PS2J 338 News – Tracing Rays or Frames

Free Games

  • Epic Games

    • Surviving Mars

      • 2018
      • City building simulation from the developers of the Tropico series modelled after real Martian data that has you building a colony on Mars by manufacturing resources and constructing buildings to ensure the survival of the colonists
      • This was given away by Epic back in October 2019, so you may already have it in your library

Security updates are available for Macs, iPhones, iPads, and Apple Watches now

  • The updates aren’t flashy, and they haven’t released the fancy new watch-unlock for masks yet, but they fix a nasty vulnerability where attackers could use a malicious website to execute arbitrary code on your device, giving them the ability to hijack it
  • You’re safe if you’re running at least iOS 14.4.1, watchOS 7.3.2, and macOS 11.2.3

An estimated 60,000 US organizations, along with hundreds of thousands more worldwide, have been hacked recently thanks to holes in Microsoft’s Exchange mail software

  • A previously unidentified Chinese cyber espionage group that Microsoft dubbed Hafnium has apparently been using a combination of four newly-discovered flaws in Microsoft Exchange Server to gain complete remote control over affected systems
  • This has allowed them to siphon email communications from targets ranging from small business and local governments to banks, police, infectious disease researchers, and defence contractors
  • According to security researchers these hacks have been going on since at least January, and though Microsoft released emergency security updates on March 2nd there are still many organizations that have not yet patched their systems, leading to the Hafnium group amping up their attacks and actively scanning the internet for vulnerable systems
  • The worst part is that even if you’ve installed the security updates, if you were already compromised there is still a high chance that the hacking group has installed remote access tools on your server
  • Microsoft has commented that they’re working closely with the US Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), along with other government agencies and security companies, to provide guidance and mitigation for its customers, and encourages anyone impacted to contact their support teams for help and resources
  • In the meantime the CISA has issued an emergency directive ordering all federal departments and agencies to either update the software or unplug the servers, and they’re urging scanning all Exchange Server logs with Microsoft’s detection tool to help determine if you’ve been compromised

Rumours of an upcoming Apple event are ramping up, with signs pointing to it occurring on March 23rd

  • We’re expecting more information about iOS 14.5 and App Tracking Transparency, as well as the release of the now-essential Unlock With Apple Watch feature for times when FaceID fails because of a mask
  • Other rumours circling have the release of AirTags, Apple’s Tile-like tracker, popping up around this time
    • I’ve also seen a new beta feature called “Item Safety Features” that will alert you if there is a tracker following you that you don’t own, so that they can’t be used as easily for nefarious purposes
  • And there have been suggestions that new iPads will be coming with mini-LED displays and faster processors
    • This one seems especially likely after reddit user nanosplitter21 found an iPad case on a shelf in Target marked as being compatible with the “New iPad 11” (2021)”, and when they tried to purchase it the till said it could not be sold until April 6th

Microsoft’s acquisition of ZeniMax Media is officially complete, and they’ve publicly welcomed Bethesda, id, Arkane, and more to the Xbox team

  • The announcement wrapped up by saying that more Bethesda games are coming to Game Pass later this week, adding more value to the juggernaut subscription service
  • As of March 12 we’ll be able to play the DIshonored and Doom series, Fallout New Vegas, Fallout 4 and 76, Prey, Rage 2, Elder Scrolls Morrowind, Skyrim, and Online, The Evil Within, and the new Wolfenstein series
  • It’s a good time to have an Xbox

You might have heard that Denuvo software has come to the PS5- well the good news is it’s not as bad as you may have feared

  • Denuvo anti-cheat software made a bad name for itself causing performance issues on PC games like Doom Eternal and demanding the ability to access a worrying amount of information on your computer
  • The Denuvo piece on PS5 is actually a pretty different beast- it’s a lot more like the anti-cheat and anti-piracy software that was available on the PS4 (which was also by Denuvo)
  • All that’s happening here is that code from the same company (but not the same code that caused problems on PC) is being made available in the PS5 tools library, making it easier for developers to prevent hacking and modding of their titles

This Week In Gaming History

March 6 – 1996 – Ripper – DOS, Macintosh

  • Ripper is an interactive FMV adventure that is played out in the New York of 2040.
    • Brutal killings reminiscent of Jack the Ripper soon get personal and you, crime reporter Jake Quinlan, must solve the mystery.
  • The game plays much like other Take 2 Interactive works, such as Black Dahlia.
    • Solve puzzles and react quickly in combat settings to survive. There are 4 possible endings, and 3 hours of video footage.
  • Thank you to Jeanne and J. Jones for this interesting trivia I found on the Moby Games site.
    • Your CD-Rom drive may not be recognized if it is not designated as Drive D.
      • In addition, it appears that Ripper was not made as a Windows “native” game.
      • While it will run within a DOS window when started in Windows, problems with stuttering sound and lagging graphics are common. The game plays best from the DOS prompt using a Boot Disk.
    • If at the command prompt you accidentally type RIPER (one P) instead of RIPPER (two P’s), instead of going into the game you are greeted with a movie of a rotting apple!
    • Features an all-star cast including Christopher Walken, Burgess Meredith, Karen Allen, John Rhys-Davies, Paul Giamatti, Jimmie JJ Walker and Scott Cohen.
      • Ripper also features music from the Blue Oyster Cult.

 

March 7 – 2000 – ChuChu Rocket! – Dreamcast (North America)

  • ChuChu Rocket is an action puzzler, designed predominantly as a multi-player game.
    • You have indirect control over mice, and must guide them to the safety of a rocket, and away from a cat.
    • You do this by placing arrows on the ground, which they will follow.
    • The multi-player game is a frantic all-against-all duel, in which each player’s mice will only follow instructions of their own colour.
    • You can play this mode on your own against CPU opponents, or take on a series of predefined puzzles
  • After closing their hardware development branch, ChuChu Rocket! became the first video game released by SEGA on another console, namely the Game Boy Advance, in 2001.
  • The Dreamcast and Game Boy Advance versions of ChuChu Rocket appear in the book 1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die by General Editor Tony Mott.

March 8 – 2011 – Dragon Age II – PS3, Windows, Xbox 360

  • Plot:
    • One of the key events early in the first game was the destruction of the village Lothering by the Darkspawn.
    • However, we weren’t told that there was at least one person who survived the onslaught: a human named Hawke.
    • Having become a refugee, Hawke travels to an area known as the Free Marches – more specifically, the city of Kirkwall. Hawke’s family shares the fate with many other Ferelden refugees; the authorities of Kirkwall are suspicious of the newcomers, and the path to financial stability is anything but easy.
    • Meanwhile, the appearance of the mysterious race of Qunari heralds more trouble to the inhabitants of Kirkwall, as does the growing tension between the Templars and the mages.
    • Hawke is caught in the middle of these political and social conflicts – what shall be the hero’s own path?..
  • Dragon Age II uses a “framed narrative” format: the story is narrated over a decade later by one of Hawke’s companions.
    • Similarly to Alpha Protocol, the narrative is rather flexible; motivations and events vary depending on the player’s moral choices during the game.
    • The game also adopts the “wheel-based” dialogue system from Mass Effect games: short responses that reflect different tones and attitudes the player wishes to choose for Hawke.
    • Also similarly to Mass Effect, the main character’s race and name cannot be changed; however, everything else (appearance, gender, classes) can be freely customized.
  • The combat system is quite similar to the one used in the previous Dragon Age game (which, in its turn, dates back to the combat style used in Baldur’s Gate), though it has been noticeably sped up.
    • Hawke can only be human, but the player can customize his or her physical appearance and character class (warrior, mage, or rogue).
    • The player controls Hawke and up to three active party members, either “programming” their actions by assigning actions that should be taken under certain conditions (for example, healing a party member if his HP drops below 20%), or issuing commands to each character manually.
    • The ability tree is also similar, the player being able to learn new abilities as the characters level up. Many abilities from the first game return, but some are absent or replaced with new ones.
    • The abilities are divided into various disciplines, which correspond to the fighting style of the character.
  • Cancelled expansion
    • An expansion to Dragon Age II, named Exalted March, was planned, but cancelled before announcement.
    • Bioware’s reasoning was that other opportunities for the franchises came up, and that there was no room for it because Bioware’s team sizes are fixed and all of them were busy with projects.

March 9 – 1998 – Yoshi’s Story – Nintendo 64

  • Loosely based on the Super Famicom/SNES game Super Mario World 2: Yoshi’s Island, Yoshi’s Story follows the adventures of six Yoshis as they search through sunny woods, dark caves, soaring mountains, steaming jungles, vast oceans, and gloomy castles for the Super Happy Tree, which has been stolen by the dreaded Baby Bowser.
    • Yoshi can walk, run, swim, leap, flutter, and fire his payload of eggs. The action takes place in storybook “pages” made up of bookmaking materials and other familiar textures, including cut-paper forests, denim clouds, inflatable plastic islands, and stacks of colored spools.
  • The game pioneers use of the Rumble Pak as a key element of the gameplay experience, the player being able to feel invisible but treacherous currents when Yoshi swims through oceanic depths.
    • The Rumble Pak can also help the player locate hidden fruit or other objects by rumbling when Yoshi smells something.
    • With a light touch of the Control Stick it becomes possible to float on a leaf, ride a friendly dragon, and tiptoe past a swarm of angry bees.
  • Cancelled GBA Port
    • One of the first Game Boy Advance demos was a level from Yoshi’s Story.
    • However, it was eventually decided that the downgrades would be too significant, so it wasn’t made into a full game.

March 10 – 2009 – MadWorld – Wii

  • MadWorld is a stylish action beat-em up game, that puts player in the role of a police detective gone rogue and taking part in a violent TV show, in which contestants are encouraged to mutilate each other in increasingly violent and gruesome ways.
  • The game’s unique presentation is achieved through a three-colour palette scheme.
    • All the environments, objects and characters are rendered in black and white, as if drawn in a comic book.
    • The only other colour present is red, which accounts for the gallons of blood flowing from the victims of Jack, the game’s protagonist.
    • Aside from being inspired by comic books, MadWorld’s presentation is also taking hints from the competitive TV shows, with two over-enthusiastic hosts commenting every event happening in the game.
  • The core of the MadWorld experience is a series of challenges, player must take part in.
    • Each challenge presents a confined arena, in which player should score points by defeating his enemies in the most elaborate way possible and take part in the so-called Bloodbath-Challenges, which present additional rules and timed mini-games (like ManDarts or ManGolf) for racking up the points.
    • Once a sufficient amount of points was met, players must fight a unique boss enemy for the current challenge.
    • When boss is defeated, the player will be free to proceed to the next challenge.
  • The game also features a heavy use of quick time events in conjuncture with Wii motion-sensitive controls for the finishing moves, mini-games and general tasks, such as avoiding being hit by the enemy.

March 11 – 2014 – Titanfall – Windows, Xbox One

  • Titanfall is a first-person multiplayer shooter for up to twelve players simultaneously.
    • Set on a war-torn planet with two factions (Interstellar Manufacturing Corporation (IMC) and the Militia), it features battles between pilots on foot or boarding large mech-style Titans.
    • The game can be played in six game modes: Attrition (team deathmatch with hostage rescuers against kidnappers), Capture the Flag, Hardpoint (capture and hold three locations), Last Titan Standing (last player alive wins, all players start in a Titan), Pilot Hunter (score for the team by killing pilots, not Titans – at the end of the match there is an epilogue where respawns are disabled and the losing team needs to reach an evacuation point/dropship for additional experience points), and Variety Pack (mix of all game modes).
    • There is also a Campaign mode for each faction with a mix of different game modes and bits of story between each mission.
  • The game is fast-paced and while on foot pilots are able to wall jump and link jumps in a parkour style using a jet-boosted belt.
    • In a general game players start by choosing a pilot type.
    • Some of the available weapons include assault rifles, SMGs, shotguns, sniper rifles and smart pistols.
    • During the match a timer counts down (generally three minutes) until a Titan can be deployed.
    • The timer countdown can be shortened by killing other players.
    • When a Titan drops down from the sky a pilot can board it. Playing as a Titan has completely different movement, but it is still agile.
    • The pilot’s double jump is for instance replaced by a dash as a Titan cannot jump, crouch or seek cover.
    • A Titan has very different weapons and is much stronger to take on other Titans.
    • It can be ejected at any time when under attack and it is possible to issue commands to have it follow or guard you.
    • Other players can attempt to board and throw out a player.
    • These can be repelled by activating electric smoke and a Titan has also distinct abilities such as the vortex blocker to stop incoming projectiles, gather them and return them in midair.
    • It is also possible to crush pilots.
    • When a Titan is destroyed a new countdown timer is started.
  • Other game elements include burn cards (up to three per match) for temporary power-ups and AI-controlled minions with three types: grunts, marvins and spectres.
    • The game has a persistent experience system and pilots can level up.
    • This influences for instance the loadouts for both pilots and Titans prior to each match.
    • The available slots for pilots offer room a primary weapon with mod and/or attachment, an anti-Titan weapon, sidearm, tactical ability (for instance cloak, stim or active radar pulse) and kits with specific abilities for different tiers.
    • For a Titan the loadout consists of the chassis, primary weapon with mod, tactical ability, ordinance weapon and different kits.

March 12 – 2018 – Oedipus Dating Sim – Windows

  • “Thousands of years ago, lived a man named Oedipus, king of Thebes and slayer of The Sphinx.
    • A man whose fate was to kill his father, Laius, and then marry his own mother, Jocasta.
    • But what if he could have gamed the system and cheated his own fate?”
  • With the generous help of three fates and Dionysus, the Olympian god with his own TV show, your task is to find a date for Oedipus
    • But it won’t be as straightforward as it seems. At first, you won’t know their true identities.
    • Once you romance each character to a certain level, their true identity will be revealed to you.
    • After that, you must avoid pairing Oedipus with Jocasta.
    • A piece of cake, right? Well, other complications will certainly arise and maybe, with a little ingenuity, you can even end up with Jocasta and not be punished for it. But how?
  • This game was designed with replayability in mind.
    • That means that there are many different choices to make, with lots of nooks and crannies to explore.
    • While the overall structure of having 15 days with 4 time periods each remains the same every time you play, each character’s American name, location in the Casino Hotel and alcoholic beverage of choice will change.
    • If you have additional questions not answered by the dialog trees, you can also try typing the question directly to the character.

Tidbits

  • Tesla has admitted to California that their ‘Full Self Driving’ mode is not actually capable of being fully self driving
    • The feature costs Tesla owners up to $10,000 to unlock on top of the original purchase price of their car, but according to correspondence between Tesla’s general counsel and the California DMV it is not an autonomous system, and currently no features on the car make their vehicles autonomous
  • Utah legislature has passed a bill mandating a default “porn filter” on any electronic devices sold in the state starting in 2022
    • What exactly that might entail is anyone’s guess, and how they plan on enforcing it is an even better question
  • T-Mobile announced that, starting April 26, they’ll be selling their customers’ web and mobile app data to advertisers unless they specifically opt out
    • A spokesperson said “We’ve heard many say they prefer more relevant ads so we’re defaulting to this setting,”, and I’m sure this has nothing to do with advertising companies paying top dollar for tracking information going forward
  • Apex Legends hit the Nintendo Switch on Tuesday, and early reactions are that is just isn’t very good, running at both lower resolutions and frame rates than other platforms and leaving its players at a competitive disadvantage
    • Worst part is that, though you can opt to only play with other people on Switch, by default you’re thrown into the wild with all the players on other consoles that can see and react better than you can
  • Daylight savings is coming up this Sunday, and since it happens twice a year it’s a good reminder to do general maintenance like clean your gutters, change the batteries in your smoke alarms, and rate/review us!

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PS2J 327 News – RemindMe! 2191 Days

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

Free Games

  • Xbox

    • The Raven Remastered

      • 2018 remaster from 2014
      • Episodic point and click adventure game incorporating elements of stealth and detective work, it’s a noir mystery story that has you playing a bumbling Swiss police constable on the hunt of a notorious jewel thief

    • Bleed 2

      • 2017
      • Side-scrolling arcade action platformer featuring air-dodging, bullet-reflecting, and tons of bosses, like a 2D Bayonetta bullet-hell

    • Saints Row: Gat out of Hell

      • 2015
      • Action-adventure open world game that serves as an epilogue to Saints Row IV and is a standalone expansion, featuring the same kind of over-the-top third-person shooter action and superhuman abilities that Saints Row became known for in later entries

    • Stacking

      • 2011
      • Adventure puzzle game developed by Double Fine Productions, created during the development period of Brütal Legend, and based on the Russian stacking matryoshka dolls where you can stack and unstack into other characters to use their abilities and solve puzzles

  • PlayStation

    • Worms Rumble

      • 2020
      • A twist on the classic Worms blueprint, where instead of turn-by-turn strategic combat it’s real-time with up to 32 players in battle royale or deathmatch modes
      • Launching simultaneously on the PS4, PS5, and Steam with full crossplay and planned ongoing content updates including arenas, customizations, game modes, and more

    • Just Cause 4

      • 2018
      • Open world action adventure game where you work to take down The Black Hand, the world’s biggest private military, with your wingsuit, grappling hook, rocket boosters, and a variety of weaponry. The game uses a new version of the game engine of Just Cause 3, featuring diverse and extreme weather including blizzards, sandstorms, tornadoes, and more

    • Rocket Arena

      • 2020
      • Online third-person 3v3 shooter where each character has unique abilities and signature rockets, and when you get blasted out of the arena you fly your rocket right back in to the action. Polygon called it a blend of Quake-style combat with Smash Bros violence

    • Bugsnax (still free this month, too)

      • 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

    • And if you’re lucky enough to get a PS5, you’ll get access to the PS Plus Collection

      • 20 great games from the PS4 era that can help you catch up if you missed out

  • Epic Games

    • MudRunner

      • 2017
      • Off-road driving sim that advertises itself as the ultimate off-road experience, putting players in the driver seat across extreme Siberian landscapes with only a map and compass as guides

Security alert: Go SMS Pro, a popular Android messaging app, exposed millions of users’ private photos and files

  • Security researchers found a flaw in the app back in August and contacted the developer with a 90-day deadline for a fix before they disclosed the issue, but after no communication back at all for the three month period they went public
  • Apparently when Go SMS Pro sends a photo, video, or other file to someone without the app, it gets uploaded to the app’s servers and lets the user share a web address, so that the recipient can see the file
  • Unfortunately the web addresses are sequential- any time a file is shared, a web address is generated that lets people browse through all the different files uploaded by other users
    • Once you know the predictable web address, you can just edit the number and view anyone else’s files
  • And this problem is pretty widespread- Go SMS Pro has more than 100M installs, according to the Google Play Store
  • TechCrunch even verified the findings, viewing a person’s phone number, a bank transfer, an order confirmation, an arrest record, and many explicit photos
  • While it’s not possible to target a specific user, an attacker could create scripts to just grab anything and everything to filter through at a later date
  • In investigating the story TechCrunch emailed two different addresses associated with the app- one bounced back due to a full inbox, and the other opened the email but did not reply
  • This definitely isn’t what you want in a messaging app, so if you’re using Go SMS Pro you might want to consider an alternative

Updates have officially been released for Spider-Man on the PS4 and PS5 to allow game-saves to be brought in to the next-gen remaster

  • You’ll need to load up your PS4 copy first and upload your save from the main menu before you can import it on the PS5, so if you don’t have access to your old copy you might need to recruit a friend to help out
  • Luckily even though I already gave away my PS4 I could still boot up my old digital copy of Spider-Man to upload my save, ahead of buying Miles Morales

6 Years ago, the Apple subreddit thought of what a Phone in 2020 would be like

  • We browsed the comments for highlights live on the show

This Day In Gaming History

November 21 – 2014 – The Amazing Frog? – Linux, Mac, Ouya

  • Amazing Frog? is a Hardcore Parkour openworld buffet of bonkers physics sandbox gameplay.
    • Welcome to the town of Swindon, UK. Home to flatulant super hero, Amazing Frog?
  • Enter Swindon where you can drive cars, buses and mobility scooters, jump on trampolines, fire yourself out of cannons, into explosions, search for trophies and Tvs and reach the heights and a whole lot more.
    • Its your Swindon do as you please.
  • Take a quiet trip to the Swindon fArt Gallery if it pleases you….
    • Feeling aggressive ? find a crossbow, machine gun or laser and shoot the hell out of each other.
    • Visit the Fart Gyms for a workout or discover the Zombie filled underground Sewers.
  • Key Features:
    • a 20Km Landscape
    • A whole bunch of vehicles
    • 4 player split screen
    • Oculus VR support.
    • Pigging backs… and pigs
    • ridiculous ragdolls, trampolines, cannons and explosions
    • Weapons like crossbows lasers and machine-guns
    • Vicious Sharks
    • Swimmming ish and Boats in the ocean
    • Fully fitted Fart Gym
    • Underground Zombie Frogs in the Sewers
    • A Giant chessboard
    • A bunch of test rooms
    • and a whole lot of mystery…

November 22 – 1996 – Command & Conquer: Red Alert – Windows, DOS

  • What if Hitler never existed?
    • Einstein pondered the question and created a time-machine to eliminate Hitler as a young man, thus preventing World War II as history remembers it. However, Einstein stopped one evil only to create another – because Stalin’s Soviet Union is now poised to conquer Europe… and Allies must stop them!
  • Josh says
    • “This was one game I played a hell of a lot of, I remember making custom maps for my Dad to try out in the skirmish mode.”
  • The German version removes Hitler from the intro and replaces all the soldiers with cyborgs.
  • Command & Conquer: Red Alert appears in the book 1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die by General Editor Tony Mott.

November 23 – 1998 – The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time – N64

  • A game that needs no introduction, I have some trivia to talk about
    • Ocarina of Time started life in development for Nintendo’s 64DD add-on for the Nintendo 64 (which was a disk drive that was only released in Japan with little fanfare).
      • The 64DD flopped in Japan and it wasn’t even released in the USA.
      • As a result, instead of being released in disks, the game was crammed into a cartridge (which was the biggest N64 pre-Expansion Pak cartridge released, in terms of space).
      • Even though it was originally developed and planned for the 64DD, it was announced to much surprise that Zelda would release in cartridge form for the N64 first; further indicating that the disk drive platform was not gaining the traction Nintendo had hoped for.
    • Due to overwhelming fan requests, Nintendo decided to release the original production releases of the game as a gold-colored cartridge, restoring the ‘golden cartridge’ lineage that had previously been broken by the SNES version of The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, and The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening for Game Boy.
    • There are at least three different versions of the game: 1.0, 1.1 and 1.2. The golden (limited edition) carts, as well as some gray carts, are all 1.0.
      • The majority of the ordinary gray carts are 1.1, and many of the later produced ones are 1.2.
      • The only notable change between 1.0 and 1.1 is that the Fire Temple music was changed a little bit.
        • It had a chant from an Islamic prayer looped in the background which offended some members of the Islamic community.
      • 1.1 also fixed some bugs, the most famous of them being the sword-losing bug.
        • In 1.0, if the player saves the game in the end battle after losing the Master Sword, and restart the game, they don’t have the sword anymore, but they can use all items while riding Epona.
        • Also the final boss originally had red blood which was changed to green in a later version.
    • Link has always been left-handed, but it is particularly noticeable starting with this game. In the original title, this wasn’t always noticeable due to sprite-flipping techniques.
      • The reason for Link’s left-handedness is that his creator, Shigeru Miyamoto, is also left-handed.
  • The N64 version of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time appears in the book 1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die by General Editor Tony Mott.

November 24 – 1992 – Sonic The Hedgehog 2 – Genesis

  • Widely regarded as the best classic Sonic games
    • 10 Zones, most with 2 acts, you can play alone or with a friend
    • Tail was introduced and made playable, the player can also select what combination of Sonic and Tails to play.
      • Unfortunately, I though it would be cute to have a big brother mode where the player is Tails being followed by Sonic.
  • When Sonic collects all seven Chaos Emeralds and transforms from a blue rodent into a fiery yellow powerhouse with insane speed.
    • It may be a parody of Dragon Ball, the insanely popular flagship work of manga artist Akira Toriyama.
    • The hero Goku is able to eventually transform into a “Super Saiyan”, a form in which he gains immense power along with spiky golden hair.
    • The first Super Sayin appearance was in Dragon Ball 318, Also known as DBZ 124, which was released in Shonen Jump, March 26, 1991.
  • The Mega Drive version of Sonic the Hedgehog 2 appears in the book 1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die by General Editor Tony Mott.

November 25 – 2000 – JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure – Dreamcast

  • This is a compilation of the arcade titles: JoJo’s Venture and JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure
    • This game adapts Part 4 of the series, Stardust Crusaders.
    • The game is a one-on-one fighter, similar in gameplay to most of Capcom’s other fighting games.
    • In this game, however, you can call upon your Stand to access an entirely different set of normal attacks and gain additional defense and offensive bonuses.
    • Your Stand’s power is not infinite, however – if you take enough damage, it’ll break, leaving you open to a devastating counter attack.
    • Every character’s Stand has their own special powers which can be used to your advantage.
    • Jojo’s Venture has less characters than Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure, and Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure has a special Challenge mode that lets you unlock playable characters when you complete it with certain characters.

November 26 – 2010 – Michael Jackson: The Experience – Wii

  • Michael Jackson: The Experience for the Wii is rhythm and dance game based on concepts previously introduced in Ubisoft’s Just Dance series.
    • Unlike most dance games, Michael Jackson: The Experience does not require the Wii Balance Board or other peripherals.
    • The game is played with a single Wii Remote which tracks the player as they try and perform the onscreen dance moves in-sync with the game.
    • The Wii version features a training mode with video guides, four player multiplayer, and a Career mode that spans Jackson’s career from the 80’s onward.
    • Each stage is inspired by the song’s music video and are created in 3D with live action dancers inserted.
  • This game released 17 months after the passing of Micheal Jackson

November 27 – 2017 – Desert Bus VR – Windows

  • Desert Bus is back and better than ever!
    • The 1998 Penn and Teller cult hit mini-game is coming to virtual reality, so you can fully immerse yourself in the thrilling eight-hour trip from Arizona to Nevada.
    • It’s almost like you’re driving the “wheel” thing!
    • Desert Bus VR can also be played in standard digital reality if you don’t own a VR headset.
  • Features
    • Put the Pedal to the Metal
      • Show everyone who rules the road as you take the wheel of a commercial passenger bus. With blistering speeds of up to 45mph and a prominent passenger side misalignment, only the hardest drivers can make it to Nevada and back!
    • Getting Towed Has Never Been More Fun
      • Experience the realistic consequences of driving off the road with a tow service that takes you back to the start in real time!
    • Play Non-Stop for Hours of Amusement
      • Enjoy the action-packed eight-hour road trip from Tuscon to Las Vegas. When you make it to Nevada, turn around and do it all again!
    • Fill the Crushing, Oppressive Silence
      • Tune in to a variety of engaging radio programs, including one featuring the dulcet tones of Penn Jillette himself. You can even turn the radio on and off!
    • Get the Authentic Bus Driving Experience
      • Learn what it’s like to be a REAL bus driver with exciting gameplay that allows you to honk the horn and open the bus door! Tap the fully-interactive air freshener for some hardcore, pine-scented* action!
      • *Purchase of air freshener required for full effect.
    • Join Your Friends on This Road Trip
      • Play with up to four friends in Desert Bus VR’s groundbreaking new multiplayer mode. Passengers can sit, wave, and even throw wads of paper at the driver!
  • Desert Bus VR was made in-part to support Desert Bus for Hope, a volunteer organization that holds the eponymous annual event to raise money for game industry charity Child’s Play.
    • Participants play Desert Bus in a telethon-style stream, with others pledging donations in exchange for incentives that can include everything from prizes to increasing the length of the Desert Bus play time.
  • Desert Bus VR does not appear in the book 1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die

Tidbits

  • If you’re a Chrome user moving to one of Apple’s new M1 Macs, you’ll want to get rid of your old copy and manually download the right version
    • In a weird move they’re offering two different downloads- one that just works on Intel Macs, and another that works on both Intel and Apple processors
    • The universal installer is a larger download, but with it running much faster on the M1 chip you’ll want to make sure you grab the correct one
  • Super Mario Maker 1 will officially be removed from the Nintendo eShop on January 12, 2021, and course uploads will be disabled as of March 31st
    • Owners will be able to re-download the title after removal, and previously uploaded courses can still be played
  • If you need a little bit of email catharsis, check out hey.science/dumpster-fire where you can send an email to a literal physical dumpster fire
    • Emails to dumpsterfire@hey.com will be printed off and carried into the flames via conveyor belt on a Twitch stream running 9am to 8pm Central

 

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PS2J 305 News – Willed DLC Spaceship

Free Games

  • Epic Games

    • Pathway

      • 2020
      • Isometric strategy adventure game set in the wilderness in the 1930’s that has you exploring the strange unknown. Unravel long-forgotten mysteries of the occult, raid ancient tombs and outwit your foes in turn-based squad combat

  • GOG

    • The Witcher 3, if you own it on a connected account like PS4, Xbox, Steam, etc

      • 2015
      • Action RPG that focuses on narrative and worldbuilding as you go through the land taking on quests and slaying monsters, all the while searching for your missing adoptive daughter before she’s caught by the Wild Hunt
      • The free edition will match what you own on the connected service, either base game or GOTY edition. Players that bought the DLC separately unfortunately don’t get any consideration

The Supreme Court of the US issued a historic decision on workplace protections, ruling 6-3 that discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity is illegal under an existing Civil Rights era law

  • The existing law, Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, bars discrimination on the basis of sex. The justices has determined that it extends beyond just the gender you were assigned at birth to your orientation and identity as well
  • Before this, LGBTQ+ workers in more than half of the US had no legal protection against discrimination, and could be fired, demoted, or paid less because of who they are
  • Even multiple educators lauded as Teacher of the Year in different states were discriminated against, bullied, threatened, and fired because of their identity and what they do in their spare time, like counselling LGBTQ+ youth or other non-heteronormative community outreach
    • One was even placed on administrative leave for mentioning her same-gender fiance during a welcome-back presentation to returning students

A new company called OpenCore Computer, with no official affiliation with the OpenCore Bootloader, has launched a commercial Hackintosh computer that has Apple’s lawyers salivating

  • The OpenCore Bootloader is a piece of software developed by enthusiasts that, in theory, would allow you to run macOS on standard PC hardware
  • Apparently a group has taken advantage of that free software to create OpenCore Computer, who claims that they hope to make Mac Pro style workstations more accessible. And you can get a pretty solid system for a bit over $2G USD
  • The problem is that Apple’s licensing agreement, since macOS is completely free, is that it should only run on official Apple hardware. Building your own Hackintosh is a grey area at best, and doing it professionally is solidly illegal
  • They seem to know that their work is fishy right from the get-go too, with payments only accepted in Bitcoin to try and get around the licensing in regards to accepting payments, and using an escrow service so that they get your coins through a middle-man after shipping
  • At the end of the day, if you want a Hackintosh you’re probably better off going on Reddit and following a pre-existing guide. It’s not terribly hard, especially for a hobbyist. And someone who needs the full performance of a Mac Pro would be better off either buying the real deal or switching to Windows, since I doubt the after-market support is up to snuff

EA revealed the upcoming Star Wars: Squadrons, and the details they’ve let loose so far are a radical departure for the company

  • There’s not a lot about gameplay yet, but the trailer looks really cool
  • The biggest shocks are that it’s cross-platform, has a single-player campaign, supports VR, will sell for $40 USD with no microtransactions, and is releasing on Steam rather than Origin
    • If they throw in stick and throttle support this could be a legitimate competitor with the likes of Elite: Dangerous
  • The news, unfortunately, has left many people that were still hoping for a Titanfall 3 disappointed that the “Where Pilots come to play” promo material was completely unrelated

Reddit user RobertAPetersen has set up a really slick shortcut for iOS for if you get stopped by the police

  • Triggered by telling Siri “I’m being pulled over”, it pauses your music, turns down screen brightness, turns on Do Not Disturb, sends a text to the contacts of your choosing with your location letting them know you’re being pulled over, then starts recording video with the front-facing camera
  • And after you’re done recording it will send the video to any contacts you specify and give you the option to upload it to the cloud
  • This is a really good idea even for just my low-level paranoia about police, and I’m white. For people of colour these kinds of tools are a godsend for accountability that clearly just isn’t there in law enforcement

8 years after its successful Kickstarter campaign and still with no release in sight, Star Citizen has now become the most expensive game in history

  • With them still pre-selling copies of the game and different in-game rewards like ships and skins, they’ve managed to surpass the development costs of both GTA V and The Old Republic with a whopping $350M invested to date
  • At this point with all that money and still just sitting at Alpha 3.9 they really have no incentive to ever release, and I’m beginning to think that my $30 pledge for a ship and lifetime insurance might just amount to the JPEGS they already emailed me
    • On the plus side, since I backed it so early they gave me a bunch of extra stuff like a BB-12 Manned Maneuvering Unit and a Preacher Armament Inquisition XXII Gatling. So that’s something, whatever those are
  • In the time since Star Citizen was first funded, Elite Dangerous was Kickstarted, developed, released, given DLC, and is now considered to be an older game

Mei added to Heroes of the Storm

  • The louder people in the Heroes of the Storm fan-base cries out
    • Very similar to the complaining of Fire Emblem characters being added to Smashm
    • I am happy for any character added to either game, more the merrier
  • She is a Tank character, which is different from her Overwatch role of DPS
    • Strong with Crowd Control, Mobility and Survivability
    • Weak against Siege and Burst Damage
  • Her active trait is Cryo-Freeze
    • Mei encases herself in ice gaining a temporary decaying shield and heals up to 35% max health
  • Q is Snow Blind
    • Throws a snowball that hits enemies in an area
    • Deals damage, slows by 35% and Blinds for 1.5 seconds
  • W is Blizzard
    • Snowball creates a blizzard at target location for 2 seconds
    • Enemies take damage every .25 seconds, are slowed by 7% and stacks up to 35%
    • When the Blizzard ends, enemies take extra damage and  and are stunned for 1.25 seconds
  • E is Icing
    • Mei slides quickly in the targeted direction
    • When the effect ends enemies at Mei’s location are knocked back
    • They also take damage and are slowed by 80%, decaying over 1.5 seconds
  • Mei’s first Ultimate is Avalanche
    • After a .5 seconds, a massive snowball rolls forward and consumes enemy heroes in its path
    • At the end of its path it deals huge damage to enemies and stuns them for .5 seconds per hero
  • Mei’s second Ultimate is Ice Wall
    • After a .75 delay an impassible wall emerges and traps enemy heroes in it
    • After 2.5 seconds, the wall crumbles and trapped heroes are freed and slowed by 75% decaying over 3 seconds

Pokemon Snap 2

  • From the Pokemon Twitter
    • We got a minute teaser
  • Shows it will be similar to the original
      • Taking pictures from a safe capsule on a track
        • The one in the trailer uses a invisible tack seen through augmented reality for the character inside
      • Apples are going to be used as bait again
      • Digital camera upgrade
        • Tracks subjects like newer smartphones can
  • New Pokemon featured
    • Seems like an Alola area with all kinds of pokemon
    • The first game did not feature all original 151
      • It will be interesting to see all that are actively in the game
        • And those referenced, like Mewtwo was a constellation
      • Also a pidgeotto swoop on a magikarp

Tidbits

  • Google has committed $175M toward supporting black businesses, and announced plans to increase underrepresented people in its leadership by 30% by 2025
    • It’s a start, but with black employees accounting for less than 4% of their workforce Google still has some work to do with diversity
  • The European Union has opened anti-trust investigations against Apple this week, following complaints by Spotify and Rakuten over Apple’s 30% cut on subscriptions and ebook sales through apps on its platform
  • Slay the Spire has released on iOS, and it’s a ton of fun with a bunch of asterisks
    • It’s a roguelike deckbuilding card game and not bad for $14 CAD, and I’ve been playing it a lot, but the mobile port is missing a lot of polish
    • It’s very faithful to the original, which is great in some ways for people who want a familiar experience but not so great in others- simple things like trying to read your cards is a bit of a mess, since they magnet directly under your fingertip, and on an iPhone without a home button if I’m trying to swipe the game close there’s a good change it will accidentally play a random card while I try
    • Also, it might work a bit better on an iPad but on my phone the text is pretty dang small. The resolution and controls seem pretty much unchanged from when I played it on PC, which is unfortunate because it’s a lot of fun
    • It initially launched at a full 5* rating, but while it’s maintained the top spot in card games on the app store it’s already slipped down to a 3.8 because of these issues

 

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PS2J 291 News – Boring School Stuff Folder

Free Games

  • Epic Games

    • GoNNER

      • 2016
      • A roguelike game often described as a shooter version of Spelunky- a procedurally generated 2D platformer that has you journeying in deep and dark places for a trinket to cheer up a giant landbound whale named Sally

    • Offworld Trading Company

      • 2016
      • A sci-fi RTS from the publishers of Sins of a Solar Empire that has you waging economic warfare on Mars, using anything from corporate takeovers to sabotage

  • Twitch

    • Bomber Crew

      • 2017
      • Strategic simulation game that has you picking the right crew to keep your Avro Lancaster bomber in tip top shape and complete your World War II era missions

    • Whispers of a Machine

      • 2019
      • A point and click sci-fi nordic noir that tells the story of a cybernetically augmented detective investigating a string of murders in a post-AI world

    • Mugsters

      • 2018
      • A physics-based sandbox puzzle game that has you outrunning, outmanoeuvring, and outsmarting the aliens that have taken over Earth and enslaved humanity

    • Furi

      • 2016
      • A twin-stick hack and slash shoot ’em up bullet hell consisting entirely of boss fights. The jailer is the key, kill him and you’ll be free.

    • Epistory – Typing Chronicles

      • 2016
      • An atmospheric action-adventure typing game following a girl riding a giant fox fighting insectile corruption in an origami world

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

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

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

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

Overwatch Competitive Play Hero Rotation

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

Cool looking game: Nocturne

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

Tidbits

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

 

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PS2J 287 News – Who Knows What We’ll Name It

Free games

  • Twitch

    • Desert Child

      • 2018
      • An indie racing RPG that throws you into the role of a hungry, young hoverbike racer who needs to get off Earth before it explodes- hunt bounties, throw races, get to Mars, and win the Grand Prix

    • American Fugitive

      • 2019
      • Top-down open world sandbox that has you framed for your father’s murder, you’ll need to do whatever it takes to unveil the real culprit while evading the police at every turn

    • Steredenn

      • 2015
      • Side-scrolling rogue-like shoot-em-up in space, with sharp pixel graphics and chaotic boss battles in a never-ending combat for survival

    • Narcos: Rise of the Cartels

      • 2019
      • Turn-based action strategy based on the Netflix TV series, it has you exploring the first season from two sides with two unique stories
      • Unfortunately it seems to take the XCOM formula and water it way down, so while it seems tactical you can only move one person on each turn

    • White Night

      • 2015
      • Survival horror puzzle game where you explore the past of an old mansion in the 1930’s and solve puzzles of light and shadows in an entirely black and white setting.

  • Epic

    • Carcassonne

      • 2017
      • A competitive tile placement game of creating landscapes, claiming areas, and gaining points, with online play and a ton of replayability

    • Ticket to Ride

      • 2008
      • Another classic European-style board game that has you racing other players to build up your rail routes and reach your destinations
    • Pandemic was initially supposed to be included as well, but has actually been completely pulled from the Epic Games store. A statement from Epic said only that they’re shifting it to be free at a later date

Russia’s law against Apple devices seems to be proceeding according to plan, with the July 2020 deadline looming ever-closer

  • Back in episode 283 we talked about the new legislation passed in Russia by Vladimir Putin that would ban the sale of devices that don’t have a specific list of Russian apps pre-installed
  • This soon became known online as Russia’s law against Apple, as Apple has historically never allowed carrier bloatware or other apps to be bundled onto their devices- you get the same iOS experience regardless of where you buy your device
  • Well the list of required apps has finally been released and among them are government-produced apps for paying taxes and fines, as well as some banking, navigation, and social medial platforms with links to official government bodies
    • All of these apps have the potential to collect and send data related to finances, location, communications, and more, all without direct user permission
  • All in, it seems like a terrible idea for the privacy of any citizen of the world, and especially when Russia is behind it. If we see tech companies allowing this to go through I’m sure China won’t be too far behind
    • While Apple could leave the $3B market in Russia, and I’m sure a healthy grey or black market would crop up in the meantime, the $13B China would be a tougher proposition. We’ll just have to hope that companies don’t put a price tag on our privacy

Blizzard’s new Warcraft 3 remaster is so unpopular that they’re now offering instant refunds, but that’s still not enough for many players

  • The remastered Warcraft 3: Reforged launched late last week, meant to be a remake of Warcraft 3: Reign of Chaos and The Frozen Throne expansion, introducing a revamped user interface and enhanced cutscenes, along with more dialogue and tweaks to the campaign to align it with the lore of WoW
  • Unfortunately the plans seem to have changed, with the UI almost identical to the old version, and though some voice lines have been tweaked there aren’t any massive changes. Even the cutscene updates are lackluster
  • Basically the only real update are the graphics- the visuals are sharper, more detailed, and more fluidly animated, but most of the improvements don’t make much difference unless you zoom too far in to be useful in an RTS setting
  • The biggest problem is that they didn’t introduce the game as a new version, but rather replaced the old version with a new client and game whether you own Reforged or not, just presenting a toggle in the settings to switch between the two
    • This wouldn’t be a big deal were it not for all the issues that come with the new client- connectivity problems, trouble getting into custom games, and a complete lack of competitive ranked game modes
    • Not to mention that the download now includes a ton of extra resources, totalling 27GB compared to the original sitting at just over 1GB, even if you don’t own Reforged
    • They even implemented a live public chat room that you get dumped in to at launch, similar to Overwatch, but with no option to report or mute users
      • Loading up custom maps just merges its chat in with the main open channel, so good luck coordinating with anyone
      • There’s also no native LAN support, so you’re stuck online even if you’re in the same room
    • Speaking of custom, custom campaigns are entirely gone
    • Oh, and if the game can’t get an online connection to Blizzard you can play single player, but it won’t save your progress even though the save files are all local anyway
  • The backlash has gotten to the point where, instead of the normal process of Blizzard looking in to what was wrong with your purchase and denying the refund if you’ve had the game for a while and been playing it, refunds are now being automatically and immediately approved
  • This doesn’t help users unable to get back to the old client through official means, but it at least offers players dissatisfied with Reforged a way to get their money back
    • For really dedicated players that want their old client back  there are a bunch of guides and videos details steps online, and they even support internet connectivity, but in the meantime they’ve actively removed features and made unwanted changes to an 18 year old game with no way to officially opt out

Amazon’s Ring home surveillance equipment is getting an update this week to address some, but not all, privacy concerns

  • The update creates a new control center in the app, adding options for two-factor authentication (which it now prompts for by default) and letting you see a list of all devices connected to your account
  • It also lets you opt out of receiving any requests from police for camera footage as a blanket setting, instead of having to refuse each request individually
    • This is a solid win for privacy with 897 police and sheriff departments listed as Ring partners with the ability to request those files
  • Unfortunately this still doesn’t fix everything, as footage uploaded to the Neighbors app has geographic info that lets you pinpoint a camera to the square inch, and they haven’t addressed the EFF report we talked about two weeks ago wherein they share a ton of information with marketing and analytics companies

Nvidia’s GeForce Now cloud gaming service has left beta this week, and seems to actually fulfill many of the promises Google’s Stadia didn’t

  • All you have to do is download the app on a supported device, hook up your preferred controls, and connect to the servers. Then you can connect to a PC on the cloud and play one of hundreds of supported games from Steam, Epic Games, Battle.net, uPlay, Bethesda, and Origin (including many free to play titles)
    • The best part? They actually have a free tier right at launch!
  • Reporters at arsTechnica saw solid performance with minimal latency, to the point where they could play Sonic Mania without missing a jump or dash.
  • Whats more, because they basically just give you a virtual gaming PC you can go into a game’s full settings and tweak whatever settings you want to optimize the look and performance to wherever you want them
  • It’s never going to beat owning a gaming PC, but the ability to play these high-end PC games on a low-end Mac laptop is kind of bananas
    • It also supports Windows, mobile, and some smart TV’s, with eventual support for Chromebook coming later this year
  • Right now they’re offering two tiers:
    • Free, which gives you standard access and maximum one hour sessions (though you can immediately reconnect, you just might hit a queue depending on activity)
    • Founders, which is $5/month ($6.50 CAD) for priority access, extended sessions, ray-tracing gorgeousness, and a free three-month intro period
    • General streaming performance and game selection are the same between the two tiers, but the priority access will skip you to the head of the queue if the servers fill up
  • One big note on the game selection though is you don’t just load your existing game libraries to the service and to go town- you need to connect your other game store account, manually search for the game you want to play in GeoForce Now’s library tab, and add it to your account. Then you can launch those supported games through the GeForce Now app
    • There are also some loopholes where you can launch their Steam app and try starting games they don’t officially support, but for many games will hit errors when trying to run
    • There are even a bunch of supported games available through both Steam and Epic that can’t run from your Epic license, only Steam
  • All in all this is a pretty exciting time in gaming, with unparalleled access to this sort of thing as long as you have the internet connection to support it
    • Nvidia says that playing games will use about 15GB/hour, so be wary of your data caps!

Square Enix is releasing a brand new bundle-game this March called Kingdom Hearts All-in-One Package to bring together every game in the series up to KH3

  • The release history of this series is bonkers though. The All-in-One Package is pretty much just KH3 bundled with Kingdom Hearts: The Story So far
    • Which was Kingdom Hearts HD 1.5 + 2.5 Remix
    • Which is made up of Final Mix, Re: Chain of Memories, 358/2 Days, 2 FInal Mix, Birth By Sleep Final Mix, and Re:code
  • It also includes 2.8 Final Chapter Prologue, which itself is
    • Dream Drop Distance HD
    • 0.2 Birth by Sleep – a fragmentary passage
    • X Back Cover
  • But even with all that it’s still not a complete version, with the DLC for the third game, Re:Mind, still being sold separately

Here is a response to our call out for peoples Top 10 Games
I am going to try for the rest of the year to get everyone’s list!

Adam Blank (Remember the Game and Wrestling with Wrestling podcasts)
  • Super Mario World
  • Link to the Past
  • Mario Kart 8
  • Shovel Knight
  • Tetris
  • Donkey Kong County
  • Earthbound
  • Final Fantasy IV
  • Last of Us
  • Super Punch Out

Fake Magic card

  • Posted by Owner of Stony Plain Games & Collectibles, Lance
  • Lesson of the day!
    • You got to get up pretty early to fool this gaming shop owner!
  • Guy called me last night, want’s to know if I’ll trade in some expensive Magic the Gathering cards?
    • I ask him to come see me about it.
  • So today, said dude and his friend came in, looking to trade two MtG revised edition duel lands for shop credit?
    • (red flag-cash is king)
  • Right the way I could tell the cards looked ‘wrong’ in some way? I thought “these are proxies!” in my head.
    • (‘homemade’ copy of original version of an actual Magic card, used for gaming when one can’t afford the real thing. The guys that do proxies are getting VERY GOOD at it!)
  • They were pretty well done as the ‘rosette’ effect on the cards print when looked at under a x20 magnifier wasn’t far off an original, though of course there were differences enough even then to indicate it was a proxie.
    • (red flag 2)
      • A rosette effect is when in print, an image magnified looks like coloured dots in a flower pattern, and when observed nomally, look like a normal image. Its so the print colours of Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black, are printed in grids at different screen angles.
  • The print was too dark and that was the first thing to alert me as I first checked them out but one has to be sure!
    • (red flag 3)
  • Some incredible proxy cards come in from China that are quite hard to tell the difference unless, you know what you’re looking for! If you have old MtG cards you need verifying, bring them into me!
    • Nothing worse having a fraud version of an expensive card. In this instance the real version of this card was $375! Each! Did the dude know they were fake? IMO I’d say so.
    • He listed off the good stores in the city to buy singles, with their owners names, as well as the formats he played of the game, some of which are very expensive to play! (unless you use proxies lol!) So he had some pretty good knowledge of the game and community around Edmonton and surrounding area. When I eventually said these are proxies pal, he was ready with a slack apology but really didn’t seem surprised at all?

  • Which if you just lost $750 bucks worth of cards, you’d be a little more pissed than anything else. Wouldn’t you? Just be aware that there is an industry for printing proxy cards that are very close to the real thing except,….they are not! Fraud is fraud so don’t get ripped off if you happen to be in the market for some high end MtG cards!

     

Surveillance of UK citizens by private companies embedded on UK council websites

  • Article by Brave
  • A new report from Brave reveals that people seeking help for addiction, disability, and poverty on council websites are profiled by private companies in the UK
    • What is a council?
    • Councils provide a wide variety of services to their municipalities and enforce various federal, state and local laws for their communities. These services include public health, traffic, parking and animal management
  • Brave has uncovered widespread surveillance of UK citizens by private companies embedded on UK council websites.
    • None of the data collecting companies recorded in this study had received consent from the website visitor to lawfully process data.
  • These are the Quick Facts, that Brave provides:
    • Nearly all councils in the UK permit at least one company to learn about the behaviour of people visiting their websites.
    • People seeking information about disability, poverty, drugs and alcoholism services are profiled by data brokers on some council websites.
    • 198 council websites in the UK use the “real-time bidding” (RTB) form of advertising. Real-time bidding is the biggest data breach ever recorded in the UK. Though illegality is not in dispute, the UK Information Commissioner (ICO) has failed to act.
    • Google owns all five of the top embedded elements loaded by UK council websites, giving it the power to know what virtually anyone in the UK views on council sites.
    • Over of a quarter of the UK population is served by councils that embed Twitter, Facebook, and others on their websites, leaking data about what sensitive issues people read about to these companies.
    • 6.9 million people are served by councils that allow data broker LiveRamp to track people on their sites. Until recently, LiveRamp was part of the Acxiom Group, which sold data to Cambridge Analytica.
    • None of the data collecting companies recorded in this study had received consent from the website visitor to lawfully process data.
    • This report should spur Elizabeth Denham, the UK Information Commissioner, to finally enforce the GDPR. It is 17 months since formal evidence from Brave and complaints about breaches of data protection laws were filed before the ICO.

  • About Brave:

    • Brave is a new, private web browser. It has unmatched speed and battery life. And it also blocks data-grabbing ads and trackers.
    • 10 million people use Brave to make the web quicker and safer. You can download it for your phone or computer and browse the web with confidence.
    • Brave’s CEO is Brendan Eich, inventor of JavaScript, and co-founder of Mozilla/Firefox.

Google Maps Fooled by Man Who Used 99 Smartphones to Create a Fake Traffic Jam: Video

  • Article on Gadgets 360
  • Simon Weckert, a Berlin-based artist, used 99 smartphones and a hand cart to create ‘fake’ traffic jams in the German capital.
  • The slow pace of the hand cart and the fact that 99 phones were used caused Google Maps to believe that there were a lot of vehicles using a street that was actually empty.
    • Google uses this method to crowdsource traffic data the world over; smartphones in cars provide information to Google, including the speed at which they are moving, and how many smartphones are on that particular street.
  • If the pace is low and number is high, Google would show that segment of the street as red or maroon, suggesting that there is a traffic jam.
    • The video, that will be in the show notes on our website,  shows the streets on Google Maps gradually turning from green to maroon, suggesting that there was a traffic pileup on those streets.
    • Google’s navigation suggestions would then recommend that users avoid those streets, even though they were actually clear to drive on, apart from having to watch out for Weckert and his handcart.
  • Weckert hasn’t shared any further details, so it’s possible that this could have been faked entirely.
    • If it is authentic, Google should ideally be looking at ways to prevent such an exploit from being used, since this could have very real and physical implications on traffic movement.
    • In any case, don’t stop trusting Google Maps entirely; it’s not often that you have artists with 99 smartphones on a hand cart wandering around.

Tidbits

  • In an interesting prank / hack of Google Maps and their traffic data, Simon Weckert carted a wagon filled with 99 phones around simulating a traffic jam in the navigation app
    • One neat thing to note is the filtering Google uses for the data- if the phones all stopped moving entirely the traffic jam wouldn’t appear, and once a car using Google Maps drove past Google would see there was no jam and set it back to normal
  • Software engineer and blogger Robert Heaton took a trip down the rabbit hole recently and discovered that Wacom tablet drivers send a ton of identifying data when you use them, including details about every application you use and when you use them
    • Apparently the data is gathered for development purposes, but if you’re concerned about privacy and want to disable that you’ll need to open up the Wacom Desktop Center and disable the Wacom Experience Program
  • Allegedly leaked footage of Samsung’s upcoming Galaxy Z Flip hit Twitter this week, showing the clamshell device in action for the first time
    • Size-wise it reminds me of the Gameboy Advance SP, though flatter and wider, and fits better with what we’re expecting a folding screen on a smart phone to do- close and protect the screen
    • It also is rumoured to use special ultra-thin glass instead of the plastic used by the Galaxy Fold, which could prevent some of the display issues the Fold saw
  • Nintendo has announced that there won’t be any new Switch systems coming this year, quashing some rumours of the hoped for Switch Pro with increased power and improved performance
    • This is just going to widen the power gap already existing between Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft, and perhaps prevent ports of newer titles to the Switch, with the PS5 and Xbox Series X due out later this year

We want to know

What video game soundtrack would you like to soundtrack your life?

 

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PS2J 286 News – One Click Debt, No Refunds

Free Games

  • PS4

    • BioShock: The Collection

      • 2016
      • Remastered, 1080p ports of all three plot-driven first-person shooter games (BioShock, BioShock 2, and BioShock Infinite), taking you from the depths of Rapture to the skies of Columbia in some great stories in dystopias freed of “petty morality” summed up by “No gods or kings, only man”

    • The Sims 4

      • 2017
      • A reportedly decent port of the classic life simulation series that has you creating characters and households, then living their lives

    • Firewall Zero Hour

      • 2018
      • 4v4 tactical VR shooter developed exclusively for the PSVR that has you seizing or protecting sensitive information from opposing teams

  • Xbox One

    • TT Isle of Man: Ride on the Edge

      • 2018
      • Motorcycle racing game that has you challenging the deadly Snaefell Mountain course that has you taking on 38 miles of roads at over 180 mph

    • Call of Cthulhu

      • 2018
      • A role-playing psychological horror game inspired by H.P. Lovecraft’s writing, while also being an adaptation of the 1981 RPG of the same title

    • Fable Heroes

      • 2012
      • A beat ’em up spinoff of the Fable series, with a toy-like aesthetic and mixed reviews, it’s at least the first family friendly Fable title

    • Star Wars Battlefront

      • 2004
      • The original Battlefront game for the first Xbox, it’s a first and third person shooter that primarily plays as a conquest game with limited respawns for each team and also has a Galactic Conquest mode with some strategy elements

  • Epic Games

    • Farming Simulator 19

      • 2018
      • Pretty much what it says on the tin- it’s a full farming simulator with huge American and European environments, over 300 vehicles and machines, online co-op play, and a surprisingly large mod community
    • Next week we can look forward to PC ports of some popular board games

Apparently Ring isn’t just a product that lets people surveil their neighbours and gives police access to a network of cameras, it also tracks its customers through its app

  • We talked about the Ring camera doorbells and Amazon’s shady agreements with local police to promote the products and get access to recorded footage last summer back in episodes 263 and 268
  • Well now the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) put together an investigation of the associated Android app and found it packed with third-party trackers sending out a plethora of personally identifiable information on its customers
    • This stuff includes names, IP addresses, mobile network carriers, persistent identifiers, and sensor data from the devices themselves
  • All of that info comes together to form a detailed fingerprint of the user that can be sold or used to see what people are doing in their digital lives, and most damning of all is that there is no notification, consent, or ways to mitigate the damage done
  • Ring is taking this information and delivering it to organizations like:
    • Facebook
    • Branch
      • a “deep linking” platform that builds those exact kind of digital fingerprints and associates them with other marketing and analytics data
    • AppsFlyer
      • another marketing data firm that’s now getting their hands on sensor data from all those devices
    • And Mixpanel
      • yet another business analytics service, but this one deserves special mention since Ring is sending them people’s full names, email address, details on your phone’s OS and hardware model, bluetooth settings, and how many locations you have Ring devices installed in
    • Of those services only Mixpanel is on Ring’s list of third-party services they say they work with, but they don’t make it clear just how much information they share
  • All that is to say, for being a company based around securing your home they sure don’t seem to have any consideration for your personal information. If you use a Ring device, it may be time to rethink that

Tesla’s taking heat this week because of their fairly predatory practices when it comes to buying upgrades

  • In a pretty suspicious move, about a week and a half before the end of their financial year Tesla rolled out a new feature in their phone app allowing people to buy software upgrades for their cars to enable full autopilot
  • Shortly afterward, they were hit with a lot of users complaining about unintended purchases and a terrible refund policy
    • In one case someone broke down exactly what happened- they essentially butt dialled the purchase, contacted support as soon as they could afterward and then a week later were told that there are no refunds for software purchases.
      • The support staff even compared it to “paying for an addition to a house, deciding you don’t like it, then requesting a refund from the contractor”
      • There are even some staff claiming that the upgrade can’t be removed from the car, when it’s basically just an enable/disable flag with no major download or installation involved
    • Eventually someone high-profile enough complained on Twitter and Elon Musk said that the refund situation would be addressed, but who knows if that will roll out to all the little people affected
  • The kicker here is how easy Tesla made it to accidentally make the purchase- it’s harder to download a free app
    • If you’re logged in to the Tesla app and go to the upgrades screen, the $4000 autopilot upgrade is automatically selected, added to your cart, and the payment prompt is immediately displayed
    • You then have two buttons- ApplePay, which would prompt for TouchID, FaceID, or your password, or Pay With Credit Card
      • One thing to note here is that they do have their refund denial policy shown at this point. On a black or very dark grey screen, below those buttons in slightly lighter grey text. All the other text is bright white.
      • Another interesting tidbit is that the refund policy was actually photoshopped off of the screen when it was shown in an investor presentation
    • If you do hit Pay With Credit Card it takes you to a confirmation screen with everything filled out- they don’t even ask for your card’s security code to verify, you just tap Pay at the bottom.
    • So if you’re in the Tesla app and put your phone in your pocket without locking it, whether by mistake or not, you’re three taps away from dropping $4000 without even knowing it
    • There are even some reports that the confirmation screen is new- some users last year just wanted to see the total with tax and were immediately charged
  • In investigating this I also stumbled upon some of the skeezy strategies Tesla has used on their website- when you look at the price of a car they default to showing it adjusted for “potential savings”
    • You might see that and expect some kind of rebates or sales, but in fact they bundle in the estimated savings from not buying gas for the life of the car, making a difference of thousands of dollars between the expected price and what Tesla actually charges for their vehicles.
  • All of this just really goes to show how Tesla seems to be trying to trick people into spending money, and the fact that it’s right before their fiscal year end makes it even more suspicious

The Wawa chain of American convenience stores was targeted by credit card skimming malware last month, resulting in as many as 30M cards going up for sale on the dark web this week

  • Apparently the malware began rolling out on March 4th and wasn’t discovered until December 10th, so it had gathered about nine full months worth of numbers, names, and expiration dates
  • Anyone who used a payment card at a Wawa location last year should definitely check your bills closely. Wawa is reportedly offering affected customers one year of credit monitoring but those services may not be very effective, so if you’re concerned you may want to consider putting a security freeze on your file instead

Tidbits

  • Activision Blizzard makes exclusive streaming deal with YouTube, Overwatch League and Call of Duty will be streaming on YouTube
  • 343 Industries is looking to ban Halo: Reach players abusing the experience system by frequently joining games and not actually playing
    • Apparently the new release of Reach involves a new experience progression system to unlock customizations, rather than the old system where you could just buy whatever you have enough credits for, and going AFK is one strategy players are using to grind for more experience
    • Another has been dubbed “sword lining”, where two Griffball teams line up and take turns killing each other with swords
  • Bethesda has finally fully addressed the inventory hack in Fallout 76 that we talked about last year, wherein hackers could use your inventory like a lootable chest to steal everything from your character in seconds
    • Reportedly the company is creating clones of the affected characters with their entire inventory as of December 20th, as well as about $66 worth of their premium ‘atoms’ currency.
    • Players can then make a secure trade from the clone to their original character via a private server, and Bethesda is providing support agents to help with that process
  • Zuckerberg has gone on record that Facebook’s goal for the next decade “isn’t to be liked, but to be understood”, saying they didn’t always communicate their views clearly because they worried about offending people
    • The Daring Fireball says it best: “The more you understand Facebook, the less you like or trust them. So: mission accomplished.”
  • Nintendo’s Switch has officially become their third best-selling home console of all time, behind the Wii and the NES (and almost quadrupling the WiiU)
    • Fun fact, estimates show they surpassed the Xbox One during the 2019 holiday season despite the XBone being out for more than three years before the Switch’s release
    • And just to tack on to the end of this, The Outer Worlds is officially coming to the Switch on March 6th
  • Lastly, in a little bit of heartwarming news to close things out, professional Fortnite player and streamer Aydan Conrad went on Twitch last week to stream himself calling his mom and paying off her student debt
    • He gave full credit to his viewers, saying that everyone watching made the whole thing possible

Based on this tweet, I want to know what ten games our Fanily like. See how much crossover we all have.

And I can see some cool games to check out as well
I like top tens with no order, it all depends on mood.

Josh’s Top 10

  • Rollercoaster Tycoon
  • Sonic the Hedgehog 2
  • Psyconauts
  • Overwatch
  • Slay The Spire
  • Fallout 4
  • Super Smash Bros Ultimate
  • Stardew Valley
  • Minecraft
  • The Sims

Alan’s Top 10

  • Eternal Darkness Sanity’s Requiem
  • Shovel Knight Treasure Trove
  • Kirby Superstar (honourable mention to Planet Robobot)
  • Pokemon Trading Card Game
  • God of War (2019)
  • Beat Saber
  • Titanfall 2
  • Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask (honourable mention to A Link to the Past)
  • Superhot
  • Black Mesa

 

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PS2J 274 News – Bean

Free games

  • Twitch

    • Serial Cleaner

      • 2017
      • A Hotline Miami style top-down stealth game that has you sneaking through crimescenes to clean and hide the evidence before the authorities can put your bosses away for good

    • Deadlight: Director’s Cut

      • 2016 rerelease of the 2012 title
      • Sidescrolling cinematic platforming survival horror game that has you attempting to traverse a zombie-infested Seattle to rejoin your family

    • Stranger Things 3: The Game

      • 2019
      • A 16-bit beat ’em up based on the third season of Stranger Things with local co-op

    • The Walking Dead: Michonne

      • 2016
      • A spin-off Telltale Games title that explores what Michonne was up to during a temporary departure from the main group

    • Adam Wolfe

      • 2016
      • Acting as Adam Wolfe, an investigator of the paranormal, you will discover a hidden world under the modern San Francisco. In this city, ghosts, artifacts, secret orders and curses are just some of the things that Adam will come across working on his most important case.

  • Epic Games

    • Minit

      • 2018
      • Minit is an adventure played sixty seconds at a time. Journey outside the comfort of your home to help unusual folk, uncover countless secrets, and overcome dangerous foes, all in hopes of lifting a rather unfortunate curse that ends each day after just one minute.

The saga of iOS 13 continues, and it’s a messy one

  • Just to get it out of the way, if you’re already on iOS 13 then you’ve got nothing to lose at this point- the fixes will help. If you’re still on 12, then I’d hold off if I were you
  • Apple has already released iOS 13.1.2 this week, following last week’s 13.1 and 13.1.1 and the week before’s initial iOS 13 release
  • Apple’s really sat themselves on the bleeding edge with these updates, and it has me concerned about their software for the future- we’ve gone from the days when I wanted to run the latest betas to today when I regret installing the new OS even some time after it’s come out
    • The new features are neat, sure, but when your patch notes include things like “Fixes an issue where Camera may not work” or “Addresses an issue where Bluetooth may disconnect on certain vehicles”, fairly core functions, I start wondering why these weren’t caught during the beta.
  • We’re four releases in to iOS 13 there are even still issues with syncing in the Notes and Reminders apps that may or may not be related to app upgrades requiring the new macOS (Catalina) that isn’t even out yet
    • The new versions of these apps that came with iOS 13 last month aren’t compatible with earlier versions of iOS or macOS, so if you’re running a mixed environment you’re probably noticing inconsistent/missing/lost data
  • I mean, kudos to Apple for fixing things as quickly as they can, but we’re at the point where iOS 13 should have just been delayed a month and maybe just come out with Catalina in the first place

The Samsung Galaxy Fold is here, and it’s… pretty much what we expected

  • $2000 gets you an interesting concept device with some limited usefulness
  • The device comes with a whole sheaf of paperwork on how to use and care for it without breaking it
    • Basically they warn to use a light touch, avoid water and dust, avoid excessive pressure, and keep it away from things that are sensitive to magnets
  • All in all it’s big, heavy, and has a non-standard screen size regardless of how you use it. It’s kinda novel but doesn’t seem worth it when a screen replacement, on their warranty program, costs $150
    • TechCrunch has already broken theirs accidentally by pressing on the display to close it

Speaking of dual screens, Microsoft has some interesting new hardware coming down the pipe

  • First up are their new Surface Neo and Duo- book-style folding devices with two screens (instead of the Fold’s single folding screen)
    • The Neo is tablet sized, runs Windows 10X (a custom version of Windows 10 made for dual displays), and has an optional bluetooth keyboard that magnets on
    • The Duo is their phone version that runs a heavily-skinned version of Android, so who knows when updates will come
    • Both of these are expected late 2020 though, so we haven’t even seen prototypes yet
  • Other than that they’ve overhauled their Surface lineup to compete more with the iPad Pro, and later this year their Airpods competitor the Surface Earbuds will launch
    • The big selling feature of these is the large round art-deco touchpad attached to your ears, which is definitely a style choice and totally doesn’t look like a couple of Apple Watch chargers stuck to the sides of your head

On the topic of Airpods, it looks like the next model has leaked via icons found in the upcoming iOS 13.2 beta

  • We don’t have much detail yet, but they seem to be more focused on noise-isolation and adjusting the classic earpod/airpod fit, which has a lot of people whose ears weren’t compatible taking note

A security researcher has released a full bootrom exploit for all iPhones from the 4S to the X, along with several iPad models and a few generations of the iPod Touch

  • This will pave the way for a permanent, un-patchable jailbreak for all the devices involved- the bootrom is read-only, so Apple can’t fix it with an update
  • On the plus side, this can only be exploited by physically connecting to your device while in recovery mode, so general users should be safe while people that want their jailbreak tweaks can jump through the needed hoops to get that set up

Minecraft Updates!

Character Creator is coming to all Bedrock platforms.

  • Xbox One
  • Windows 10
  • Nintendo Switch
  • iOS
  • Android
And there is a free cape right now called the founders cape. Looks like pumpkin, or like orange flame, with a creeper face on it.

Nether is Getting Biomes!

With descriptions from the Minecraft blog!
Despite the dangers of these new Nether biomes, we do want this update to make the Nether more accessible (albeit still a dangerous place to live!). You’ll be able to build a base there, respawn there, and even find food!
  • Soulsand Valley
    • What could be more welcoming than a new biome full of blue fog and blue flames (courtesy of the new blue fire block!), and ominous gigantic fossils everywhere? Don’t answer that, just get hyped for this barren wasteland that can’t wait for you to risk a visit…
  • Netherwart Forest Red
    • A dense forest, with swirling particles and dense atmosphere, deliberately designed by our meanest level designers to make you get lost. Mwahahaha!
  • Netherwart Forest Blue
    • Well, less another biome, more a variation on Netherwart Forest Red (oh great – I only just managed to escape from that) but with its own unique atmosphere, and its own unique blocks! For example, watch your step for that twisty new Nether Fungi covering the ground…

New Nether Mobs!

  • Piglin Beast
    • What’s a new biome without a new mob to cause chaos within it? Meet the Piglin Beast, the tusked little terror that’s Minecraft’s newest hostile mob! It can be bred as a source of food in the Nether (and let’s face it, you’re not exactly spoilt for choice when it comes to lunch options in the Nether, are you?).
  • Piglins
    • Speaking of names, we’ve renamed the Zombie Pigmen to Zombified Piglins, and we’re introducing a new hostile mob to Minecraft… the Piglins! Piglins live in the Nether, and are hostile to you and most other mobs. You’ll also find small fortifications they’ve built in the Nether, called bastions.
    • Just like the person writing this post, Piglins are constantly on the hunt for gold, which is something you can use to your advantage. Wear gold armour and the Piglins will ignore you… unless you start rifling through their chests. Then prepare for a Piglin battle! Want to be more of a Piglin pacifist? It’ll be possible to trade with Piglins, but don’t expect the same experience as trading with villagers. This will be known as bartering and it’ll be far less friendly!

New Block!

  • TARGET BLOCK
    • Not completely related to the theme of the new update, but a brand new block designed for redstone enthusiasts! Shoot the block with an arrow, and it’ll emit a redstone signal. The closer your arrow to the bullseye on the Target Block, the stronger the emitted signal. We can’t wait to see what redstone contraptions you make with this one!

Tidbits

  • The future is here, and after last year’s Fortnite crossplay beta Sony has officially opened up cross-platform play for all developers
    • Now we just need proper cross-platform cloud saves and we’ll really be cooking with gas
  • Spotify is finally getting Siri integration, if their beta app is any indication
    • There’s no timeframe for release, but considering this was one of the tentpoles of their anticompetitive complaint against Apple earlier this year it’s a little amusing to see them figuring it out themselves
  • Facebook is cementing just what an evil company they are even more this week, by removing their rules against running ads with false and misleading content to allow Trump to lie in campaign ads
    • They now only prohibit claims debunked by third-party fact checkers, but political figures are apparently exempt from even that narrow restriction

Alan recommends OrangeTheory Fitness

Literally Misleading

Last week:
Movie – A man led astray by his employer takes out his frustration on his family. (Christmas Vacation)
This week:
Movie – A typical cowboy saves the princess tale.

 

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PS2J 268 News – Whimsy Got Versioned Out

More details have come to light about Ring’s agreement with police in the US, and it just keeps getting worse

  • We talked previously about how in exchange for promoting Ring’s video doorbells police could access a portal to show where cameras may be located and request user footage from a certain timeframe
    • Well apparently even if a user declines, police can go straight to Amazon with a request for the footage as long as it’s within 60 days and the video is in the cloud
      • An officer talking to cybersecurity site Government Technology brought out one of my favourite lines: “If you’re a good upstanding person who is doing things lawfully, nobody has concerns”
  • According to Gizmodo, another part of that deal has Ring tapping directly in to real-time 911 dispatch data, which it then uses to curate crime news for its app
    • Once a call is flagged their “in-house news team” reviews and reformats the info before pushing it as an alert to Ring users within a certain radius
  • On top of all that, documents found by Motherboard and ArsTechnica show that Ring was offering police information on who was buying their cameras through the provided subsidies, including names, emails, and home addresses
  • Bottom line here seems to be, be careful what you put in the cloud and be aware of who owns the clouds you’re using

Apple’s credit card, known as the Apple Card, is now officially available in the US

  • The Apple Card is an Apple Pay focused credit card that comes with some interesting spending tracking features, decent cash back rewards, no fees at all, and a slick white titanium physical card if you so choose
    • The card is pretty minimalistic, only showing your name, the Apple logo, and the chip and magnetic strip
      • The minimalistic card comes at a minor price though: Apple Support has already released an article talking about handling, care, and cleaning of the card that all sounds pretty unique for a credit card
        • They say to store it in a wallet, pocket, or bag made of soft materials, and to place it in a slot without touching another card to prevent scratches
          • So far not unreasonable
        • They then go on to say that it shouldn’t be kept in leather or denim, saying those fabrics may cause permanent discolouration, which kind of rules out how most of the population I’m aware of carries their cards
          • So basically if you want your shiny new Apple Card to stay shiny and new, it’s time to buy a microfiber wallet
    • If you want to see your card number, expiry date, or even previous statements and balances you need to open up the Wallet app
    • Hopefully at some point they at least open up a web interface, in case your phone is lost or stolen and you need to access that information
  • After a limited pilot now anyone with an iPhone can apply- just open up your Wallet app, tap the plus sign to add a card, and follow the prompts to sign up
  • One thing to note here is that part of the terms and conditions has you agreeing to arbitration instead of a lawsuit if something goes pear-shaped, which can often favour companies over consumers
    • If you’re worried about that it’s dead easy to opt out though.
    • After you’ve got the card set up you just open it up in Wallet, tap the ellipsis, and then Message. This will let you text the help line that you want to reject arbitration and they’ll connect you with staff who can help
  • All in all it seems kind of cool, and once it comes to Canada you can bet I’ll compare its interest rates and rewards to my existing credit cards

Samsung isn’t the only company having trouble getting a folding phone out there- Huawei is also delaying its foldable smartphone, saying it’s “unlikely to come out before November”

  • The folding Mate X was originally announced for the middle of 2019, but has had a couple of delays now likely due to the bleeding-edge tech involved in folding screens
  • The phone does look cool, with an 8″ display that folds around the front and back leaving only a 6″ display turned on when closed, but at $2,600USD I’d want something a little stronger than plastic protecting the rear display when it’s closed
SUPERHOT is officially available on Nintendo Switch, so if you haven’t played it by now you’re running out of excuses
  • It’s a fantastic, stylized first-person shooter where time only moves when you do
  • They’ve added optional gyroscope aiming and motion controls, to make things more intuitive and accessible whether you’re docked or in handheld mode
  • And it’s running at a smooth 60fps, which is basically the minimum nowadays. Maybe my eyes are spoiled, but anything lower just feels choppy

Minecraft is adding BEES!

From the official Minecraft snapshot notes:
Bee
We’re buzzing with excitement!
Can someone tell Cory to stop making bee puns now?
  • Bees are cute, fuzzy, neutral mobs
  • Don’t hurt them, they don’t want to hurt you
  • If a bee does sting you, it will leave its stinger in you and eventually die, dropping nothing 🙁
  • Bees love pretty flowers and spend their lives gathering pollen from them
  • After gathering pollen, bees fly back to their home nest
  • Bees help you by growing crops while carrying pollen back to the nest
  • Bees can be bred using flowers
  • Bees like sharing the location of their favorite flowers with other bees
  • If a bee can’t find nectar, after a while it will return home for a bit
  • If a bee doesn’t have a home nest, it will wander around until it finds one it can use
  • Bees don’t like the rain and they sleep at night. They will go back to the nest in these cases
Bee Nests/ Bee Hives
In real life, bees dance in their nests to show other bees where flowers are!
  • Bee Nests spawn naturally in Flower Forests, Plains, and Sunflower Plains biomes
  • When a bee visits this block and completes its journey undisturbed, the level of honey increases
  • Max of 5 levels of honey
  • Level 5 is quite…sticky
  • Bees use nests and hives to share flower locations with other bees
  • Sometimes bees that already know about a flower will choose not to use this information
  • Bee Hives are crafted by players using honeycomb and wood planks
  • Use a silk touch tool to get the block with the bees stored inside
  • Bee Nests will be destroyed unless you use silk touch
  • Use shears when at full honey to get honeycomb
  • Use a bottle when at full honey to get a honey bottle
  • Campfire smoke calms bees – place one underneath the nest / hive to keep them in chill mode
  • Redstone-friendly!
  • Bees like Bee Nests and Bee Hives the same amount! They don’t play favorites 🙂
  • Added the Honey Bottle!
Honey Bottle
  • Organic, gluten-free, delicious locally-farmed honey!
  • Use an empty glass bottle on a hive or nest that is full of honey to get a bottle of honey!
  • Drink it!
  • ???
  • Profit!
  • Oh yeah, also craft it into sugar!
  • Added Honeycomb!
Honeycomb
Disclaimer: Cannot be used to comb your hair
  • Shear a full-honey hive or nest to obtain
  • Craft with wood planks to create a Bee Hive
Dispenser
  • Dispensers can now fill bottles with water and honey
  • Dispensers can now shear honey combs from Bee Nests and Hives

Slay the Spire is on Gamepass!

Josh has been playing this a LOT!
And I am proud to say that I was able to Slay the Spire for the first time on this Xbox version. For fans, I did it with the Hidden. Which surprised me, because Ironclad is my favourite.
Don’t know what I’m talking about, this is the Steam Description and Features:
Slay the Spire by Mega Crit Games
We fused card games and roguelikes together to make the best single player deckbuilder we could. Craft a unique deck, encounter bizarre creatures, discover relics of immense power, and Slay the Spire!
Features
  • Dynamic Deck Building: Choose your cards wisely! Discover hundreds of cards to add to your deck with each attempt at climbing the Spire. Select cards that work together to efficiently dispatch foes and reach the top.
  • An Ever-changing Spire: Whenever you embark on a journey up the Spire, the layout differs each time. Choose a risky or safe path, face different enemies, choose different cards, discover different relics, and even fight different bosses!
  • Powerful Relics to Discover: Powerful items known as relics can be found throughout the Spire. The effects of these relics can greatly enhance your deck through powerful interactions. But beware, obtaining a relic may cost you more than just gold…

Tidbits

  • Webkit, the engine behind the Safari web browser, has announced a big new policy that’s great for consumers: user tracking will now be treated as a security exploit, and will be blocked accordingly
    • They go on to mention that no exceptions will be made, and they will block any attempts to circumvent their protections universally
  • Insomniac Games, developers of Ratchet & Clank, Sunset Overdrive, and more recently Marvel’s Spider-Man, has officially been acquired by Sony Interactive Entertainment
    • They’ve been developing PlayStation exclusives for years, but now that they’re an actual first-party developer for the platform it’ll be cool to see what comes next
  • The Matrix is apparently getting a fourth film, with Keanu Reeves and Carrie-Anne Moss reprising their roles as Neo and Trinity
    • The movie will see Sense8 writers Aleksandar Hemon and David Mitchell joining Lana Wachowski in writing it, so I’m cautiously optimistic
  • It sounds like Sony and Disney failed to come to a new agreement in how to share Spider-Man, so he seems to be out of the MCU once more
    • Sony released a statement saying they hope that might change in the future, but for now it sounds like Tom Holland will have to look elsewhere for his super team

Alan Recommends The Boys on Amazon Prime Video

  • Based on the comic series by Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson, and developed for TV by Eric Kripke, the creator of Supernatural
  • It’s a dark comedy based in a world a lot like what I imagine what would happen if superheroes were real- they end up completely managed by a corporate PR machine, so we end up with just as many movies and tv shows but in this case they’re all marketing for real people
  • So you end up with a lot of supers that are just arrogant and corrupt people, which is why the vigilante group The Boys exists to try and keep them in check
  • It’s a solid adaptation with a lot of great differences that keep it fresh for fans of the comics while not just being changes for their own sake

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

A huge thanks to Zane, for believing in us for so long.
And thanks to all our ‘fanily’ that support us.
And if you want to support us too, its as easy as clicking this link!
We are a proud member of the Alberta Podcast Network powered by ATB
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A Facebook Page exists as well.

PS2J 263 News – Amazon Police State

Free Games

  • Epic

    • Moonlighter

      • 2018
      • Action RPG that has you managing your shop by day, working with inventory and making money to expand your town, and exploring dungeons and fighting hordes of enemies by night to earn loot

    • This War of Mine

      • 2014
      • War survival game inspired by the Siege of Sarajevo during the Bosnian War, it focuses on the civilian experience of making difficult decisions and trying to keep your people alive by gathering and crafting resources while avoiding snipers and hostile scavengers
 

Security warning

  • there are eight different browser extensions out there that are stealing data from millions of customers and a long list of companies including Apple, Walmart, Amazon, 23AndMe, SpaceX, Skype, and many more
  • The extensions are
    • Branded Surveys (Chrome)
    • FairShare Unlock (Chrome and Firefox)
    • HoverZoom (Chrome)
    • Panel Community Surveys (Chrome)
    • PanelMeasurement (Chrome
    • SaveFrom.netHelper (Firefox)
    • SpeakIt! (Chrome)
    • SuperZoom (Chrome and Firefox)
  • The tracking activity has been reported to Chrome and Mozilla, who have disabled the add-ons and removed them from their marketplaces, but even after being disabled they continue to track and send user data
    • The only way to stop them is to completely uninstall the extensions involved
  • Leaked data includes user names, addresses, credit card info, passwords, files stored in the cloud, tax returns, genetic information, medical history… the list goes on
  • It just goes to show that we need to be careful about what browser extensions we download and use, since even though they’re on an official storefront doesn’t mean they’re safe
 

Nintendo has officially responded to the Joy-Con drift controversy

  • An American law firm is investigating a potential class action lawsuit
  • Their official stance is that affected players should visit support.nintendo.comand open a ticket to get your controllers repaired
    • This ticketing system seems to be a new development, since as recently as July 19th they just had basic troubleshooting steps like updating your system and recalibrating your Joy-Cons
  • Even with Nintendo offering repairs many people aren’t satisfied, citing high repair costs ($50 CAD out of warranty), slow turnaround, and the drift issues coming back very quickly (in some cases within days)
    • Systems carry a 12 month warranty, but controllers bought separately are only covered for 3 months
    • There are also a few unsubstantiated reports of Nintendo offering free out-of-warranty repairs, and refunds to people that already paid out of pocket, but it hasn’t been consistent so far.
  • It’ll be interesting to see how the Switch Lite fares, with its built-in controllers
 

Samsung’s Galaxy Fold is now slated to launch this September

  • They’ve apparently extended the plastic layer reviewers were peeling off to sit under the bezels, making it clear that it’s not supposed to be removed, and added reinforcements to protect the display from dirt and debris getting under it
  • End of the day this is still a $2000 USD concept tablet that folds into a phone with a surprisingly small screen, but we’ll see what people think of it this fall
 

FaceApp is under fire for processing photos and device-related data in Russia

  • A new warning tells users that photos will be uploaded to servers and not processed on their devices, but that was just added last week
  • Another piece to note is that you’re granting them a perpetual, irrevocable, nonexclusive, royalty-free, worldwide, fully-paid, transferable sub-licensable license to use your data
 

Google Stadia’s director was on a Reddit AMA recently trying to reassure people that paying money for games that exist only in their service is completely safe

  • He went on to compare it to Gmail, Docs, Music, etc that have persisted for years
  • He declined to mention things like Nest, Google+, Inbox, and Reader, which have all been shut down. In many cases with little notice and no replacement on offer
  • If you want to see their track record you can check out killedbygoogle.com
 

Overwatch’s new Tank Sigma

 

ROLE

Sigma occupies the tank role. He is a full tank and uses a barrier to prevent damage.
 

SIGMA ABILITIES

Primary Fire – Hyperspheres

  • Fires limited ranged projectiles that can bounce off of walls. The orbs explode after a certain range and do area damage. This does 120 damage if you direct hit both of the orbs.
 

Experimental Barrier

Hold to propel a floating barrier; release to stop. Press again to recall the barrier to you.
  • This is Sigma’s main shield and what he will use to prevent damage for your team. It starts with 1,500 HP and can be placed on the map in front of you. It moves forward until you release the shield button. You press the button again to bring the shield back to you. The shield is just like Reinhardt’s shield where it needs to be recharged, and doesn’t have a separate health pool like Orisa’s shield.
 

Accretion

Gather a mass of debris and throw it at an enemy to knock them down.
  • Gathers rocks and throws them. Hitting a target at close range will only deal damage, further away targets will be hit by a knock-back and CC.
 

Kinetic Grasp

Absorb projectiles in front of you and convert them into shields.
  • Absorbs in coming damage and converts the damage up to 400 shield for Sigma.
 

Ultimate Ability – Gravitic Flux

Manipulate gravity to lift enemies into the air and slam them back down.
  • Sigma’s ultimate ability floats Sigma into the air (you can kind of fly around slowly) and allows you to place a black hole like ability on the ground. Any enemy within this area gets floated up into the air, and eventually they are slammed down onto the ground for 50% of their hp. You can fire Hyperspheres immeddiately after you’ve set the black hole.
 
Also they added Role Queue
  • For Quick play and Ranked
 

Tidbits

  • This week has brought new updates to iOS and watchOS, including releasing ECG and irregular heart rhythm notification functionality in Canada and Singapore
    • The walkie-talkie feature has also been re-enabled, and you can now migrate to a new iPhone by wirelessly connecting it to your old one; no computer required!
  • Amazon is apparently using police departments in the US to advertise their Ring seurveillance cameras in exchange for free products and access to an interactive map of active cameras where they can request footage stored in the cloud
    • The access is without a warrant, which is pretty damning, and Amazon’s agreement requires police to “keep the terms of this program confidential”, which means they clearly know it’s shady
  • Stjepan Sejic (styapun shayitch), the Croatian artist known as Nebezial online and behind the very popular Sunstone comic, is officially bringing his Harley Quinn origin story concept to DC
    • Harleen will be a 3 book series with oversized, 60 page volumes, and follow Dr Quinzel’s descent into madness as she grows more and more attached to the Joker
 

Alan recommends the Pokemon Go Team Rocket event

 

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

A huge thanks to Zane, for believing in us for so long.
And thanks to all our ‘fanily’ that support us.
And if you want to support us too, its as easy as clicking this link!
 
We are a proud member of the Alberta Podcast Network powered by ATB
 
And talk to us in the comments!
 
 
Twitter and Instagram @ps2jshow
 
A Facebook Page exists as well.

PS2J 262 News – Minty Fresh

Free games

  • Epic

    • Limbo

      • 2010
      • Black and white stylized puzzle platformer with a wonderful dark, eerie atmosphere, praised as an excellent example of video games as an art form
 

Update to last week’s story about the Zoom video conferencing vulnerability

  • It looks like many of Zoom’s partner apps, like RingCentral and Zhumu, have similar problems that allow attackers easy access to laptop cameras and microphones, so this week Apple released another silent security patch to block the vulnerability
  • Also, I’ve done a bit of research and if you’re concerned about Apple’s ability to run these kind of security updates you can block them in System Preferences > Software Update > Advanced by unchecking “Install system data files and security updates”
  • Right now I’m happy that Apple notifies the press when they release these patches, but in a perfect world they’d be visibly included in your updates list
 

Lifehacker is urging users to update their Logitech wireless dongles immediately

  • A few years ago, hackers discovered they could take control of computers by exploiting a vulnerability in Logitech wireless dongles- the piece you plug in to your computer to connect to wireless mice and keyboards
  • Patches were released to fix this all the way back in 2016, but there was no recall and even new devices rolling out of the factory today may be at risk
  • If you use any wireless Logitech devices, make sure you visit the Logitech support website and download/run the latest firmware update files as soon as possible to fix the loopholes
    • You’ll need to re-sync your devices to the dongle afterward, but the added (or, you know, extant) security is well worth the time
 

Facebook is apparently being fined $5B by the FTC for their role in the Cambridge Analytica privacy scandal

  • The original scandal is related to the 2016 US election, where Cambridge Analytica collected info on tens of millions of Facebook users without consent to create targeted political ads
  • The data collection came from an app that claimed to be a survey for academic use, but in reality it gathered information on not just the people taking the survey but also their friends
  • The problem here is that the fine is laughable when it comes to Facebook’s revenue
    • It’s the largest fine in FTC history, but they had $15B in revenue in the last 3 months, and $22B in profit last year
    • Facebook’s stock price actually went up after this fine was announced
  • End of the day it’s a start, but slap a zero on the end of it and then we’ll talk
 

In somewhat related news, Facebook is vigorously over-defending itself against a lawsuit brought by the attorney general of the District of Colombia

  • The lawsuit is related to the same Cambridge Analytica scandal and says that is was a violation of DC consumer protection law
  • Facebook’s response to it denies “each and every allegation” in the lawsuit, including pieces that aren’t so much allegations as they are just basic statements of fact.
  • For example, paragraph 11 says “To begin using the Facebook website, a consumer first creates a Facebook account. The consumer can then add other Facebook consumers as “friends” and by accumulating Facebook friends, the consumer builds a social network on the Facebook website.”
    • Facebook’s response was that they deny the allegations in paragraph 11
  • They’ve also denied pieces that they’ve publicly admitted to in the past, leaving many people wondering just what’s going on with this defense strategy
 

Police are warning the public about a new scam targeting iPhone users

  • Scammers are using social media to recruit victims by promising payments in exchange for becoming a game tester
  • Users are asked to log in to a particular Apple ID on their iPhone, then the scammers will activate Lost Mode on the device, locking the victim’s phone and extorting payments before promising to unlock it afterward
  • The worst part is that you need the Apple ID’s password to remove it from your device, so if they changed it after locking your phone then you remain at their mercy
  • Anyone that’s been hit by this scam should get help from Apple at getsupport.apple.com
 

Space fact of the day, featuring the male ego, bought to you by Mary Robinette Kowal

  • Author of the Lady Astronaut books Alan, recommended back in 242
  • To facilitate going to the bathroom, NASA developed a sheath kind of like a condom that came in small, medium, and large.
  • Every man said they needed a large, even when they didn’t which led to some messy situations
  • So they re-branded the sheaths to Extra-large, Immense, and Unbelievable
 

Tidbits

  • A US law firm is looking at opening a class action lawsuit regarding the Nintendo Switch and Joy-Con controller drift
  • Marvel’s Spider-Man is officially now the best-selling superhero video game of all time, beating both Arkham Knight and Arkham City
    • It’s doubly impressive considering the Batman games were on multiple platforms, whereas Spider-Man was a PS4 exclusive
  • Nintendo’s announced an invisible upgrade to the Switch coming this August, offering up to 2.5 hours longer battery life
    • The gains are likely achieved using a similar processing upgrade that is included in the Switch Lite
  • There was a cool announcement made at the Comic-Con 20th anniversary Batman Beyond panel
    • They’re releasing a blu ray HD remaster of the full series, including the Return of the Joker movie, coming this October
  • Thor: Ragnarok director Taika Waititi has officially been signed for a fourth Thor movie
    • No details yet, but I’m excited
 

Alan recommends Spinderella

  • A solid board game for ages 6+ that I’ve only ever played with a group of 20 or 30-somethings
  • You try to get your three ants to the end of the board, but depending on dice rolls other players can move the hanging spiders around to try and grab your pieces and send them back to the start

 

Literally Misleading

Game – Small business owner deals with the sins of his father while his life is becoming a living hell!
 
If you have a Literally Misleading Description, message Josh directly on our Discord, or Twitter @fushigiyami

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

A huge thanks to Zane, for believing in us for so long.
And thanks to all our ‘fanily’ that support us.
And if you want to support us too, its as easy as clicking this link!
 
We are a proud member of the Alberta Podcast Network powered by ATB
 
And talk to us in the comments!
 
 
Twitter and Instagram @ps2jshow
 
A Facebook Page exists as well.