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”

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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

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PS2J 325 News – Shadow of Servers

November 6, 2020
Tagged as: 14.2, 2K Games, 4K, a knight’s quest, accessibility, achievements, acrobat, active noise cancellation, ad tracking, adobe, Adventure, africa, age of calamity, airpods pro, airtags, Alan, alliance, Amazon, Ape Escape, app, Apple, apple event, apple one, apple silicon, Apps, aragami, Arcade, assassin, assassin’s creed, assassin’s creed odyssey, asynchronous, atmosphere, aurion, big sur, bing bong boy, blind, block, brawler, Breath of the Wild, british, bugsnax, build, bundle, Burnout, camera, card, Celeste, charging, cinematic pack, citizen, cloud gaming, cloud version, clumsy, combi, control, control center, crackling, dark cloud, data, dead by daylight, Diddy Kong Racing, DLC, dolby atmos, Donkey Kong Country, dungeons 3, EA, ecg, economix recovery, end of the world, Epic Games, epic slapple fight, eshop, exposure, extreme exorcism, Facebook, fairy tale, fireteams, folklore, Fortnite, Free Games, friday the 13th, full spectrum warrior, Gamepass, gatcha, geforce now, ghost, gothic fantasy, Halo 4, hand painted, hitman 3, hollow knight, homepod, Horror, Hyrule Warriors, iCloud, iMac, impaired, Indie, intercom, iOS, iPadOS, iphone 12 pro, island, j.r.r. tolkein, james harden, Josh, Kickstarter, Kinect, korea, leak, legacy of the kori-odan, legion, Lego, lego indiana jones, lethis, lidar, lootbox, lord of the rings, low vision, luna, Mac, Macbook, magsafe, maid of sker, mark zuckerberg, Master Chief, metroidvania, Microsoft, microtransaction, middle-earth, military, mini review, missing, Mobile, Multiplayer, music, mythology, N64, Nacho Libre, narrative, nba2k, nemesis, night mode, nintendo, Nintendo DS, nintendo switch, note 20, nutritional labels, nvidia, One, one more thing, Online, open-world, overkill edition, pacific blue, path of progress, people detection, performance, phantasy star online 2, Pikachu, platformer, Playstation, Pokemon, pokemon snap, pretty, prevention, Privacy, Pro, PS2, PS4, ps5, psa, puzzle, qi, ram, reader, real time, resident evil 7, retail, RPG, RTS, Russia, safari, Samsung, security, series, shadow edition, shadow of mordor, shadow of war, Shazam, Shooter, simulator, slasher, smoke and sacrifice, SNES, Sony, soulsborne, sound, source code, squad based, static, stealth, steampunk, storage, strategy, stream, super meatboy, Super Nintendo, surround, survival, swimsanity, Tactics, the game, the hobbit, threat, tracking, training, transparency, truth, TV, Twitch, Ubisoft, ubitus gamecloud, ultimate edition, ultra, underground, underwater, underworld, united states, Update, vendetta, victor vran, victorian, viva pinata, voiceover, voidheart edition, wallet, Watch Dogs, watchos, wbplay, welsh, whale, wraith, XBox, Xbox 360, xcloud, zagravia

Security PSA: Update your Adobe Acrobat and Adobe Reader software

There have been a bunch of new security threats patched recently, open up Reader or Acrobat and go to Help > Check Updates to make sure you have the latest version

Free games

PlayStation
- Middle-Earth: Shadow of War (free 4K Cinematic Pack is also available)
  - 2017
  - Assassin’s Creed-style action RPG set between The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings that has you continuing the story from Shadow of Mordor to forge a new ring of power and amass an army to fight Sauron, including an improved nemesis system that has you gathering followers and making lasting enemies
  - It initially had microtransactions and lootboxes, but they were removed about a year later.
  - There’s also a free 4k cinematic pack, and the DLC season pass is 80% off until the 21st
- Hollow Knight: Voidheart Edition
  - 2017 Metroidvania with some influences from the Soulsborne games, where you traverse an ancient plague-infested kingdom, fighting bosses and unlocking new abilities. It’s got great atmosphere and tight controls, and deaths aren’t overly punishing
  - Voidheart Edition is the 2018 port of the game to PS4 and Xbox One, including the four DLC packs
- Bugsnax (PS5)
  - 2020
  - An indie adventure game where you explore a mysterious island and attempt to find and capture the titular half-bug-half-snack creatures, taking inspiration from Pokémon Snap, Ape Escape, Dark Cloud, and Viva Piñata
Xbox
- Aragami: Shadow Edition
  - 2016
  - Action adventure stealth game with solid reviews where you take the role of Aragami, an assassin with supernatural abilities like teleporting between shadows
  - Shadow Edition includes the prequel Nightfall DLC
- Maid of Sker
  - 2020
  - First person survival horror based on Welsh and British folklore, where it’s 1898 and you’ve been invited by your lover to uncover the mysteries of the Sker Hotel after she notices her family’s strange behaviour
- Swimsanity
  - 2020
  - Multiplayer 2D underwater shooter with co-op and versus game modes, and both online and local play
- Lego Indiana Jones
  - 2008
  - Lego-themed action adventure game that loosely follows the first three Indiana Jones films with the same kind of tweaks, humour, and classic drop in/out co-op play that characterizes Lego games
- Full Spectrum Warrior
  - 2004
  - Squad-based real-time military tactics game where you’re commanding two fireteams to cover eachother and complete objectives
  - It was initially developed to be a simulator for the United States military in an experiment to leverage the original Xbox for training simulations, and then was retrofitted into a retail release with improved graphics and sound
Twitch
- A Knight’s Quest
  - 2019
  - Action adventure game that puts you in the role of Rusty, a clumsy adventurer who accidentally sets about the end of the world. Solve mind-bending puzzles, fight challenging enemies, defeat huge bosses and platform your way through a fantastic open world.
- Smoke and Sacrifice
  - 2018
  - Open-world narrative-driven RPG with hand-painted graphics that has you playing a mother forced to give up her son, adventuring into a grotesque underworld on a quest that will lead her to a darker truth
- Aurion: Legacy of the Kori-Odan
  - 2016
  - Action RPG that was successfully Kickstarted in 2015 and is based on African mythology, it has you playing a prince betrayed by your future brother-in-law and forging alliances to bring him down, with real-time brawler-style combat that has an emphasis on making combos to defeat enemies
- Victor Vran Overkill Edition
  - 2017 port of the 2015 PC release
  - Action RPG resembling a Gothic-fantasy fairy tale where both magic and science have a place in the world, and it’s up to you to help the city of Zagoravia fight off a demon infestation of unknown origin
- Lethis – Path of Progress
  - 2015
  - Old school 2D city builder set in a Victorian Steampunk universe called Lethis, that has you building and managing cities to provide resources for the inhabitants and make your citizens happy
- Extreme Exorcism
  - 2015
  - “A paranormal platformer where every move you make comes back to haunt you”
  - 2D pixel platformer that has you jumping around and taking down ghosts with a deadly arsenal from rocket launchers to boomerangs, but at the end of each round a ghost appears and mimics your every move from the round before. The longer you survive the more extreme the game becomes
Epic Games
- Dungeons 3
  - 2017
  - A combination dungeon builder and RTS, you’re tasked with creating an underground dungeon for creatures to live in as well as defending it against invading heroes from the world above. You can also send units out of the dungeon and take over areas of the world map, RTS style

Epic slApple fight

Plans are in place to get Fortnite back on iOS and iPadOS using Nvidia’s GeForce Now cloud gaming service
- Apparently Nvidia has developed a version of GeForce Now that works in Safari on Apple’s mobile devices, likely similar to what Microsoft’s xCloud and Amazon’s Luna cloud gaming services are aiming to use
Though there’s been no official announcement of the Safari launch, if this is true then GeForce Now will be the one and only way to play Fortnite on iPhones and iPads
- I’d be curious to see what the details of this deal are, if Nvidia is getting the 30% cut now or if they’re just happy with the subscription cost for the service

Apple’s released a bunch of software this week

iOS 14.2 and iPadOS 14.2 are here with new emoji, wallpapers, bug fixes, and more
- There’s a fantastic new accessibility feature included specifically for people with impaired vision, and it sounds like an amazing idea
  - The feature is called People Detection, in your accessibility settings under the Magnifier, and it uses augmented reality and machine learning to detect where people and objects are around you
  - Particularly well-suited for the LiDAR sensor in the 12 Pro, it can help blind or low vision users understand their surroundings better, such as knowing how many people are in line at a grocery store or where the end of a subway platform is
    - It can even tell you if you’re within six feet of another person
  - Users can set up a minimum distance for alerts, and receive feedback though vibrations or through their AirPods
    - People Detection is fully compatible with VoiceOver, Apple’s screen-reader tech
  - This seems really useful on the iPhone, but with rumours continuing to mount of eventual AR glasses from Apple this could be a gamechanger for people with vision problems
- Intercom is here, letting you send and receive messages between HomePods
- HomePods can now be connected to the Apple TV 4K for wireless surround sound and Dolby Atmos audio
- Built-in Shazam music recognition can be launched from the Control Center
WatchOS 7.1 is out now, with improvements and fixes like notifications if your headphone volume could permanently affect your hearing, and a fix for issues some people were having with their watch not unlocking their Max as expected
- They’ve also added ECG support for the Republic of Korea and Russia
macOS 10.15.7 Supplemental Update is available for download, improving the security of your Mac

Cloud gaming on the Nintendo Switch has come west with two new games for the device

Previously the Switch saw games like Phantasy Star Online 2, Resident Evil 7, and Assassin’s Creed Odyssey playable through the cloud, but only in Japan
- They were using the Taiwan-based Ubitus GameCloud service so they could run the technically demanding titles on the portable hardware of the Switch
Now they’re releasing Control and Hitman 3 on the service as well, this time including the rest of the world in the fun
- The games need a <100MB install on the Switch, then they stream gameplay to and from the cloud using checkpoint saves in case you lose connectivity
- Control Ultimate Edition – Cloud Version is out now and includes the base game and the first two expansions, The Foundation and AWE. It also includes the Expeditions end game mode, photo mode, and all of the additional updates since the release of the original.
  - According to early reports, thanks to the cloud infrastructure it can get up to 30fps with ray tracing and 60fps without
- Hitman 3 – Cloud Version is the conclusion of the World of Assassination Trilogy. The game is expected to be released on Windows PC as an Epic Games Store exclusive in January 2021. No launch date for the Switch version was offered. Expect the final product to include plenty of sandbox locations to explore, and creative ways to bring down your assassination targets.

Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor will be losing online features, and thus the access to come achievements, on December 31st

The 2014 title will be losing:
- The Nemesis Forge, which means players won’t be able to transfer their nemeses from Shadow of Mordor to Shadow of War
- Vendetta missions and leaderboard
- And WBPay will no longer be available, but the epic runs “Orc Hunter” and “Gravewalker” will automatically be given to all players
Those vendetta missions being removed means that there will be some achievements that it’s no longer possible to get, so if you want to 100% Shadow of Mordor you have till the end of the year

Apple has launched a new service program for AirPods Pro sound issues, which had many users hearing static or crackling noises as well as problems with Active Noise Cancellation

I experienced this myself multiple times in a row, with replacements thankfully being smooth and relatively painless through the mail
- The biggest issue I saw was when I had the AirPods in my ears and then anything somewhat loud happened, either me clearing my throat or listening to loud audio
The issue may affect AirPods manufactured before October 2020 (so, basically all of them), so if you’re having issues it’s definitely worth reaching out to Apple Support and having them replaced

This Day In Gaming History

October 31 – 1997 – Diddy Kong Racing – N64

It’s an island takeover when the evil space wizard, Wizpig, discovers Tiger Island!
- After the islands prized racetracks become sealed up, Timber Tiger contacts his friend Diddy Kong to help him reclaim the racetracks and save the island before his parents return.
- Along for the ride are the Kremling spy Krunch, Bumper Badger, Banjo (prior to meeting Kazooie in Banjo-Kazooie), pre-sweary Conker, Tiptup Turtle, and Pipsy Mouse.
Diddy Kong Racing is a racing game with similarities to Mario Kart 64, in that you race with a variety of cheery racers while using weapons.
- However, the similarities end there.
- DKR includes an adventure mode, which features bosses, an overworld to explore, many hidden secrets, the addition of hovercrafts and planes, and a unique way of racing called the “Silver Coin Challenge”. In this mode, in addition to coming first, you must also find the eight Silver Coins deviously hidden throughout the courses (some in alternate paths).
The game also features a strategic method of using weapons.
- Each colored balloon on the track matches a specific weapon, and collecting the same type of balloon multiple times in a row powers it up (to a maximum of three times).
- This gives the player the choice of snatching every balloon available and using it immediately, or storing the existing weapon, and using a more powerful version of it later.
Up to four players can compete in the races, but in order to play new tracks, they must first be unlocked in the single player game.
- There are also four battle modes of play – two standard deathmatch maps, a capture-the-flag style battle where you must nab eggs and hatch three of them in your home nest, and another where you must be the first to return ten bananas to your treasure chest (with the limitation of only being able to hold two at any one time).

November 1 – 1994 – Donkey Kong Country – SNES

King K. Rool has stolen Donkey Kong’s banana stash, and Donkey Kong needs your help to get them back.
- In search of K. Rool, the Kremling horde impedes your progress. Kremlings, crocodile-like creatures, include Kritters (they succumb to a simple jump on the head), Krushas (they are virtually indestructible), and others.
- There are also other enemies that block your path, such as beavers, snakes, vultures.
- Leading them are dastardly bosses, including Very Gnawty, Necky, Queen B., and Dumb Drum, and they all bar the way with their own special blend of villainy.
Donkey Kong is joined by Diddy Kong: these two primates differ significantly.
- For example, Donkey Kong is generally stronger; he can destroy most enemies with a single jump and can lift barrels straight over his head to throw them farther.
- On the other hand, Diddy is faster and not as strong as Donkey; he can run really fast and do cartwheels. Diddy carries barrels in front of him, creating a shield against frontal attacks.
The original Super Nintendo game was later released for Nintendo’s handheld systems.
- The Game Boy Color version has an exclusive level (Necky Nutmare) and additional bonus games, Funky’s Fishing and five Crosshair Cranky minigames.
- There was also the addition of collectible DK sticker packs scattered throughout the levels.
- These sticker packs could be printed out using the Game Boy Printer.
- The game also has two more difficulty options that become available after beating the game.
- Beating the game once lets the player turn off DK barrels and beating the game a second time will let the player turn off checkpoint barrels.
The Game Boy Advance version also had additional bonus games.
- It to has a version of Funky’s Fishing but instead of the crosshair themed games, there is now Candy’s Dance Studio, which hosts six dance games.
- There is also the additions of a time attack mode called DK Attack, a harder difficulty mode called Hero Mode (can only play as Diddy Kong and the game no longer offers Donkey Kong barrels and checkpoints throughout the levels), and the sticker book idea from the Gameboy Color version was replaced with collecting scrapbook pictures instead.

November 2 – 2001 – Burnout – PS2, Later on Xbox

Burnout is an arcade style racing game in the mold of the Test Drive or Need For Speed series.
- In this game, you are racing on realistic streets with real traffic to contend with.
There are 6 courses on which to race, 3 of which are reminiscent of Europe, and 3 from the USA.
- There are several vehicles to choose from, ranging from compact cars to pickups.
- However, they are not based on real makes and models.
One notable feature of Burnout is the “Burn Meter.”
- The Burn Meter is a gauge that is filled by performing reckless stunts, like racing into oncoming traffic or power-drifting through corners.
- Once the Burn Meter is filled, your car gets a super speed boost.
- If you crash, the Burn Meter is reset and must be filled again to achieve a boost.

November 3 – 2006 – Nacho Libre – Nintendo DS

Based on the upcoming feature film starring Jack Black, Nacho Libre offers fans comedic wrestling mayhem–exaggerated moves, wacky props and lots of pratfalls delivered with a unique photo puppetry look.
- Jack Black stars as Ignacio (friends call him “Nacho”), a cook by day in a Mexican orphanage, who moonlights as a lucha libre wrestler to raise money for the orphans.
Six play modes:
- Story Mode (single player, tied to the movie plot)
- Vs. Mode, Team Mode (2 vs. 2)
- Battle Jam (2-4 player wireless brawls)
- Quick Match
- Championship Match (multiplayer only)
Wrestle in four different arenas from the movie
- Play as 20 different luchadors based on characters from the movie.
- Each has his/her own wrestling moves and special attacks.
- Take on your opponents with headlocks, grapples, holds and pin moves or create combos for devastating, and comical, results
- Use the Touch Screen to play eight themed mini games including Nachoball, Footrace, Bee Swat, Bullrun, Cliff Climber, Chariot Jump and more
- Unique “photo puppetry” art style lends the game a distinctive, humorous look
- Includes recreated cut scenes from the movie in between the action
- Unlock bonus material after playing through Story Mode

November 4 – 2010 – Kinect – Xbox 360

The origins of the Kinect started around 2005, at a point where technology vendors were starting to develop depth-sensing cameras.
- Microsoft had been interested in a 3D camera for the Xbox line earlier but because the technology had not been refined, had placed it in the “Boneyard”, a collection of possible technology they could not immediately work on.
In 2005, PrimeSense was founded by tech-savvy mathematicians and engineers from Israel to develop the “next big thing” for video games, incorporating cameras that were capable of mapping a human body in front of them and sensing hand motions.
- They showed off their system at the 2006 Game Developers Conference, where Microsoft’s Alex Kipman, the general manager of hardware incubation, saw the potential in PrimeSense’s technology for the Xbox system.
- Microsoft began discussions with PrimeSense about improvements in the capabilities of depth-sensing cameras, a reduction in size and cost, and a means to manufacturer the units at scale was required.
Nintendo released the Wii in November 2006, where motion control was the focus.
- Microsoft felt pressure from the Wii, and began looking into depth-sensing in more detail with PrimeSense’s hardware, but at that time, could not get to the level of motion tracking they desired.
- Microsoft also looked to create an equivalent of the Wii Remote, but it was discarded as it was still ultimately Microsoft’s goal to remove any device between the player and the Xbox.
Nearing the planned release, the problem of widespread testing of Kinect in various room types and different bodies accounting for age, gender, and race among other factors, while keeping the details of the unit confidential. Microsoft engaged in a company-wide program offering employees to take home Kinect units to test them.
- Microsoft also brought other non-gaming divisions, including its Microsoft Research, Microsoft Windows, and Bing teams to help complete the system.
- Microsoft established its own large-scale manufacturing facility to bulk product Kinect units and test them.
Somewhat recent Kinect news!
- On May 7, 2018, Microsoft announced a new iteration of Kinect technology designed primarily for enterprise software and artificial intelligence usage.
- It is designed around the Microsoft Azure cloud platform, and is meant to “leverage the richness of Azure AI to dramatically improve insights and operations”.
- It has a smaller form factor than the Xbox iterations of Kinect, and features a 12-megapixel camera, a time-of-flight depth sensor also used on the HoloLens 2, and seven microphones.
- A development kit was announced in February 2019.

November 5 – 1998 – Hey You, Pikachu! – N64

Hey You, Pikachu! is a Pokémon adventure game.
- The game allows you to speak directly to Pikachu via the Voice Recognition Unit (VRU) included with the game, in order to tell Pikachu what to do and help direct the adventures the two of you embark on.
The game features 20 different minigames which you and Pikachu play together.
- Some involve you catching water Pokémon, while another might send you search for ingredients for stew.
- When the minigame is over, you go back home and sleep, waking up the next day to play another game.
- As the game progresses more of the features and minigames are unlocked, and Pikachu’s friendship meter will grow.
Pikachu will understand around 200 different words or simple phrases like “come here”, “stop that”, and “eat it”. Voice communication is the primary method of interacting with the game, though the analog stick is used for navigation.

November 6 – 2012 – Halo 4 – XBox 360

The game sets the stage for a new story in which Master Chief returns to confront his destiny and face an ancient awakened evil that threatens all life in the universe.
- The main campaign also heavily explores the relationship between Master Chief and his AI companion, Cortana.
- Cortana is nearing the end of her life, before devolving into a state called Rampancy in which an AI begins to think itself to death.
- The campaign features both first-person shooter and driving elements, and can be played either single player or co-cooperatively (either over Xbox Live or split-screen).
- It features new weapons and an entirely new class of enemy characters called Prometheans.
And for some PS2J History
- We did our first Live episode on Alan’s phone
- I made the link ps2jshow.com/halo4 for anyone interested in some of our podcasting history

Tidbits

Development on Friday the 13th: The Game is coming to an end, with its last patch releasing sometime this month
- The dedicated multiplayer servers will be shut down, but online play will continue with peer-to-peer hosting
The Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity demo is now up on the Switch eShop, and it looks pretty cool
- It includes the first chapter of the game, and progress will carry over to the full release on November 20th
- Without getting in to spoilers, they may be settings things up so that the story doesn’t end how we’re all expecting after seeing Breath of the Wild
There’s yet another Apple Event going on this year, scheduled for November 10th
- Titled “One more thing”, there aren’t many clues about its focus but people are expecting AirTags (Apple’s new lost item tracking devices) and new computers with Apple’s fancy custom processors
- We may also see more information on macOS 11, Big Sur
The new Apple One subscription bundles went live this week, offering a few different plans to save money if you subscribe to services like Apple Music, Apple TV, Apple Arcade, and iCloud Storage
Apple’s also spinning up their new “nutritional labels” for apps, giving people a breakdown on each app’s product page for what data types they may collect, what data may be used to track you, and what data isn’t linked to you at all
2K Games and EA are under fire for misleading info when it comes to NBA2K card packs
- Apparently one of the players, James Harden, was completely missing from the gatcha packs that he was supposed to be included in for the first 23 minutes of release, and enough whales were trying to get him right away that thousands of dollars were wasted
The source code for Watch Dogs Legion has already leaked, leading the way for mods and cracks ahead of its November 10th release
Mark Zuckerberg is trying to make the case that Apple’s ad tracking blocks will damage economic recovery from COVID-19
- He specifically pointed the out mandatory notification when an app or website wants to track users, saying that letting people know they can opt out will hurt “small businesses and economic recovery in 2021 and beyond”, though I’m guessing this is just a redirect for how hard Facebook itself will be hit by the changes

iPhone 12 Pro mini review

The Pacific Blue is very pretty, and makes me want to use my phone without a case
- The frosted glass back feels very nice, but I worry about drops and scratches
The extra RAM (6GB instead of 4GB) is actually noticeable when resuming games
The overall performance has been great too, and according to PhoneBuff tests have it out performing the Samsung Note 20 Ultra (that actually has double the RAM)
The camera is a huge upgrade over the X, especially night mode
- It automatically runs long exposures if needed, and if the gyroscope detects it’s attached to a tripod it offers even longer options
The extra size isn’t really noticeable
Magsafe is slick for chargers, especially if you already use a lot of wireless charging, but from what I’ve seen online accessories like the leather wallet don’t really seem to stick in day-to-day use

Dead by Daylight mini mini review

Asynchronous 1v4 slasher game
Bit of a cash grab with its DLC, but on GamePass it’s a lot of fun
Wraith is my boy!

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 323 News – 10 23 2020

October 23, 2020
Tagged as: 120fps, 2, 2k, 4g, 4K, 5g, action, ads, Adventure, advertising, Alan, all access, Amazon, amnesia, android, antitrust, Apple, arbitrary, arm, astronaut, audio, Bee Movie Game, Bethesda, bluetooth, brain, break, browser, burn, campaign, Cloud, club, co-op, collaboration, collection, communication, competition, connect, costume quest, couch, crack, cross, cross-generation, default, department of justice, Devil May Cry, distracted driving, doj, double fine, ea games, EB Games, elite, email, engine, epic, Epic Games, Facebook, Fallout, film, flu, flu shot, Fortnite, Free, Free Games, Fuzion Frenzy, Gambling, Gamepass, games, Genesis, gimmick, gm, good standing, Google, Halloween, Halo, headstrap, hollywood, Horror, hummer, immunity, Indie, interest, Internet, investigation, iOS, Josh, Lawsuit, layers of fear, licensing, Master Chief, Microsoft, Microtransactions, Mobile, monopoly, Moon, Multiplayer, NASA, nba 2k21, Netflix, network, New Vegas, next-gen, nokia, Obsidian, ocean liner, Oculus, one s, one x, overheat, payment plan, pharmacy, Phone, photo, platform, platformer, play, Playsation 2, Playstation, progression, PS4, psychological, quest, quibi, rbc, Rebel Strike, remote play, rival, Rogue Squadron, RPG, se, search, Sega, series s, series x, shut down, Sonic and Knuckles, Sony, spot, Star Wars, stick it to the man, stream, Streaming<, Tech, technology, twin, Twitch, Ubisoft, ufc4, UK, ultimate, united states, unreal, unskippable, upgrade, uplay, us, vaccine, video, watch, web, wifi, Wii, Windows, XBox

Reminder: Get your flu shot, if you can!

Free Games

Twitch
- Stick it to the Man! (free on Epic last month)
  - 2013
  - Indie adventure platformer that puts you in the role of Ray, a hard hat tester that suffered a bizarre accident and woke up with a giant pink spaghetti arm sticking out of his brain. With his awesome new powers he can read minds and change the world with stickers but he’s on the run for a crime he didn’t commit.
Epic Games
- Costume Quest 2
  - 2014
  - Action RPG from Double Fine that has players assuming the identity of one of two twin siblings, Wren or Reynold. Explore spooky time-traversing landscapes, don adorable new costumes that transform into powerful Hallo-warriors, and collect even Creepier Treat Cards to wield in combat against a legion of hygiene obsessed baddies.
- Layers of Fear 2
  - First person psychological horror game with an emphasis on exploration and story. Players control a Hollywood actor who heeds the call of an enigmatic director to take on the lead role in a film shot aboard an ocean liner.

The US Department of Justice has filed a lawsuit against Google for antitrust violations, after a 16 month investigation into anticompetitive practices in tech

With how much control and breadth Google holds over the technology landscape right now, from search to email to cloud storage to mobile to collaboration tools to streaming video to web browsers… it’s a lot
The DOJ is alleging that Google uses their position to block competition and prevent rivals from getting a foothold in any of their related businesses, including deals that make its search platform the default on iPhones and Android
- Android devices can’t even delete the Google Search app
The lawsuit also mentions Google’s advertising practices within its search business, controlling over 70% of the search advertising market, 80% of general searches, and 95% of searches from mobile devices
Kent Walker, a Google Senior VP, said the lawsuit is “deeply flawed” and “would do nothing to help consumers”, noting that people use Google because they choose to and that users can change their default settings to use alternative services
I could see this resulting in, at the very minimum, phones and browsers giving you a selection of search engines at setup instead of always defaulting to Google. Duck Duck Go has been a great alternative, but even I didn’t think to switch my default settings for a long time
Depending on how this case goes it could result in a lot of other government actions against tech companies, including Facebook, Amazon, and Apple

Ahead of the next-generation of Xboxes next month, the Xbox app on iOS has been updated with Remote Play

Similar to Sony’s PS4 Remote Play feature, this has the games being played on your own Xbox using a Bluetooth controller paired to your phone, with audio and video streamed to your device
It’s pretty slick and even supports play outside of your own Wifi network, so you can have a full Xbox experience on the go wherever you are as long as you have a data connection
When the connection is first made you have to boot up your console to enable the feature, and it will run through a few tests to make sure things will work smoothly, but then when you use it your Xbox will run silently with no indication it’s being played- no power light or startup chime
Unfortunately at the moment it seems like there’s an audio glitch on some devices, where the sound coming through the phone is choppy and distorted, but a fix is in the works and once they release that everything else seems great- visuals are clear, and latency is minimal
One neat feature though is that when the console is being played remotely it looks like you can still play it locally as well, so depending on if that’s a bug or a feature we could see couch co-op games played from anywhere with a cell signal

It looks like Xbox All Access is coming to Canada as well, offering a Series X and 2 years of GamePass Ultimate for $40/month, or a Series S for $30/month with no interest

All said, assuming you’d have paid for full-price GamePass anyway the plan saves you $40 on the X and $60 on the S
One thing to note is that Game Pass Ultimate maxes out at three years, so if you already have more than a year banked you’ll want to wait before redeeming the included 2 year code
All Access should be available at launch on November 10th

NBA 2K21 has apparently added unskippable ads to their full-price game, on top of all the microtransactions and gambling they’ve already shovelled in

Ads for the Oculus Quest 2 have reportedly appeared during loading screens, regardless of how long the game actually takes to load, with the button to proceed disabled until the ad plays in full
This is on top of having paid $70 for the game, and being charged extra if you want to upgrade to the next-gen version coming next month
This might sound like familiar ground, with EA having done something similar by adding ads to UFC4 and its replays, but that move drew so much fire that they quickly reversed course and removed them
Time will tell how long it takes 2K to do the same

One day after launching their Apple TV app, short-form video service Quibi is shutting down

In case you missed it, in the 6 months it existed, the idea behind Quibi was to be like Netflix but for quick 5-10 minute videos for about $5/month
It also had a gimmick where you could switch your phone between landscape and portrait while you watched and the video stream would adjust accordingly, showing you video formatted for that orientation
Unfortunately it failed to really take off, aiming for people waiting for coffee or on the bus but launching right when the pandemic initially hit hardest, and ended up with less than 1/10th of their projected subscribers
It also doesn’t help that they had some pretty unappealing licensing deals and some say their contracts were specifically set up to avoid involvement with the Screenwriters and Screen Actors Guilds to cut costs
They attempted to sell to companies like Facebook, Warner Media, and Apple, but there weren’t any takers, so things are just shutting down

Ubisoft is revamping its Uplay and Ubisoft Club platforms into Ubisoft Connect, and the future looks pretty dang bright

The new service will include the Uplay reward structure, but more importantly its biggest addition is cross-platform progression
- You’ll be able to take your save files from Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, Immortals Fenyx Rising, and Riders Republic, as well as future Ubisoft games, from one platform to another seamlessly with crossplay and cross-progression
Ubisoft Connect will be launching alongside Watch Dogs: Legon on October 29th

GM has unveiled a new electric Hummer this week, with a 350+ mile range and “crab mode” for diagonal off-road movement

If you’re confused by why I’m talking about this I have yet to get to my favourite part- the digital cockpit system was designed in the Unreal Engine with Epic Games
It kind of makes sense when you think about it- modern vehicles run on computers, so bringing advancements from gaming regarding performance and interface is a logical next step

This Week In Gaming History

October 17 – 2001 – Devil May Cry – Playstation 2

Legend has it that 2000 years ago in the depths of hell, a demon rebelled against the devil, waging a one-man war in support of the human world.
In the present, Dante, a private investigator of the supernatural, realizes that the devil is rallying to rise again against mankind.
- Deep within Dante’s blood lies the power of ancient demons and as his power builds he transforms into a demon state where he can use his power against evil he encounters.
Josh’s commentary
- First horror game I enjoyed and played completely!
- Was the first game I wasn’t allowed to play, so of course I played it in secret, sorry Mom
- It appealed to my inner Edge-Lord and the Way Too Cool attitude Sonic reinforced in me.

October 18 – 1994 – Sonic and Knuckles – Genesis

Sonic and Knuckles continues the story directly from where Sonic the Hedgehog 3 left off.
Sonic 3 and Sonic & Knuckles were originally planned as a single game
- According to designer Takashi Iizuka, the team “really wanted to hit a home run”, with larger stages that took longer to develop.
- As ROM cartridges were too small to contain the game and publisher Sega wanted it released in time for a promotional deal with McDonald’s, Sonic 3 was split in two, with Sonic & Knuckles as the second part.
- Despite the split, the developers wanted the games to feel like a single experience.
- According to Roger Hector, vice president and general manager of STI, the lock-on technology was conceived two and a half years before the release of Sonic & Knuckles, between the releases of Sonic the Hedgehog and Sonic the Hedgehog 2.
- The team explained their situation to Sega’s hardware division, which gave them the lock-on adapter.
- The team knew that players would likely use the adapter to insert games beside Sonic 3, so they implemented the Blue Sphere minigame for most games.
- They made Knuckles playable in Sonic 2 if that game was inserted because the team found his playstyle suited its levels.
- However, the team did not implement the same feature for the original Sonic the Hedgehog as it “didn’t really feel right”.
I love the logo that is shown on the cartridge and box.
- This and Sonic 3, are games that I would be able to rent, but buying my own copy always eluded me.

October 19 – 2010 – Fallout: New Vegas – PS3, 360, Windows

The followup to Fallout 3, but developed by Obsidian Studios
Lots of people think of New Vegas, when it comes to great Fallout titles.
- The consensus on this game, from what I remember, is that it is a cool new story, with all the popular mods that came out for Fallout 3 built in.
Reviews are consistently high
- With the caveat that it is really fun, but buggy as well.

October 20 – 2020 – Amnesia: Rebirth – PS4, Windows

You can’t let out a breath. The creature is only inches away.
- Its sole purpose – to feed off your terror. And so you crouch in the dark, trying to stop the fear rising, trying to silence what lies within you.
“I know you. I know what you’re capable of.”
In Amnesia: Rebirth, you are Tasi Trianon, waking up deep in the desert of Algeria.
- Days have passed.
- Where have you been? What did you do? Where are the others?
- Retrace your journey, pull together the fragments of your shattered past; it is your only chance to survive the pitiless horror that threatens to devour you.
“Do not allow yourself anger, do not allow yourself to fear.”
Time is against you.
- Step into Tasi’s shoes and guide her through her personal terror and pain.
- While you struggle to make your way through a desolate landscape, you must also struggle with your own hopes, fears, and bitter regrets.
- And still you must continue, step by step, knowing that if you fail you will lose everything.
  - First-person narrative horror experience
  - Explore environments and uncover their histories.
  - Overcome puzzles that stand in your way.
  - Carefully manage your limited resources, both physical and mental.
  - Encounter horrific creatures and use your wits and understanding of the world to escape them.

October 21 – 2003 – Star Wars: Rogue Squadron III – Rebel Strike – GameCube

Be a part of the epic battle between the Rebel Alliance and the Empire as a member of Rogue Squadron, an elite group of fighters who are the best chance for the Rebel’s to destroy the Empire once and for all.
Taking the part of Luke Skywalker, Han Solo and Wedge Antilles, your mission is to re-live the battles of the original Star Wars trilogy, from escaping the first Death Star to riding Tauntauns on Hoth, to the final battle at Endor.
- For the first time you can fight the good fight in the air and on the ground, swapping between your X-Wing, a speeder bike and many other attack craft.
Included in the game is the complete version of Rogue Squadron II, specifically built for two player co-op play.
- Plus there are multiplayer battle modes and full cutscenes straight from the original trilogy.
Critics rated the game quite highly
- In the 80s and higher
- Good for a licensed game, but Rogue Squadron stands on its own like the Jedi Knight or Knights of The Old Republic games.

October 22 – 2007 – Bee Movie Game – PS2, Wii, Windows, XBox 360

Once a week I like to find a terrible looking licensed movie game
Play as Barry B. Benson and prove that there’s more to being a bee than just making honey.
Playing as Barry, you retell your story through a series of flashbacks, while you work odd jobs around New York and Barry’s hive.
- There are various mini-games that need to be completed to continue the story.
- Gameplay includes controlling Barry on foot, in the air, and driving around town.
Exclusive to the Wii version are 3 Bee speedway tracks, 4 additional maxi-games and 6 new competitive 2-player arcade games.

October 23 – 2017 – Fuzion Frenzy – Xbox One Compatibility Update

When Xbox was trying to compete with Playstation 2 and GameCube, they needed a party game
- And this is the one with no follow up whatsoever
Fuzion Frenzy is a party game with six arenas and more than 45 different mini-games for up to four players to partake in.
- Fuzion Frenzy provides real-time play for all players in both the main game and the mini-games, no waiting for your opponent to take their turn.
After typing this I am learning there is a Fusion Frenzy 2
- Reviews tanked by a glance
- Going a google image search, looks like a lot of the same or similar games but with a 360 polish

Tidbits

There are some reports of the new Apple Watch SE overheating and, in some cases, even burning a visible yellow patch on the top-right of the display
- Given how consistent the spot’s placement it this is likely a hardware defect, and if you notice anything like that you should absolutely contact Apple Support
The UK is set to close a loophole in their distracted driving laws that currently allow drivers to take photos or play games
- Apparently the law was originally worded to ban devices that “perform an interactive communication” while driving, but many have successfully argued that filming or playing games doesn’t count since there’s no communication happening
Addressing issues of users being locked out of their hardware, Facebook’s Head of VR is now telling users to make sure their Facebook accounts are “in good standing” before buying an Oculus Quest 2
- Considering how arbitrary the lockouts have been lately, and how they can ban you for things like not providing your legal name or your behaviour even in single-player games, it really feels a lot more stifling than any other platform’s account requirements
NASA has announced they’re teaming up with Nokia to install a 4G network on the moon, as part of their Artemis program aiming at making the moon habitable by 2028
- This would greatly improve astronauts’ ability to communicate with the earth via voice or video, as well as transfer important data
- As an added bonus, NASA also says that the moon network will eventually be upgraded for 5G
Early adopters of the Oculus Quest 2 have been having a rough time with the Elite headstrap, with many reports online of the arms cracking or even breaking under normal use
- Some blame the issue on how people are taking the headset off at the end of a session, but either way it seems very fragile for such a new piece of hardware with some people saying they’ve gotten maybe 2 hours of play before it broke
The Halo Master Chief Collection has been confirmed as getting a free upgrade for the Series S & X, amping things up to 120fps in campaign and multiplayer, supporting 4K resolutions on the X, and cross-generation play for those still running an Xbox One
- The upgrade hits for existing owners or anyone with GamePass on November 17th

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PS2J 321 News – Pet the Spirit Dog

October 9, 2020
Tagged as: 250gb, abzu, account, active, Activision, Adventure, AirPods, Alan, anticompetitive, Apple, apple event, Apple II, army of the republic of vietnam, assassin, asymmetric, australian army, battle royale, Blizzard, Call Of Duty, Canada, cinematic universe, class, co-op, congress, danger, dive, dye, Epic Games, face, Facebook, flower, four player, Free Games, geep, ghost of tsushima, Government, hate, hi speed, house of representatives, hunter, ipad, iPhone, iphone 12, Josh, journalist, Journey, Lawsuit, leak, legends, Leisure Suit Larry, management, marines, Marvel, mcu, Microsoft, Microtransactions, mini, modern warfare, Multiplayer, national liberation front, new game plus, nintendo, north vietnamese army, Oculus, One, peter parker, Playstation, playtest, population, Prince of Persia, PS2, PS4, qanon, quest, raid, recycling, resell, resold, review, ridiculous, rising storm 2, ronin, samurai, Sony, Spider-Man, stolen, storage, story, studio, survival, theft, THUG, Tom Holland, tony hawk, two-player, underground, underwater, united states, Update, us army, vanity, vietnam, violence, VR, War, watch, XBox, YouTube

Free Games

Epic Games
- 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.
- Rising Storm 2: Vietnam
  - 2017
  - Tactical first person shooter set during the Vietnam War, with an emphasis on teamwork and asymmetric gameplay in its 64-player matches pitting the National Liberation Front and the North Vietnamese Army against the US Army, Marines, the Australian Army, and the Army of the Republic of Vietnam

Apple is suing a company it hired to recycle and dismantle old devices for instead reselling more than 100K iPhones, iPads, and Apple Watches

Apple previously partnered with GEEP Canada and sent them over 500K iPhones, iPads, and Apple Watches from 2015 to 2017
After running an audit they found that 18% of those devices were still accessing cellular networks
- Since many Apple devices don’t even have cellular capabilities, the actual percentage of devices resold could be even higher
GEEP Canada denies all wrongdoing here, but doesn’t deny there was a theft- they reportedly filed a third-party suit claiming three employees stole the devices on their own behalf
Apple disagrees, arguing that these employees were senior management at the firm, and is looking for at least $31M
- Considering how many devices are involved, Apple’s starting pretty reasonably at $300/device
- Especially considering that, according to their policies, the products sent for recycling are ones that Apple’s decided are no longer up to their standards for consumer use, and depending on how they’re refurbished could even be dangerous for the end users

Population: One, a VR battle royale game that actually looked pretty solid, is taking heat after it was found that the game will use microtransactions on top of its $30 price tag

The most damning part is that they introduced the microtransaction menu after the early review build was sent to journalists and YouTubers to increase the hype
Reviewers and playtesters were all under the impression that there would be no microtransactions or lootboxes, which some pointed to as a pretty big selling point

The United States government may be weighing in on Facebook’s account requirements when it comes to the Quest 2

The US House of Representatives is suggesting that requiring a Facebook account to use the gaming hardware may be anticompetitive, saying that Congress should clarify that “conditioning access to a product or service in which a firm has market power to the use of a separate product or service is anticompetitive.”
This is a bit different from Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo’s user accounts in that Facebook is leveraging their ownership of Oculus to drive more people back over to their primary product, rather than using an account to support the game playing or buying experience

Ghost of Tsushima is getting an update on the 16th, bringing all new game modes to the beautiful game

Titled Ghost of Tsushima: Legends, it includes new two-player story missions and four-player survival missions
In Legends you’ll also be able to pick between different classes, such as:
- Samurai- the tank
- Hunter- the sniper
- Assassin- the rogue
- Ronin- the healer who also gets a spirit dog
The developer has also teased a multiplayer raid to be released following launch, made up of “an epic three-part adventure that will require excellent teamwork and communication to overcome.”
The update also brings a new game plus mode, with a new horse, new powerful charms, and a new merchant with new game plus exclusive dyes and vanity items

This Week In Gaming History

October 3 – 1989 – Prince of Persia – Apple II

Prince of Persia is a 2D platformer that is commonly regarded as a progenitor of the cinematic platform genre.
- Rather than following the more common jump-and-run mechanics, it focuses on careful advancement through fairly complex levels, emphasizing the protagonist’s vulnerability and survival aspect.
- Rotoscoping technique is used to give more realism to the animation of the characters’ movements.

October 4 – 2004 – Tony Hawk’s Underground 2 – GameCube, PS2, Xbox

This is the last skateboarding game I played
- I remember, my reaction was is was more of the same, but the running around aspect was getting out of control. And there was platforming needed to get to new spots to skate.
As an aspiring pro skater, you’re invited to join Tony Hawk in an around-the-world underground skating competition known as the “World Destruction Tour.”
- It’s Team Hawk against Team Bam in a no-holds-barred contest to gain the most points by performing insane stunts and raising havoc in cities all over the world.
THUG 2’s story mode basically follows the same formula as THUG, in which you have to complete a number of goals before you can move on to the next city.
All the Create-A-Modes from THUG are present, with the addition of the new Create-A-Graphic mode where you can make your own graffiti design with layers of text and predefined graphics, then use it to “tag up” during gameplay.

October 5 – 2004 – Leisure Suit Larry: Magna Cum Laude – PS2, XBox, Windows

Larry Lovage learned everything he knows from his uncle, Larry Laffer, the famous polyester-clad fellow who starred in the previous games. Young Larry finally makes it to college, the best place to meet and pick up girls.
- He finds them everywhere .. in restaurants, night clubs, dormitories and at fraternity parties. All those scantilly clad, gorgeous babes! But, does Larry have half a chance to score with even one of them?
- Will he get a peek at what’s underneath that braless, too-tight tank top?
Larry’s sexcapades include varied types of arcade mini-games.
- Some simply require good reflexes while others involve memory and/or correct timing.
- For instance, steer a little joker sperm through an obstacle course of flying objects, all the while trying to keep the “course” of the conversation on track.
- Or .. put the correct ingredients into a bar drink in order – and in the time allowed.
- Several of the games become more difficult as the game progresses.
This action/adventure features three endings, over 20 locations, 3D graphics, and hilarious adult situations and conversations.

October 6 – 2009 – Saw – PS3, XBox 360, Windows

Based on the popular movie franchise of the same name, Saw casts the player as the former detective David Tapp, shortly after the events of the first movie.
- The Jigsaw Killer has healed his gunshot wound and has locked him up in an abandoned asylum to teach him a lesson about life appreciation.
- Tapp’s primary tasks is to explore the building and find an exit, while avoiding or solving Jigsaw’s traps and puzzles.
Upon starting the game Tapp is instantly faced with the task of removing a trap known as the Reverse Bear Trap, a mechanism that is set to go off and tear a human head apart.
- After getting the trap off his head, he is free to wander a mental institution filled with obstacles such as shotgun doors, broken glass that cuts Tapp’s bare feet, and other victims of Jigsaw who are after Tapp because Jigsaw has hidden the key to their traps inside his chest.
- Mysteries surrounding the films need to be uncovered, there are different characters to meet and it is possible to see the sets recreated from them.
Tapp’s actions affect the outcome of the game.
- If he is not careful, in some traps innocents will be killed, and some of those wandering the halls are not violent.
- Killing them affects the game’s outcome, as well Tapp’s ability to save others from certain traps.
- The game has two endings, a positive and a negative.
- The positive ending is the only ending which is canon to the films, the negative ending is not canon.
Players control Tapp from a third-person perspective, and the game has a combat mechanism very similar to Silent Hill: Homecoming.
- He can use various weapons in the environments, however they will break after being used a few times.
- Some enemies have traps that may affect their skills; enemies with square shaped traps on their head cannot see but will attack if they can find you, while enemies with dynamite strapped to their hands will explode after death which can harm you, and so on.
Traps can be used against enemies as well; fuse boxes can be switched on above a pool of water and anyone who steps in will be electrocuted, and later in the game the player can re-set shotgun doors and hide from enemies.
- While progressing through the game, new kinds of traps can be found, as well as new weapons, light sources, and even the ability to create new traps or weapons from junk around the asylum.
- Some of the larger, more complex traps require Tapp to save both his own life as well as another person’s life, and others may force him to make a decision between his own life or the others.
- These traps are often presented as complex puzzles.
- The game rewards the player for finding clues and documents strewn around the Asylum, and in many cases Tapp will not be able to escape a trap without the help of the clues.

October 7 – 2014 – Alien: Isolation – PS3, PS4, Windows, Xbox 360, Xbox One

Fifteen years after the events of Ridley Scott’s Alien Ellen Ripley’s daughter Amanda is looking for answers.
- She is an engineer working for Weiland-Yutani Corporation.
- When she finds out that the logs from USCSS Nostromo have been located and transported to Sevastopol space station she decides to join a small crew sent by Weiland-Yutani to retrieve the data.
- Little does she know that the ship that has found the logs reached Sevastopol with a terrifying passenger on board, the one that murdered the majority of station’s population and left the survivors cowering in fear.
Alien: Isolation is a survival horror game.
- It is set on the Sevastopol space station where Amanda is searching for USCSS Nostromo logs.
- Sevastopol is split into many areas, and a certain degree of freedom is given to the player: areas may have several alternative routes to the goal, hidden rooms and ventilation shafts; also Amanda may (and later needs to) backtrack through the station.
- As the game goes on Amanda’s tools will be upgraded and she will be able to get access to previously out of reach areas.
Amanda is an engineer, so she is able to loot containers and bodies for resources and craft devices like noisemakers, smoke bombs, or Molotov cocktails, mainly used to distract the enemy.
- Later she acquires a flashlight, a motion detector and several types of weapons to defend herself against humanoid enemies (groups of hostile survivors or androids).
- However, Amanda is not a fighter, and each encounter should be carefully planned.
- Many actions take some time, for example to use a medpack Amanda needs to stand perfectly still.
When Amanda draws attention of the alien, stealth is the only way to survive.
- The alien cannot be harmed, and it kills Amanda in a single hit.
- In most cases it doesn’t follow a predetermined scripted route, but instead relies on its senses to track Amanda down.
In addition to the main story mode there’s Survivor mode in which the player needs to escape from a specially designed map fulfilling secondary objectives along the way, while being aggressively hunted by the alien.
- This mode includes online leaderboards.

October 8 – 2006 – Scarface: The World Is Yours – PS2, Wii, Xbox, Windows

Miami in the ’80s: gangs, drugs and hookers dominate the scene and a Cuban called Tony Montana rises up to be the most powerful drug dealer, controlling the whole of Miami.
- This is the story of the 1983 movie Scarface in which Tony Montana dies during a attack from a rival gang on his mansion at the end.
- The game now puts the player in the shoes of Tony a few moments before the gang hits his office.
After he successfully defends his mansion, his empire lies in ruins.
- But Tony wouldn’t be Tony Montana if he would just give up, so it is the player’s goal to reclaim Miami once again.
- To do so, he has to earn money and respect.
- The only way to earn money in Miami is to deal drugs.
- At the beginning the stuff is bought in small amounts and personally sold to the dealers.
- Eventually, however, Tony can set up so-called “Fronts” which are legitimate shops (like a car seller) in which drugs are sold in very large amounts.
- By overtaking “Fronts”, Tony also increases his control over the current district of Miami.
- To completely overtake one part of town, all the enemy gangs scattered around in small groups must be eliminated.
After a deal, Tony has to launder the money at the local bank and have it transferred to his account.
- He then can buy “exotics” for his mansion like an expensive vase or a new car with a driver.
When talking with a dealer or trying to get cop heat down, the player has to play a mini-game that determines if Tony is successful and if so, how much he gets for the drugs or how much heat he loses.
Respect is earned by increasing Tony’s territory, buying exotics and earning “balls” in fights and while driving.
- The enemies have different target zones which give a different amount of balls on a hit.
- This also fills up Tony’s ‘ball-meter”.
- Once this is full he can enter a kind of god mode in which he is invulnerable and has unlimited ammo.
- Tony also gets health when killing someone in this mode.
- If he is driving a car he gets balls when making stunts like driving on the wrong side of the road or dodging an incoming car.
As in Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, the player is free to roam the city of Miami and there are also some side-missions with racing events.

October 9 – 1997 – Fallout – DOS, Windows, Mac

The Fallout that started everyone’s post apocalyptic fantasies
- This was a heavy RPG, as the newer games still are, but the originals made by Interplay, are a division for fans of the Fallout Franchise
The Story:
- A devastating nuclear war had wiped out almost the entire population of the Earth.
- The civilization, as we know it, has been destroyed.
- The Earth has become a huge wasteland populated by mutated creatures.
- Only small number of humans survived and they formed communities living on the surface, where they mostly scavenge what remains from the pre-war civilization.
- Some lucky people managed to reach safety of the Vaults, huge underground dwellings, during the war.
- Recently, the water purification controller chip in Vault 13 broke.
- Without clean water, the people of the Vault cannot survive.
- One person is sent to find a replacement chip and ventures outside to face a dangerous world, hoping to return within a hundred and fifty days.
The game has an open world which can be freely explored from the onset.
- Only a few quests are required to complete in order to advance the main plot; a vast amount of side quests is available.
- Thanks to the game’s emphasis on social interaction, many problems can be solved in a non-violent way; in fact, it is possible to complete the game without engaging in battles at all, running away from enemy encounters and concluding the final confrontation in a relatively peaceful fashion.
- Conversely, the player can opt for a destructive path, killing everyone in sight.
- A Karma system is used to track the player’s moral decisions during the game.
Combat in Fallout is turn-based.
- Participants have a limited amount of action points (AP) per turn; each action (including movement) depletes a certain number of AP, eventually ending a character’s turn.
- The player can target specific body parts of enemies during battles.
- Characters may join the protagonist, traveling together and participating in combat as a party.
- Though the player may assign general commands to the companions, their actions are controlled by the AI, and they cannot be customized.

Tidbits

Facebook is finally banning all QAnon accounts from its platforms in order to limit the ability of the group and militarized social movements to operate and organize on their platform
- QAnon is a hate group that spreads misinformation and incites violence against a lot of different groups of people, often under the guise of protecting children
The unoptimized mess that is Call of Duty: Modern Warfare no longer fits on a 250GB drive, leaving many players that had previously set up an entire SSD just for the one game unable to update
- People are calling on Activision to split up the singleplayer, multiplayer, and warzone game modes to address some of this bloat, but even then apparently the game has a lot of duplicated models and textures that could be reused to save space
The director of Marvel’s Spider-Man has reportedly been receiving death threats over Peter Parker’s face change in the PS5 remaster
- Some are speculating that this is Sony trying to make him look more like the MCU’s Spider-Man, Tom Holland, but either way this is a ridiculous reaction to a complete non-issue in a game where the character spends the vast majority of his time wearing a mask
Apple’s officially announced their next event, coming to us on October 13th
- So far the leaks have us expecting a few different iPhone 12 models, including an iPhone 12 Mini, and the over-ear Airpods Studio

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PS2J News 317 – Next Gen Gaming OAC

September 11, 2020
Tagged as: 11, 14, 2002, 97, 98, advance, advance wars, Adventure, age of calamity, Alan, all access, Amazon, app store, Apple, Apple Watch, Arcade, attraction, big sur, Breath of the Wild, calamity ganon, campaign, cdprojektred, chex, clicker, Comic, commission, Community, complete edition, console, core, counter-sue, court, Cyberpunk 2077, darick robertson, delay, depression, developer, digital, direct payment, DLC, dynasty warriors, EA Sports, enforce, engine, epic, Epic Games, es play, Facebook, Fatal Fury, final edition, financing, Fortnite, frame rate, Free, Free Games, game pass, Gameboy, garou, gba, global match, halo infinite, halo reach, Hyrule Warriors, illustrator, improvement, iOS, ipad air, iPhone, Josh, King of Fighters, koei tecmo, lasers, Lawsuit, Link, MacOS, Mario Maker, mark of the wolves, membership, metal slug, metal slug 3, Microsoft, Microtransactions, military, mini-fridge, Multiplayer, narrative, Neo Geo, nintendo, No More Heroes 3, obelisk, oral, orochi saga, PC, performance, physical, Playstation, prime, Privacy, ps5, rail, railway empire, ray tracing, ridge racer, run and gun, sad, samurai shodown, Scythe, self-help, series s, series x, shock troopers, shoot ’em up, Shooter, sidescrolling, simulation, single-player, Sony, space-capitalist, spinning disc, spoken, spore, standalone, storage, stories, subterfuge, suda51, team, terrorist, the boys, the last blade 2, The Legend Of Zelda, the witcher 3, theft, time flies, top-down, Twitch, tycoon, ultimate, ultimate match, united states, unlimited match, upgrade, v special, violin, vostok inc, weapon, where the water tastes like wine, Wild Hunt, wolf of wall street, world’s smallest, XBox, Zelda

Free Games

Twitch
- Vostok Inc
  - 2017
  - Billed as The Wolf of Wall Street with lasers, this clicker with added shoot ‘em up elements has you playing a newly appointed CEO with the goal of becoming the richest space-capitalist around
- Shock Troopers
  - 1997
  - Top down run and gun arcade shooter that has you fighting through mountains, jungles, and valleys to rescue a scientist and his granddaughter from a terrorist group
- Metal Slug 3
  - 2000
  - Run and gun sidescrolling shooter that added more weapons and vehicles to the Metal Slug series, as well as introducing branching paths
- Garou: Mark of the Wolves
  - 1999
  - The ninth and final instalment of the Fatal Fury series, it brought in a new feature where if you get down to a certain area of your health bar you can perform special attacks and recover health
- The Last Blade 2
  - 1998
  - Arcade style weapons-based fighting game originally for the Neo Geo
- Samurai Shodown V Special
  - 2004
  - The ninth Samurai Shodown title, it’s an upgraded version of Samurai Shodown V and the last official game for the Neo Geo
- The King of Fighters 97 Global Match
  - 2018 re-release of the 1997 game
  - The fourth King of Fighters game and the final chapter in the “Orochi Saga” story arc
- The King of Fighters 98 Ultimate Match Final Edition
  - 2014 re-release of the 2008 re-release of the 1998 title
  - The fifth King of Fighters game with multiple releases bringing full balance overhauls, additional characters, and a new Ultimate mode
- The King of Fighters 2002 Unlimited Match
  - 2015
  - Ninth King of Fighters title that abandoned the newer 4v4 match format used in previous games and went back to the 3v3 fights previously seen in KoF 98
Epic Games
- Railway Empire
  - 2018
  - A tycoon simulation game where you’ll create an elaborate and wide-ranging rail network with different trains, stations, factories, and attractions to stay ahead of your competitors
- Where the Water Tastes Like Wine
  - 2018
  - Narrative-driven adventure game that has you exploring a Great Depression era United States, gathering and learning oral stories, and passing them along

Epic vs Apple

Epic Games is now asking the courts to force Apple to put Fortnite back on the App Store, saying that active users on iOS declined over 60% after removal
- Their justification is that iOS is the biggest platform for Fortnite, with nearly a third of users having played on iOS and more than half of those using iOS exclusively
- Now they’re saying that they may never see those users again, while playing their sad violin about how Fortnite is more than just a game and the social community is something that people rely on
- End of the day, if the app is so important maybe you should just remove your direct payment option while the court case proceeds?
Apple has now counter-sued Epic Games for stealing the 30% commission with their direct payment option, accusing the company of “self-help and subterfuge” as it embarked on a plan of “commission-theft” by introducing the payment option that goes directly against App Store guidelines
- With the legal term “self-help” meaning that Epic created the very circumstances that they started their lawsuit over, it kinda seems like an open and shut case

While we wait for any word on the PS5’s price, Microsoft has released that and more for their new consoles

The flagship Xbox Series X, the new mini-fridge of gaming, will cost $499USD with a $35/month Xbox All Access financing option from Microsoft
- This thing is a solid rectangular obelisk that will run 4k 60fps, with some titles even hitting 120fps for buttery-smooth multiplayer in Halo Infinite
And the sleek little Xbox Series S has finally been officially announced, costing $299USD or $25/month with Xbox All Access
- The S looks pretty cool, kind of resembling a flat speaker, but behind that speaker is a sizeable fan keeping the whole thing cool (and hopefully staying somewhat quiet while doing so)
- It’s smaller than any other Xbox Microsoft has sold previously, but still packs in 500GB of storage and the performance apparently comparable to the Xbox One X
- It’s also gone all-digital, meaning that there’s no disk drive for anyone still playing with physical game discs
Xbox All Access, for anyone not keeping up with Microsoft’s myriad memberships, is a two year financing program that gets you an Xbox with no upfront cost as well as Game Pass Ultimate (including Xbox Live Gold) for the contract period
- With Game Pass Ultimate alone costing $15/month USD it actually seems like a decent deal, leaving your grand total for the Series S at $240 ($50 savings) and the Series X at $480 ($20 savings)
On top of that, EA Play is now included in Xbox Game Pass for PC at no additional cost*
- The full library of 89 titles is available now for Game Pass PC and Game Pass Ultimate subscribers
- Members will also get a 10 hour free trial for select games (most often the newest launches from EA Sports) and a 10% discount on EA DLC or microtransactions
- At the same time, the standalone Xbox Game Pass for PC will be moving from $5USD to $10, but Game Pass Ultimate is unchanged so it’s just become a better deal since PC is included
On a related note, just a quick reminder for everyone- currently the best way to buy Game Pass Ultimate is to let it expire, load up your account with however much Xbox Live Gold time you can up to a max of three years, then upgrade that time to Game Pass Ultimate for a reduced fee (the first time you do it, it only costs $1)
- The trick is you have to use the specific upgrade link for your region- https://www.xbox.com/en-CA/live/gold/upgrade
- If you just buy Game Pass Ultimate it converts your Gold time but uses 4 months of Gold to equal one month of Ultimate, but using the upgrade link it’s currently 1:1
Now that Microsoft’s put all that information out there, we’ll see how long it takes Sony to undercut them (if they can, anyway)
Both Xbox Series consoles can be expanded with another terabyte of storage using an expansion card, and will launch this November 10th. Preorders open September 22nd

Apple’s officially announced their fall event, titled Time Flies, for September 15th, and we’ll have all the details in the next episode

People are expecting new Apple Watches and maybe iPad Airs, but iPhones seem less likely and may be delayed till October
We can also expect to hear some release dates on the upcoming iOS releases, but the new macOS (Big Sur) likely isn’t ready for primetime yet and will also wait for next month at minimum

Unfortunately it sounds like Apple may be delaying the privacy improvements to iOS that have Facebook and other advertisers concerned for their futures

The new privacy rules were slated to take effect with iOS 14, prompting users before allowing any kind of cross app tracking
Apple will instead give developers the option to use the prompt when it becomes available, including the ability to display why they’re asking for the permissions, but want to give developers time to implement the change before enforcing it early next year
Other new things like viewing which apps are accessing GPS, microphone, camera, and clipboard still remain on track for the initial iOS 14 release

The minds behind Hyrule Warriors, the Dynasty Warriors style brawler set in the Zelda universe, are making a fully canonical entry in the series

Titled Age of Calamity, it shows the story 100 years before Breath of the Wild and has you taking part in the original fight against Calamity Ganon
In some Halo Reach style story telling, we know where the story ends but playing through how it gets to that point should still be pretty dang fun
Best part here is that this time it’s not just Koei Tecmo doing their own thing, but it’s a full co-production with Nintendo’s Zelda team
The first Hyrule Warriors was fun but the story felt pretty disjointed, so getting them to work with the core Zelda team and having it link in smoothly to the rest of the universe should hopefully make things even better

This Week In Gaming History

September 5th – 2018 – Scythe: Digital Edition – PC/Mac

Scythe is a board game for 1 to 5 players designed by Jamey Stegmaier and published by Stonemaier Games in 2016. Set in an alternate history 1920s Europe, in Scythe players control factions which produce resources, build economic infrastructure, and use giant dieselpunk war machines called mechs to fight and control territory. Players take up to two actions per turn using unique player boards, with the game proceeding until one player has achieved six achievements, at which point the players receive coins for their achievements and territories controlled, with the player with the most coins winning.
The game was originally released via Kickstarter, raising over $1.8 million. Scythe received very positive reviews, with particularly strong praise for the game’s artwork, which was produced by Polish painter Jakub Różalski under the name World of 1920+. As of 2020, Scythe is ranked 11th among all board games on BoardGameGeek.
The 1920+ universe is also featured in the video game Iron Harvest planned for release in September 2020.

September 6th – 2008 – Chex Quest 3 – PC

Chex Quest is a non-violent first-person shooter video game created in 1996 by Digital Café as a Chex cereal promotion aimed at children aged 6–9 and up. It is a total conversion of the more violent video game Doom
Chex Quest 3 was developed and released as a service to fans by former Digital Café members Charles Jacobi (art director and lead artist) and Scott Holman (programmer). Former Digital Café sound design leader Andrew Benson, also contributed several songs for the game. Originally intended as a single standalone level, Jacobi announced the development of a full sequel at the Chex Quest Fan Page (Chexquest.org) in June 2008, and the full game was released in September.
Chex Quest 3 employs the ZDoom source port, and is considerably larger in size than the previous two games. Jacobi’s release of Chex Quest 3 also included ZDoom-based versions of Chex Quest and Chex Quest 2, with significant enhancements and noted problems redressed. Chex Quest 2 in particular had been remastered, with some levels significantly revised or completely overhauled.
Charles Jacobi credited the praise and compliments of fans, especially through fan-made projects such as one titled “The Ultimate Chex Quest”, as inspiration to complete this project.

September 7th – 2008 – Spore – PC/Mac

Spore is a 2008 life simulation real-time strategy God game developed by Maxis, published by Electronic Arts and designed by Will Wright. Covering many genres including action, real-time strategy, and role-playing games, Spore allows a player to control the development of a species from its beginnings as a microscopic organism, through development as an intelligent and social creature, to interstellar exploration as a spacefaring culture.
- It has drawn wide attention for its massive scope, and its use of open-ended gameplay and procedural generation. Throughout each stage, players are able to use various creators to produce content for their games. These are then automatically uploaded to the online Sporepedia and are accessible by other players for download.
Spore was released after several delays to generally favorable reviews. Praise was given for the fact that the game allowed players to create customized creatures, vehicles and buildings. However, Spore was criticized for its gameplay which was seen as shallow by many reviewers; GameSpot remarked: “Individual gameplay elements are extremely simple”. Controversy surrounded Spore due to the inclusion of SecuROM, and its digital rights management software, which can potentially open the user’s computer to security risks.
I know Alan and I were really excited for this game, but it turns in to Galactic Babysitting Adventures.

September 8th – 2008 – Amnesia: The Dark Descent – PC/Mac/Linux

The game follows the amnesiac protagonist, Daniel, as he explores Brennenburg Castle while trying to solve various puzzles and avoiding monsters. Instead of fighting, Daniel’s main tools for survival include running and hiding.
- The game was critically acclaimed upon release, and has gone on to spawn two sequels: Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs, and the yet to be released Amnesia: Rebirth.
Amnesia is an exploration-based horror adventure game played from a first-person perspective. The player is able to interact with the environment in a wide variety of ways, such as picking up and moving objects, opening doors, closets, and drawers, operating valves and levers and lighting up areas.
- There are no weapons and no combat mechanics in the game, making the player unable to fight the different monsters that he encounters. Thus the only way to get past the creatures is by running away and hiding from them until they lose interest.
- The player can hide from monsters in a variety of ways, such as staying in the shadows, hiding in closets, barricading doors, etc.
Separate from the player’s health bar is an indication of the character’s sanity. Being in darkness too long, witnessing unsettling events, or staring at monsters will reduce Daniel’s sanity, causing visual and auditory hallucinations and drawing the attention of monsters, as Daniel begins to whimper.
- Light sources help restore sanity, and if none are available Daniel may use tinderboxes to ignite candles in wall sconces and candelabra or deploy an oil-burning lantern found near the beginning of the game.
- However, the number of tinderboxes and the amount of oil available are both limited, and standing in a light source also makes the player more noticeable to monsters.
- Sanity is fully restored once Daniel completes an objective or progresses the game’s story. It may also be restored by staying in the shadows until Daniel passes out, but this leaves him extremely vulnerable to any nearby monsters.

September 9th – 1995 – Ridge Racer – PS1

Ridge Racer is a racing game developed and published by Namco. It was released initially on the Namco System 22 arcade system board and ported to the PlayStation console in 1995 in North America. It is the first title in the Ridge Racer series released for arcades and home consoles. The aim is to finish in first place in a series of races. The PlayStation version supports Namco’s NeGcon controller.
This controller is something I found really interesting
- The NeGcon, is a motion-based video game controller manufactured in 1995 by Namco for the PlayStation. One of the first third-party peripherals for the system, the controller is connected by a swivel joint, allowing the player to twist the halves relative to each other. The controller also replaces the “symbol” buttons on the original PlayStation controller with two “A” and “B” buttons, as well as “I” and “II” buttons that allowed for analogue control.
- The NeGcon was created to replicate the analog-stick movement used in the arcade game Cyber Sled (1993); the name comes from the Japanese word “nejiru”, meaning “to twist”. The controller was intended for use in racing games, including Ridge Racer, Gran Turismo and Wipeout. Critical reception for the NeGcon was highly positive, being praised for its responsive control in games and unique design.

September 10th – 2001 – Advance Wars – Game Boy Advance

Advance Wars is a turn-based tactics game developed by Intelligent Systems and published by Nintendo.
It was released in North America on September 10, 2001 with a later release date in Japan and Europe, but the game release was put on hold in both Japanese and European regions due to the following day’s September 11 attacks.
- Although the game was released in Europe in January 2002, neither GBA game was released in Japan until the Game Boy Wars Advance 1+2 compilation on November 25, 2004.
The game was originally intended to remain exclusive to Japan, like the previous entries in the series, which were kept in Japan due to Nintendo feeling that consumers would not be interested in turn-based games, or in such complicated games.
- In order to alleviate this, the developers made the mechanics easy to understand, adding in an in-depth tutorial that didn’t require players to read the manual.
- Designer Kentaro Nishimura commented that “Advance Wars’ success shifted Nintendo’s attitude over western tastes.”

September 11th – 2015 – Super Mario Maker – WiiU

Super Mario Maker is a side-scrolling platform game and game creation system developed and published by Nintendo for the Wii U home video game console, which released worldwide in September 2015.
- Players are able to create and play their own custom courses, based on Super Mario Bros., Super Mario Bros. 3, Super Mario World and New Super Mario Bros. U, share them online, and download and play courses designed by other players.
Reviews for the game range between near perfect, and perfect scores.
- Even though, a bulk of the content was made by other players with a passion to make Mario levels.
- My favorite being Ross O’Donovan, streaming on twitch as RubberNinja. He was contender and frequently a top creator on Super Mario Maker. Now with Super Mario Maker 2, he is making levels to be played in his Super World. He does make some tricks in his levels, but he does focus on good game design and fun, interesting game play.

Tidbits

Suda51 has officially announced that No More Heroes 3 will be delayed to a 2021 release date
- On the plus side they’ve also brought on Darick Robertson, graphic illustrator for the comic The Boys, to do illustrations for the game
CDProjektRed has been under fire this week thanks to microtransactions that don’t even exist
- People were lining up their pitchforks thinking that the upcoming Cyberpunk 2077, a single-player game, would have microtransactions included, despite CDProjektRed repeatedly saying that’s not the case
- Turns out it was all sparked by some confusion- there will be a separate multiplayer Cyberpunk game released completely separately next year that will have microtransactions, but they’re reportedly aimed at not being too aggressive
The Witcher 3 Complete Edition is coming to the PS5 and Xbox Series X this fall with faster load times, a bunch of visual and technical improvements, and ray tracing fanciness
- Best part is that though it will be a standalone purchase, it’s also a free update to everyone who owns the game on PC, Xbox One, or PS4

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Thank you Zane, a powerful man and a super hero dad. He’s one of the best #BeLikeZane

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PS2J 316 News – Super Money Printing Bros

September 4, 2020
Tagged as: 13.7, 19:17, 20, 30%, 360, 3D land, 7:17 pm, action, action adventure, Activision, agent, aimbot, Alan, alex winter, algorithm, Alien, all stars, alphabet, app store, Apple, Arcade, arkham, arma 2, Art, Artificial Intelligence, autonauts, battle royale, battlegrounds, bill and ted, blackmilk, brainiac, brawler, Call Of Duty, captain boomerang, cheat, China, colonize, colours, combat, come together, contact tracing, content bundles, court, crash bandicoot, crusader kings 3, cryptic studios, de blob 2, deadshot, Destiny 2, effie, epic, Epic Games, export, exposure notification, face the music, Facebook, fee, fight, First Person, for you, forced, forcefields, forsaken, Fortnite, Free Games, FTL, Gamepass, games with gold, gddr6x, goofball, Government, hack, Harley Quinn, home, Home Tour, impulsion, into the breach, iOS, ipad, iPhone, island, Isometric, John Wick, joint ops, Josh, keanu reeves, keys, kill the justice league, king shark, lady astronaut of mars, Lawsuit, Logan, lootboxes, magic, Mario Kart, mary robinette kowal, mech, mech city brawl, metropolis, Microsoft, mis-advertising, MMO, mod, modules, mp46, multicultural, Multiplayer, music, navy, neverwinter, nintendo, nintendo switch online, nvidia, Online, open-world, oracle, outcast, overreach, Override, people, physics, platform, playerunknown, Playstation, preston, ps+, PS4, PUBG, pubg mobile, puma, pumped bmx pro, puzzle, random, Ratchet and Clank, Reality, Red Dead Redemption, relentless moon, resident evil 7, retcon, Rocket League, rocksteady, RPG, RTX, sale, seal, second contact, shadowkeep, ships, Shooter, softbank, Sony, Space, speed, star trek online, stealth update, sticks, stones, story, street fighter v, stunt, Suicide Squad, Super Mario, Super Mario 3D All Stars, Super Mario Bros 35, Super Mario Galaxy, tears, tech company, the calculating stars, the division, the fated sky, The Gathering, the matrix, third person, tiktok, tiny troopers, tom clancy, tournament, trick, Turn Based, twin stick, Twitch, united states, universe, Unreal Engine, Update, us, voltron, wallhack, walmart, warzone, wayback machine, Xbox Live, xbox live gold, Xbox One

Free Games

Xbox One
- Override: Mech City Brawl
  - 2018
  - Gigantic robot mech brawler with single player and Voltron-style 2-4 player co-op, where every mech has special moves and skills, and you can fight in arenas around the world
- Tom Clancy’s The Division
  - 2016
  - Online-only action RPG / third person shooter where you play a special agent tasked with helping rebuild Manhattan and combat criminal activity after a viral outbreak. It has a combination of shared and instanced areas that have co-op and pvp multiplayer, in addition to missions and a story that you can run on your own
- de Blob 2
  - 2014
  - Platform puzzle game originally for the Xbox 360 that has you jumping around, mixing colours and bringing life to the cityscape. There’s also a basic two-player mode similar to Super Mario Galaxy
- Gamepass
  - We don’t normally mention new games on Gamepass, but this month some new highlights include Resident Evil 7, Crusader Kings 3, and Destiny 2 with the Shadowkeep and Forsaken expansions
  - Unfortunately Red Dead Redemption 2 is leaving on September 7th
PS4
- Street Fighter V
  - 2016
  - Fighting game similar to the other 2D style Street Fighter titles, it initially released without a story mode and only had a basic roster meant for tournament style gameplay until updates in 2018 and 2020 added in single-player modes and additional fighters
- PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds
  - 2017
  - One of the original battle royale titles, it started life as a mod for ARMA 2 but evolved into a standalone title where you and 99 other players are dropped on to an island with the clothes on your back, and need to gather resources and take down the other players on a shrinking map
Epic Games
- Into the Breach
  - 2018
  - Control powerful mechs from the future to defeat an alien threat. Each attempt to save the world presents a new randomly generated challenge in this isometric turn-based strategy game from the makers of FTL.
Twitch
- Pumped BMX Pro
  - 2019
  - Promoted as a BMX trickathon, it has you mastering 60 different levels and over 200 challenges while pulling off as many stunts as possible
- Effie
  - 2020
  - 3D action adventure game that combines combat, platforming, and puzzles with the exploration of a large, expanded world where you live a unique fantasy adventure in the style of Crash Bandicoot or Ratchet and Clank
- Impulsion
  - 2018
  - First person platformer designed to play with your nerves and reflexes, that has you making your way through 25 levels by manipulating physics and shooting forcefields to speed up or slow down
- Outcast – Second Contact
  - 2017 remake of the 1999 adventure game of the year and cult classic, Outcast
  - Third or first person open world shooter where you play an ex Navy SEAL stranded on an alien world trying to get home
- Tiny Troopers: Joint Ops
  - 2014
  - Arcade-style twin stick shooter that has your tiny troopers battling evil adversaries from around the world with a multitude of weapons and specialties
- Autonauts
  - 2019
    - Travel the universe and colonize uninhabited planets, starting with sticks and stones and going all the way up to art, space travel, and intergalactic export

Updates

Apple has officially terminated Epic Games’ account on its App Store, a move that won’t affect Unreal Engine but it does mean that users can no longer download Fortnite or other Epic titles for their iDevices
- Anyone that’s already downloaded the app can still play, but can no longer make ingame purchases
- This comes down as, despite the court’s recommendation that Epic comply with App Store guidelines while the case moves forward, they’ve instead repeatedly submitted Fortnite updates with the direct payment option in question intact
While Epic continues to cry foul to its users about updates now being blocked, Apple has been promoting another big battle royale title PUBG Mobile for iOS users, which is great timing as the game is also free this month on PS+
It seems like Facebook is trying to get their foot in the door when it comes to the Epic vs Apple payment fees conversation
- Facebook has a new feature that lets users buy tickets for online events. Unfortunately since online events count as digital content, they’re subject to the standard 30% fee
- Facebook tried to include wording on these purchases to say “Apple takes 30% of this purchase”, but according to Apple that’s irrelevant information and they blocked the update that would have added that wording
  - It probably falls under the usual terms and conditions that prevent developers from talking about other payment options from within iOS apps
- Google devices were reportedly supposed to get a message saying “Facebook doesn’t take a fee from this purchase”, which makes the warning on iPhones seem really targeted, but that message doesn’t show up on the Android version either
- Between showing the planned screens then publicizing the difference, it seems like Facebook is playing the same blame game as Epic in trying to get attention by breaking the rules and crying foul when they’re enforced

Cryptic Studios is under fire this week for “mis-advertising” content packs for Star Trek Online, something that Reddit users are saying is a common trend for the publisher

Apparently on multiple occasions they’ve announced content bundles that include ships, modules, and keys for lootchests, but then when the actual pack is released people purchase it to find things like the keys completely missing
The worst part of that is all of the blogs and advertising material have been stealth-updated to remove any mention of the missing rewards, leaving only services like the Internet Wayback Machine with proof of the change
- Once they were called out loudly enough they honoured the missing content for people that had purchased prior to the revision, but anyone working off of old information is left out in the cold
According to some users, they’ve historically done the very same thing in free to play titles like Neverwinter, and each time they just apologized and moved on
This is apparently the same studio working on the Magic: The Gathering MMO slated for a 2021 release, but with this kind of track record it’s hard not to be worried

The US government is getting even more involved with the forced sale of TikTok, now forcing some companies to back down in their offers

Apparently Walmart was set to make an offer to be the majority owner, teamed with with Alphabet and Softbank to invest in minority stakes, but the United States government apparently said they wanted a tech company to buy it instead
- Why they get a say is beyond me, but I guess they could move forward with the ban anyway if people don’t listen?
From the sounds of it Walmart is interested in getting into TikTok’s e-commerce and payments business, so since they were blocked they instead are teaming up as a minority shareholder with Microsoft taking the lead
- Alphabet couldn’t take the lead of Walmart’s original plans because of a potential antitrust investigation due to its ownership of YouTube
It looks like now the two options for TikTok are Microsoft/Walmart or Oracle, but though a deal was set to be made already China has now made a change to its export controls list to cover TikTok’s recommendation algorithm, which means that thanks to TikTok’s “For You” page the Chinese government will now get a say in whether the sale goes through

Apple’s release the new iOS 13.7, and once you’ve got that installed you’ll be able to easily see if your area supports COVID-19 exposure notifications

The update has new options under Settings > Exposure Notifications (just below Emergency SOS), which include showing you if your area has an official contact tracing app and, if not, gives you a switch to be alerted once one is available
Just a reminder that these apps are secure, battery-friendly, and become a lot more effective in keeping people safe if everyone’s using them

Mario 35th Anniversary Direct

Game and Watch: Super Mario Bros.

A throwback to the old Game and Watch handhelds that Nintendo used to make
- This version has a bright colour screen
- You can play the entirety of Super Mario Bros
- There are also mini games that put Mario in the place of Mr. Game And Watch
- The clock function is very animated, more than just a static clock to watch
- Limited Production, Available November 13th

Super Mario World + Bowser’s Fury

Super Mario 3D World and all the fun and frustration it included is coming to Switch
As well as new content titled Bowser’s Fury
- Only shown in a brief teaser with a dark giant spiky cat bell powerup, on a rainy beach in a storm with purple lightning
Slated to release February 12th, 2021

Super Mario Bros. 35

In the vein of Tetris 99, this is Super Mario Battle Royal!
- Exclusive and free for Switch Online Members
You play original Super Mario Bros in the center of the screen
- In the UI around you, are 34 other people, racing to play Mario Bros faster than you
To attack other players, you defeat enemies as normal, and it sends them off to another player’s queue
- In your queue, you see that as you progress in the level, desaturated enemies are waiting to spawn in your path
- Everyone is racing against the clock, which you get more time by defeating enemies
- And like Tetris 99, you can target opponents by Lowest time, Most Coins, people attacking you and random
- And it seems like coins, not sure if they are acquired the same as in game, or some sort of bonus
  - And it appears you can buy a power-up for 20 of these coins.
Available October 1st
- Will be playable until March 31st, 2021

Mario Kart Live: Home Tour

OMG Mario Kart in real life!
This is an augmented reality game
- You purchase a Mario Kart RC Kart
  - Mario and Luigi seem available first
  - Looks like a traditional Kart, but if it had a large scoop for the engine, behind the racer, that has a camera
- These karts must come with a kit to make 4 arches
  - You start by driving your kart through the arches, painting the track behind you
  - When you connect to the track, it paints the width of the arches to make a race track
The commercial shows 2 kids playing on the same track
- On the Switch, an augmented reality race shows other digital characters racing with the 2 RC karts
October 16th, 2020

Nintendo Rewards for limited pins!

Everyone with a My Nintendo Account can complete Super Mario related missions
You may recieve cool rewards
- Including a Pin set of 10 Mario’s from games ranging from 1985 to 2020
- Will release in 2 waves, US and Canada Only
- September 3rd to March 31st 2021

Mario Kart Tour Event!

Special appearances of Mario and Donkey Kong Junior from the original Super Mario Kart for SNES
- September 8th, 2020, 11PM PST

Limited merchandise

Historical Super Mario items and special 35th Anniversary items
- Only at the Nintendo New York store
- And store.nintendo.com
- Starting in October

Mario Maker 2 Course

A special 35th Anniversary Ninji’s Speed Run course
- November 2020

Super Smash Bros Online Tournament

Limited to Super Mario franchise characters
- Stages and Items
Later this year

Splatoon Splat Fest

Which Power-up would you prefer?
- Super Size from a Mushroom
- Invincibility from a Super Star
- A My Nintendo reward item of a Mushroom and Super Star that got inked
  - To release closer to the SplatFest
  - Physical SplatFest shirts available online, now
January 2021

Animal Crossing

Super Mario themed furniture
- March 2021

And Licensed Super Mario products!

Puma Sneakers
- September 4th
BlackMilk Clothing
- October 5th
Mario Monopoly and Jenga
- Now
Mario Doll
- Now
Lego
- Lego Mario course
- Lego NES with Retro TV

Super Mario All Stars

Coming to the Super NES collection on Switch
- Updated to fit Widescreen tvs!

Super Mario 3D All Stars

Super Mario 64, Sunshine and Galaxy in one game
- Also has a music player, like Smash Ultimate
Limited physical release
- September 18th

This Day in Gaming History

August 29 – 2013 – Game Dev Tycoon – Windows

”Game Dev Tycoon” is a business simulator game where you control a game company.
- The game starts in the garage as many single video games developer did in the 80s.
- As you release successful games, more genres, employees and options are unlocked.
- As time progresses consoles and home computers are unlocked, but often using silly fictional names like PlaySystem and grPhone.
- The game is inspired by Game Dev Story in both name and gameplay.
This is a game I really enjoy and like to go back to from time to time
- Some of the achievements are for naming your Studio or Games based on real companies or releases.
- And some powerful characters you can hire are references to big game developers

August 30 – 2002 – Go! Go! Beckham! Adventure On Soccer Island – Game Boy Advance – United Kingdom Only

It’s football with a unique twist.
- David Beckham is called on to save Soccer Island from the evil Mister Woe, who has taken over the island by turning all of the animals into monsters.
- Not only that, he’s stealing all of the important items for himself.
Using David Beckham’s football skills, you must guide your hero through each level, kicking enemies and doors down with your football to the end of each level.
- Knock down the locks during the game to unlock the exit door and kick your ball through to complete it.
- Boss characters then require special attacks with your football to defeat them.

August 31 – 1997 – Final Fantasy 7 – Playstation

The seventh installment of the Final Fantasy series takes place in a post-modern, steampunk, sci-fi world where high technology reigns and where robots and bio-engineered mutants co-exist with humans and dragons.
To my surprise, the site I source for a lot of these games, Moby Games, had Final Fantasy 7’s North American release as the only game for August 31st, 1997

September 1 – 1984 – Klondike Solitare – DOS

A mouse-only game for DOS, Klondike Solitaire is a simulation of its namesake.
- Using the mouse to click cards, you move cards of alternate suits onto each other in an effort to move them off the tableau.
- Cheating is technically allowed, but doing so will get you “yelled at” by the program.
Felt this would be appropriate, as basically anyone to be stuck on a computer without an internet connection, has played solitaire
- And this may the first Klondike Solitare

September 2 – 2014 – The Sims 4 – Origin Windows

The Sims 4 is the fourth main game in the real-time life simulation / management series. Just like the previous games one or more custom characters are created through Create-a-Sim to live in a house designed by the player.
- As their lives unfold based on the environment, relationships and specific traits, the player gets to manage the life, needs to organize activities, attend to needs, and react to moods, with non-linear gameplay and no direct control.
I’ve been way into it again, as I bought Get Famous on a sale, before the latest expansion Eco Lifestyle came out.
- I reviewed that I really like the social media, and fame meter. As well as the Acting career
- And Eco Lifestyle added Ladders, as well as ways to produce your own water and power.
  - Which you can sell back to the grid for a profit.
If the fanily found it interesting, I was considering making Alan and I, and doing a Twitch stream.

September 3 – 1998 – Hong Pong – DOS

Hong Pong is a Pong variant set in five different war zones (including one hidden) and with tanks instead of paddles.
- Played with two tanks, one on each side of the screen, players need to prevent a spinning nuke from touching their side of the screen, while shooting missiles at the opponent or forcing the nuke to hit his side.
- In the middle of the screen different kinds of vehicles pass and these hurt the player when touched. It is also possible to activate a shield to block the incoming missiles, but while it is up firing is disabled.

September 4 – 1998 – Dune 2000 – Windows

Dune 2000 is a remake of the classic Dune II: The Building of a Dynasty, updated for Windows.
- In this real-time strategy game, you can play one of the three houses: the noble Atreides, the insidious Ordos, or the evil Harkonnen.
- Each has different sets of units and tactics while maintaining an overall balance.
- The Atreides have air superiority and rely on their honor and alliance with planet natives, the Fremen.
- The Ordos rely on guerrilla tactics and superior technology, as well as mercenaries.
- The Harkonnen just go brutal, with no care for lives of their own troops or destruction, as long as they are victorious.
This game made me fall in love with the Dune franchise
- If you are interested in playing it again, I recommend OpenRA
- OpenRA is a project that recreates and modernizes the classic Command & Conquer real time strategy games.
- Relive the original Command and Conquer, C&C: Red Alert, and Dune 2000
- https://www.openra.net

Tidbits

Shout out to Bullfrog, thanks for saying you’ll give us a shot after our ad on Remember the Game.
- We really like Adams podcast, and we are blown away by his glowing review of us!
- Thanks to all our fanily, and welcome to anyone joining us from Remember the Game!

Good news for Rocket League players, once the game hits their free to play launch (we covered all the details in episode 310) you’ll no longer need PS+ or Nintendo Switch Online to play multiplayer
- Unfortunately it looks like Xbox Live Gold is still needed if you want to play on Xbox One
If you’re about to buy a new graphics card you’ll want to press pause until you check out nVidia’s new RTX 30 series
- The new hardware includes all sorts of fanciness like a brand new faster kind of memory (GDDR6X), low latency and high framerates even at 4k and 8k resolutions, and all kinds of ray-tracing beauty
- According to the specs released so far, even the entry level model 3070 beats the two year old 2080ti at less than half its current price
Rocksteady’s upcoming Suicide Squad game, subtitled Kill The Justice League, looks like it could be pretty good
- Featuring Harley Quinn, Deadshot, Captain Boomerang, and King Shark in a Metropolis being menaced by Brainiac and a presumably mind-controlled Justice League, set in the Arkham game universe
Call of Duty Warzone players will be happy to hear that Activision is suing one of the top websites where players can purchase cheats and hacks for the game, like aimbots and wallhacks (xray vision)
- The lawsuit has forced the site in question to remove all Call of Duty content, leaving people that have previously paid for the cheats with nothing to show for it
  - Some are hoping for refunds, but the fact that people actively cheating at games are now out actual money is kind of delicious

Mini-reviews

The Relentless Moon by Mary Robinette Kowal
- Perspective change threw me at first, but I was glad I recently re-read the other books because this takes place at the same time as The Fated Sky
- Another great addition to the Lady Astronaut of Mars series, and as well written as it was well studied
Bill and Ted Face the Music
- It felt like a lot of what we need right now in the world- a story about people coming together and celebrating eachother, with great acting from a lot of fantastic people, and a subtle reminder about how multicultural music has always been with so many roots in black culture, along with an ending that had me in tears
- After serious movies from The Matrix to John Wick, it’s always good to see what a goofball Keanu Reeves can be

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

Thank you Zane, a powerful man and a super hero dad. He’s one of the best #BeLikeZane

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 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

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

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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.

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

And talk to us in the comments!

PS2J 308 News – Renegade Scientists

July 10, 2020
Tagged as: 343, 3D, 4chan, 99 pi, Adventure, advertising, Alan, Alien, ally, ancestry, Animation, Apple, assault, asymmetrical, augmented reality, battery, beta, Black Lives Matter, bug, Bungie, Call Of Duty, choose your own, clipboard, clone, co-op, competitive, conference, consent, contact tracing, control, copy, covid-19, culture, d&d, delete, diversity, Epic Games, escapists 2, eugene marshall, europe, exposure notification, Facebook, First Person, forward, Free, Free Games, Freedom House Ambulance, game designer, gamer, Google, halo 3, harassment, hate, homework, infinity ward, information, inmate, ios 14, iPhone, ireland, Josh, killing floor 2, lgbtwiq+, lifeless planet, linkedin, live link face, master chief collection, mercenary, Microsoft, mind, minor, minorities, misconduct, modern warfare, motion capture, Multiplayer, music, nintendo, ok, outpost, PC, permissions, platformer, Polygon, Predator, premier edition, prison, Privacy, puzzle, pvp, race, racism, randonautica, Reddit, RPG, science, Shooter, Smash Bros, Solo, soviet union, Space, starbucks, strategy, SUPERHOT, terrorism, tiktok, top-down, tournament, tracking, truedepth, Twitch, Twitter, Ubisoft, Unreal Engine, users, warzone, watch dogs 2, wave based, weather network, White, zed

Free Games

Epic Games
- Killing Floor 2
  - 2016
  - First person wave-based shooter than can be played solo or with up to 6 players cooperatively, it has you descending into continental Europe after it’s been overrun by murderous clones called Zeds
  - They also added an asymmetrical PVP mode that has one or more players taking on the role of the Zeds to kill the mercenaries
- Lifeless Planet: Premier Edition
  - 2014
  - Adventure puzzle platformer that has you exploring an alien planet where you stumble upon a derelict Soviet Union science outpost and try to piece together how they got there and where they’ve gone now
  - The Premier Edition brings new content, improved graphics, new original music, and additional voice-acting
- The Escapists 2
  - 2017
  - Top-down strategy RPG that has you playing an inmate in a prison, following daily routines, completing quests for fellow inmates, and seeking opportunities to escape
  - It also includes local and online multiplayer, either cooperative where two players help eachother break out or competitive where two teams see who can break out the fastest
Ubisoft is hosting their first all-digital conference streaming live on July 12, and if you log on to ubisoft.com/forward during the event you can get a free copy of Watch Dogs 2

Surprising completely no one, Google-backed groups are criticizing Apple’s warnings about user tracking

The next batch of updates coming to Apple software this fall have a lot to do with user tracking- specifically, giving you prompts when websites or apps are trying to track you across multiple services
Well a group of 16 marketing associations, many backed by Facebook and Google, are getting mad at Apple for not sticking to the existing ad-industry standard for getting user consent under European privacy rules, complaining that between the current adding a second layer of permissions increases the risk that users will refuse
Apple defended the move, and I believe rightfully so, by saying that the new feature is aimed at giving users greater transparency over how their info is being used and monetized
And really, if the best argument against giving users more opportunities to say no is that they might take them, you might have some predatory practices that need to be looked at

After allegations have been made about wildly inappropriate, unethical, and immoral behaviour in competitive Smash Bros communities, Nintendo has made a statement saying that they “condemn all acts of violence, harassment, and exploitation against anyone and that we stand with the victims.”

Apparently dozens of high-profile figures in the community have been accused of sexual misconduct, like harassment, assault, and grooming minors

In the latest of what I’m sure will be a long line of ass-coverings, LinkedIn says that their app reading iPhone clipboards after every keystroke is a bug and will be fixed soon

They’re blaming it on code that compares your clipboard contents with what has been typed in a textbox, which seems weird even on its own
iOS 14, now in beta, alerts users every time data they’ve copied is read by an app, and we’ve seen this catch out apps like TikTok, Twitter, Starbucks, and many more reading this information for no good reason
The Weather Network, also caught out by this, says that they only used the info if a user wished to share diagnostic information for troubleshooting and that they’ve reached out to Apple for guidance

Infinity Ward has quietly removed the OK gesture from Modern Warfare and Warzone

There hasn’t been any official statement about why, but this was likely in continuing support of the Black Lives Matter movement.
A while back 4Chan decided to help white supremacists appropriate the symbol (some claimed as a joke), saying that the three upraised fingers made a W and the circle made a P when you take the forearm into account
Regardless of their possible intentions, they have actually succeeded to the point that racists and terrorists have been sincerely using the symbol in dog-whistling photos and acts of terror against minorities and people of colour
The Anti-Defamation League even had to add it to their list of hate symbols in September of last year

SUPERHOT – MIND, CONTROL, DELETE is leaving Early access on July 16th after four years of development, and being given away free to anyone that purchased the original beforehand (free giveaways don’t count, though Kickstarter does)

The third game in the franchise, it’s bringing more immersion, more story, more characters, and more gameplay to the original SUPERHOT ‘first person shooter where time only moves when you do’ formula
The original is currently 60% off at get.superhotgame.com, so it’s a great time to get into it

Randonautica

https://www.randonautica.com/

Choose Your Own Adventure
Creepy findings
Randonaut Responsibly!
- #1 Never, ever trespass onto private property.
  - We. Are. SERIOUS. Get as close to the point as you are comfortable without trespassing onto private property. Never enter someone’s backyard without permission. Never enter privately marked wooded or commercial areas. Trespassing onto private property is a direct violation of the user agreement for Randonautica. Owners and law enforcement will see the user as liable for trespassing or damages, not Randonautica. DO NOT TRESPASS.
- #2 Stay totally clear of dangerous areas.
  - Never go near train tracks, railways or restricted electrical/power zones. Additionally, old structures, houses and buildings should be avoided entirely. The structural integrity could be jeopardized due to deterioration.
- #3 Only adventure during the day.
  - The human mind is not trained for uncertainty and traveling to a totally randomized set of coordinates requires you to over-observe your surroundings and practice situational awareness. This is much easier to do while it is light outside. Randonauting at night is highly discouraged.
- #4 Leave the environment better off than when you arrived.
  - Since the very beginning of the Randonaut community we’ve always said, Bring A Trashbag! Not only will you help mother nature by picking up litter, sometimes the trash can have unique and meaningful information to you!
- #5 Always Randonaut with a charged phone.
  - Be smart and charge your phone or bring a car charger. GPS can drain your battery and you are very likely to be in an unfamiliar area.
- #6 Keep a positive mindset!
  - What you think, you observe! Negative intentions are HIGHLY discouraged. The Randonautica app was created to bring joy, peace and love to curious explorers all over the world.
- #7 Go on the journey with a friend or small group.
  - While Randonauting alone is entirely acceptable, beginners should start in a small group or with a friend. Uncertainty of where you are going (the randomness!) can cause a fear factor response and having a buddy helps!
- #8 Do not venture into areas outside your comfort zone.
  - Only make the trip to areas and places you are comfortable exploring. If you feel unsafe, do not leave your vehicle or retreat from the point. Randonautica does not know anything about the area you live in. Use common sense.
- #9 Always use common sense when it comes to your personal physical limitations.
  - Sometimes a point might be in an area that is inaccessible without climbing, hiking, etc. Know your limits. Always hydrate and do not overextend yourself.
- #10 Enjoy the whole journey, not just the point!
  - Get as close to the point as you are comfortable with but know the journey is sometimes the more meaningful experience!

99% Invisible

Freedom House Ambulance Service

https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/freedom-house-ambulance-service/

Tidbits

Twitch has managed to put their collective foot in their mouth twice, first with a video that included the line “The G in LGBTQIA+ also stands for gamer”, and then with a Black Lives Matter video that barely featured any non-white creators
- Both videos have since been pulled down and Twitch has stated that though their goal was to demonstrate the importance of allyship, they didn’t make it clear.
Ireland has launched their contact tracing app this week, taking advantage of the Apple/Google exposure notification API
- The app downloads a list of anonymous IDs every two hours from those who have tested positive for COVID, letting users get alerts a lot faster than with a manual phone interview system
- It also have features for those that have tested positive to track their symptoms and how they’re feeling, and for those that aren’t it shows facts and figures for the virus inside Ireland
iPhone users have taken to support forums and reddit to report battery drain issues related to the Music app, citing large amounts of background activity even on new devices that haven’t launched the Music app before
- People have reported things like the app using 95% of their device’s battery across 18 hours of background activity when they weren’t even listening to music
- The only consistent fix has been to remove the Music app, but for many that’s not really an option
Epic Games has launched their new Live Link Face app that lets game developers using the Unreal Engine use their iPhones’ TrueDepth camera for facial motion capture
- I’ve tried it out and it’s pretty slick from a recording and facial mesh perspective, but to actually see it in action and applying the movements to a 3D model you need to connect it to a computer or full motion capture rig
- It will definitely open up motion capture prospects to many who wouldn’t otherwise have the tech for it
Halo 3 is finally coming to the Master Chief Collection for PC on July 14th, and with it many redditors are excited for all the custom game types they know and love from the Xbox

Homework

Polygon talking about race in D&D and Eugene Marshall, a game designer that’s already addressed it by using ancestry, culture, and diversity
- https://www.polygon.com/reviews/2020/7/9/21317614/dungeons-dragons-dnd-race-ancestry-and-culture-book

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.

And talk to us in the comments!

PS2J 303 News – Screws Not Included

May 29, 2020
Tagged as: 2000, 2002, 2020, 3-on-3, 4-on-4, 76, abtracetogether, action shooter, Adventure, Alan, Alien, android, anthropomorphic, app, Apple, Art, art of fighting 2, attachment, ban, banjo-kazooie, barista, battery health, battle of normandy, battlefront II, Bethesda, blazing star, Blizzard, blizzcon, book, borderlands, bullet hell, bully, Call Of Duty, cancelled, city of colours, clone, coffee talk, conspiracy, constitution, contact tracting, court, covid-19, DC, delayed, deluded, destroy all humans, diesel punk, DLC, dna, dorsey, dystopia, EA, election, email, Epic Games, excel, exposure notification, Facebook, Fallout, fatal fury special, fighting, First Person, foc news, fradulent, Free Games, free speech, get the facts, Government, Graphics, hacking, handsome collection, harassment, harvest, hbo max, humour, interfering, ios 13.5, iPhone, jack and daxter, jailbreak, johns hopkins, Josh, joss whedon, jump, justice, kellyanne conway, King of Fighters, league, letter, lies, lock screen, loot shooter, Macbook, MacOS, macro, mail-in voting, Malware, martha wells, mask, metroidvania, Microsoft, Microtransactions, mimimi, misinformation, Multiplayer, murder, Murderbot Diaries, neogeo, network effect, Online, Pandemic, parry, permanent, physical distancing, pirate’s curse, Playstation 4, pre-sequel, precaution, prequel, PS4, pulstar, r-type, remake, remote access, reshoot, roster, samurai shodown II, scarborough, Sci-Fi, screening, screws, search, seattle, security, sequin land, shantae, shoot ’em up, Shooter, sine mora, snk, Sony, spreadsheet, Star Wars, super-human, tailspin, tantrum, the last tinker, threats, tracking, Trump, Twitch, Twitter, unc0ver, unfinished, united states, Update, USB C, utopia, visual novel, VPN, warrant, who, widower, work from home, wwii, Xbox One, yoel roth, zack snyder

Security alert

Microsoft Security is tracking a massive campaign that installs remote access tools on your computer using malicious Excel macros, embedded in a spreadsheet purporting to show COVID-19 stats
- The emails in question pretend to be from Johns Hopkins Center about the “WHO COVID-19 SITUATION REPORT”
- Steps to avoid:
  - Don’t open random emails
  - Don’t open unexpected attachments
  - And most importantly, definitely don’t run Excel macros on anything you don’t know the full provenance of

Free Games

PS4
- Star Wars Battlefront II
  - 2017
  - Third and first person action shooter that, as you can tell from its name, is the fourth major release in the series and seventh overall, it caught a lot of flack early on for its predatory microtransactions to the point that EA completely revamped the system to avoid gameplay advantages
  - Content based on the Star Wars movies up to and including The Rise of Skywalker
- Call of Duty: WWII
  - 2017
  - First-person shooter following a squad in the 1st infantry division and their battles during the events of the Battle of Normandy
Xbox One
- Destroy all Humans!
  - 2005
  - Action adventure game set in the 1959 United States that has you playing an alien harvesting DNA from humans to continue the cloning process of his species
  - A remake is due for release in July
- Shantae and the Pirate’s Curse
  - 2016
  - Metroidvania-style adventure platformer that has you playing the half-genie Shantae out to save Sequin Land from the Pirate Master
- Sine Mora
  - 2012
  - 2.5D bullet hell shoot ’em up in a diesel punk inspired world filled with anthropomorphic characters
- Coffee Talk
  - 2020
  - Visual novel that follows a barista working in a coffee shop in a fantasy version of Seattle, as they listen to the concerns of the shop’s patrons and prepare drinks
Epic Games
- Borderlands: The Handsome Collection
  - 2015
  - Improved versions of Borderlands 2 and the Pre-Sequel, the popular action RPG sci-fi loot shooters with a good sense of humor, with all their DLC, enhanced local multiplayer, and the ability to transfer save data from the PS3/Xbox 360 versions
Twitch
- The Last Tinker: City of Colors
  - 2014
  - Indie developer Mimimi’s take on action adventure like Jack and Daxter or Banjo-Kazooie, minus the jump button
- Pulstar
  - 1995
  - Horizontal-scrolling shooter, similar to R-Type, that has you defeating a hostile race of aliens threatening mankind
- Blazing Star
  - 1998
  - Shoot ’em up sequel to Pulstar with improved graphics and less challenging difficulty
- Fighting games
  - Samurai Shodown II
    - 1994
    - One of the first games to incorporate parrying, where you can block at the last second to deflect the attack and leave your opponent vulnerable
  - The King of Fighters 2000
    - 2000
    - 7th entry in the KoF series for the NeoGeo and the last one produced by SNK before their bankruptcy
  - The King of Fighters 2002
    - 2002
    - Ninth game in the KoF series that discarded the previous titles’ 4-on-4 striker match format and returned to the 3-on-3 battles that KoF used until ’98
  - Fatal Fury Special
    - 1993
    - An updated version of Fatal Fury 2 with tweaks to the gameplay system and an expanded roster
  - Art of Fighting 2
    - 1994
    - Set as a prequel to the Fatal Fury series, it was the first fighting series to allow players to perform a “super attack”

Trump is up in arms after Twitter decided to flag some of his misinformation as false, though the rest of his bull is still coming through strong

With the current COVID-19 situation, Twitter has decided to make some improvements to their platform so that incorrect information gets flagged
- So when Trump tweeted about mail-in voting, claiming that there’s no way that they’ll be anything less than substantially fraudulent, Twitter threw a link at the bottom so that readers could “Get the facts about mail-in ballots”, and directs them to articles about his unsubstantiated claim
- Trump’s response was to claim that they’re interfering in the 2020 election, and that Twitter is now stifling free speech. Even though that really only applies to the government, and companies are not required to give you a platform to say whatever you want
- Then the Trump administration took to Fox News to single out Twitter’s head of site integrity, Yoel Roth, after digging up some tweets he had posted that were critical of the current US government
  - Trump advisor Kellyanne Conway called on listeners to go after him, causing a flood of abuse, harassment, and death threats online
- So this is the government of a world power having a tantrum against a social media website because the president posted verifiably false information online
Unfortunately it doesn’t look like Twitter is enforcing these policies strongly enough
- Another of Trump’s tweets has invented a conspiracy theory accusing MSNBC host Joe Scarborough of murder
  - Trump basically said that the former congressman killed a staff member in 2001 even though he was 800 miles away at the time and her death was ruled an accident (she suffered a heart condition that caused her to fall and hit her head on a desk)
  - Trump then doubled down on the accusation even after her widower pleaded unsuccessfully with Twitter to take down the posts about his late wife in an open letter, saying that they’re causing her family a lot of emotional pain
    - He went on to say that the president is perverting the memory of his dead wife for perceived political gain, and if an ordinary user was throwing around these kinds of lies they would get banned from Twitter altogether
  - Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey’s usual insistence that they’re sticking to the letter of their terms of use, commonly gamed by internet trolls and the president of the US, can’t even be used as armour in this case because they’re so solidly in the wrong- even by their own terms of use these posts should be removed and the account should be flagged if not banned altogether
- This isn’t even new behaviour, after Trump used deluded conspiracy theories in 2016 against Ted Cruz, saying his father was involved in the JFK assassination, when going for the republican nomination in the presidential election

According to US courts, just turning on your phone’s lock screen may count as a search by law enforcement and require a warrant

While police can run a search without a warrant under special circumstances, if the phone is currently in police custody the device cannot be turned on even to take a screenshot of the lock screen. As soon as a physical intrusion is made, even just to press a button to wake up the screen, even though the lock screen is something somewhat publicly accessible, it counts as a intruding on a constitutionally protected area

Fans rejoice, you’re finally getting the Snyder Cut of Justice League

Joss Whedon was brought in to finish the film after Zack Snyder left the film’s production due to family tragedy, but he drastically changed the tone of Snyder’s unfinished version
Synder’s personal cut of the Justice League will be a long-form series coming to HBO Max in 2021, and is expected to cost over $30M in development and reshoots

More than half of Apple Stores worldwide have reopened now, and their precautions are pretty solid

Multiple staff are stationed around the store’s entrance to direct people to different lineups either for shopping, walk-in repair work, or genius bar appointments
They also have guards doing screening, temperature checks, handing out masks, and directing the use of hand sanitizer
In store they’re keeping physical distancing in effect by helping people across tables and continually cleaning things with sanitizing wipes
All in it was quite a good experience, and I felt like the store was really taking the pandemic seriously while still taking care of my laptop repair
- If you have a MacBook with USB-C ports that just aren’t holding on to cords like it used to, you should definitely get it checked out. Just make sure they put the screws back in
- Anecdotally, keep in mind that the Apple Store isn’t a free mask dispensary. I saw one argument while in line with a couple maintaining that, because they bought an iPad yesterday, they should get a free mask from Apple even though they weren’t entering the store at all

Fallout 76 Tips and Tricks from Foam Forge Cosplay

Some lessons I’ve learned about FO76 in the past 2 weeks for anyone looking to optimize their end game.
Start building early.
- Pick what weapon kit out you want and start engineering yourself towards it.
- An endgame respec right now can cost up to 50 levels of points. (ask me how I know.)
Auto Rifles are still viable but you need a good back pack.
- You won’t be using power armor.
- Charisma is a dump stat.
- Get ready to abandon it down to 3 points once you hit 50.
- It’s only useful for dialogue checks.
- Grape mentats help with that.
- The perk Glow Sight is a must have.
  - At max rank it gives +60% damage to glowing enemies.
A good 1 Legendary > Decent 3 Anything with armor piercing is a god send.
- Enemies in FO4 and FO76 don’t get more health.
- They stack “armor”.
- This is Bethesda’s way of dealing with game balancing.
  - IE: it’s broken too.
- VATS kills fusion cores so build your Power armor build to avoid Vats.
- Getting a targeting hud makes enemies glow in the dark
  - Much easier to kill them when you can see them without having to “ping” them with VATS
  - Physical Damage Resistance > Any Other Kind.
Best end game armor is T-51B or the much coveted Ultracite armor for base game.
- The Strangler Heart is better than both but you gotta run Vault 94 for that.
- The total difference is almost negligible so if you want (Like me) the X-01 is still a solid set of armor to run around in.
Staggering opponents makes them useless and unable to fight you.
- If you hit hard enough and frequently enough they sort of just stun lock.
- Heavy guns and shotguns are great for that.
- Best end game guns come from Wastelanders.
Farm lots of rep for both factions to get you one of the new Gauss weapon types.
- Shotgun or Minigun. They melt enemies.
- If you’re heavy weapon specced Becket just gives you a fantastic .50 CAL at the end of his quest chain.
- No spoilers for his quests though. Enjoy them.

Tidbits

It looks like Apple has been re-issuing many app updates this week, with some users reporting 100+ apps flagged for updates over the course of a couple days
- There’s no solid info on why, but this may have been the fix to a problem causing some apps to stop opening properly, showing an error saying “This app is no longer shared with you”
macOS 10.15.5 is out now, including new battery health management features to extend the overall lifespan of a Mac’s battery, especially when you keep a laptop plugged in all the time
- It also brings options to turn off Facetime video resizing to show the active speaker, issues with Finder freezing during large file transfers and a bunch of other bugs
With the iOS 13.5 release last week Alberta’s ABTraceTogether contact tracing app is apparently getting an update to support the secure Apple/Google exposure notification API, but there’s still no solid word on when that’s happening
- Unfortunately many can’t even use it in its current state, with some devices purchased brand-new even three years ago unable to run the version of Android it requires
  - The app requires Android 8 or newer, leaving about 2/5 of Android phones unable to download it
  - To contrast, more than 95% of all active iPhones support the minimum iOS 11 required
The new Unc0ver jailbreak for iPhones is now available, and can hack anything from iOS 11 to the latest 13.5 that was just released
- Apparently this is the first time a jailbreak has worked on all devices on launch day since iOS 10, according to the security researcher who discovered the vulnerability
Facebook is reportedly planning to allow its staff to work from home on a permanent basis even after the current crisis is over
- Zuckerberg is expecting about half of his workforce to take advantage of the new program, though salaries will be adjusted according to living costs in their location
- Apparently they’ll be verifying employee home addresses by monitoring their access to company systems
Due to pandemic concerns, Blizzcon 2020 has officially been cancelled
- The convention’s executive producer, Saralyn Smith, released a statement saying that they still want to connect with fans online but, because this is new-ish territory with a lot of factors involved like their esports competitions, rather than having anything this fall it will likely be sometime early next year

Alan finished Network Effect, the first full-length Murderbot Diaries novel, this week, and it was damn good

Martha Wells does a fantastic job of showing a future that is equal parts exciting, promising, and bleak, with a very realistic balance of utopian and dystopian worlds
For not being interested in being at all human, Murderbot is such a good example of our foibles and fallacies while also being basically super-human at times
If you liked the novellas you’ll love this book, and if you’re interested in solid sci-fi you’ll be in for a good time

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!

1 2 3 4 »

Tag: Multiplayer

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!

Security PSA: Update your Adobe Acrobat and Adobe Reader software

Free games

PlayStation

Middle-Earth: Shadow of War (free 4K Cinematic Pack is also available)

Hollow Knight: Voidheart Edition

Bugsnax (PS5)

Xbox

Aragami: Shadow Edition

Maid of Sker

Swimsanity

Lego Indiana Jones

Full Spectrum Warrior

Twitch

A Knight’s Quest

Smoke and Sacrifice

Aurion: Legacy of the Kori-Odan

Victor Vran Overkill Edition

Lethis – Path of Progress

Extreme Exorcism

Epic Games

Dungeons 3

Epic slApple fight