zoom’s chat
  • If you do need to use Zoom, they have a web version that you should run in a private browser window without an account to try and keep some semblance of privacy

The Internet Archive is hitting some interesting legal waters this week and are now offering 1.4M copyrighted books for free online

  • The Internet Archive has hosted something called the Open Library for about a decade now, offering people the ability to check out digital scans of physical books held by the archive
  • Until this week they only allowed people to check out as many copies as the library owned, just like a physical library and very similar to how libraries generally handle e-books
  • With public libraries closing down due to COVID-19 they announced a major change- no more restrictions or waiting lists. If you want to read a book, you get a copy for the full two week borrowing period regardless of how many are currently checked out
  • Generally this has gotten some positive reactions, with The New Yorker declaring it a “gift to readers everywhere”, but authors and publishers aren’t quite as keen
    • Some authors are calling it a “tarted-up piracy site”, and saying that there’s no author, bookseller, or publisher bailout available so this is literally taking dollars away from the people who own that content
    • The Association of American Publishers called the move an “aggressive, unlawful, and opportunistic attack on the rights of authors and publishers”
  • The director of the archive’s emergency library project, Chris Freeland, defended the idea, saying that there are 650M books that tax-paying citizens in the US have paid to access but can’t because the libraries are closed
  • What he didn’t address is the real legality of distributing copies of copyrighted works
  • Not to mention, Freeland seems to be positioning himself as a digital saviour lending books out to the masses with no other way to get them, when in reality many libraries and publishers already have or are setting up e-book that lines up more with traditional library use
    • Sure they’re all digital files that could just be copied, but authors deserve to be paid for their work and if that means I have to wait a few weeks to read The Steel Crow Saga then so be it

Mario’s 35th Anniversary celebration with rereleases

  • Mario games are getting the spotlight this year as the franchise hits 35 years old
  • Where the 30th year celebration coincided with the release of Mario Maker
    • And 2 pixel amiibo in both retro and modern Mario colours
  • The 35th anniversary on the Switch includes remasters
    • And I am really excited to play these on Switch as I’m sure many other fans also felt like Nintendo forgot about these games
    • Games like:
      • Mario Galaxy from 2007
      • Mario Sunshine from 2002
      • And Super Mario 64 from 1997
        • Which we may get a rerelease of the DS remake from 2004
        • Which would be fine, because it added Luigi, Yoshi and Wario as unique playable characters
  • I may be even more excited to see a continuation of the Paper Mario series, which have been one of the few RPGs I play and enjoy
    • And the only one I’ve missed is Colour Splash on WiiU which is still $65 and came out 2016
    • And the rumor is we will see one for the Switch sometime in 2020
  • Announcements for the celebration were going to be paired with other big Mario announcements this year
    • Like the Super Nintendo World theme park and an animated Mario movie
    • And with the cancellation of E3, it did change the way Nintendo would be releasing information on this event
  • We have already seen Nintendo partnering with companies which many have felt have been a long time coming
    • Like the new Lego sets where we get to build Mario style side scrolling environments with Goombas and Koopas to jump on
    • And now licenced Mario clothing through clothing makers Uniqlo and Levi’s
    • And it may have taken this long to see these kinds of partnerships because of Nintendo’s tight control on thier intellectual properties.
    • But it’s taken time to do it in a way Nintendo is comfortable, and has been made clear in a quote from Shigeru Miyamoto.
      • “We want to expand our video game characters to a variety of settings – not just in games, all while keeping their value,” Miyamoto said. “In other words, we’ll be collaborating with various other companies. If we’re able to accomplish that, we can create more opportunities for people to make contact with our characters on a much larger scale than usual.”
  • We can all look forward to revisiting our favorite adventures with Mario this year
    • And more importantly sharing what we’ve loved with people who missed it the first time around
    • Then we can all explore Mario’s new adventures together this year and for many more to come

Fallout 76 Wastelanders update finally coming

  • Fallout 76 Wastelanders expansion will release April 14th, bringing much needed fun content to the game that isn’t freemium cosmetics for your character and camp
    • Also, anyone who owns the game on Bethesda.net can get a Steam version for free
    • Also From April 14-28, anyone who purchases the game from Steam will also receive the Fallout Classic Collection with the original two games and Fallout Tactics for free
      • This applies to those who claim the free Steam version via their Bethesda.net account, as well.

Tidbits

  • iPhone 9 cases have been arriving at Best Buy this week with a street date of April 5th, leading many to theorize that the new phones are due to be announced before Easter
  • Apple has expanded the free trials of Final Cut Pro and Logic Pro from 30 days to 90, and even if you’re already using a trial copy you can download and install the new version for an extended deadline
  • Apple has also set up a program to ship iMacs to their retail employees and offer virtual training to expand their online and phone sales and tech support advisors
  • Final Fantasy VII Remake is shipping early in many parts of the world, in some cases arriving over a week before its April 10 release date, so Square has released streaming guidelines and is asking players not to spoil it for others
    • They’re saying that while it will have many familiar beats, the remake introduces a lot of new content and surprises that they want people to be able to experience fresh for the first time

 

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