PS2J 335 News – Samus Aran: Missing In Action

Free Games

  • Epic Games

    • Absolute Drift: Zen Edition

      • Drifting: The Art Of Sliding Sideways.
      • This is a driving experience like no other.
        • Journey from apprentice to master drifter as you hone your skill in a gorgeous minimalist world.
      • Push yourself to the limit on drifting tracks and wild mountain roads while you work to unlock trophies and elite events. Compete against ghosts of the top players in the world, or refine your skills by out-scoring your own ghost.
      • Chill out to over 3 hours of original electronic music by C41 and NYTE as you challenge your driving skills at every turn until you finally master the art of drifting.

  • Twitch

    • Adventures of Chris

      • Embark on a global adventure in this ‘90s-inspired adventure platformer.
      • Help a chubby underdog kid with wacky superpowers battle bizarre villains, unlock and customize special moves and spells, and save the world!

Stadia Developers may have been mislead before dismissal

    • Nathan Grayson and Ethan Gach
  • Developers at Google’s recently formed game studios were shocked February 1 when they were notified that the studios would be shut down,
    • Just the week prior, Google Stadia vice president and general manager Phil Harrison sent an email to staff lauding the “great progress” its studios had made so far.
  • Mass layoffs were announced a few days later, part of an apparent pattern of Stadia leadership not being honest and upfront with the company’s developers, many of which had upended their lives and careers to join the team.
  • Stadia developers learned the news, first reported by Kotaku, at almost the same time as everyone else via an internal email and conference call with Harrison.
    • The messy rollout came after an already grueling year working through the pandemic.
    • It was reminiscent of Stadia’s own launch, which appeared rushed and left out many features promoted during the service’s reveal, only to be added months later.
  • Developers had to wait three days after receiving the news to directly share their confusion and frustration with Harrison in a second conference call on February 4.
    • This call was followed by a contentious Q&A where the Stadia boss was confronted about his email from just the week before which suggested anything but a wholesale shutdown of the studios.
    • Harrison expressed his regret over the misleading statements made in his previous email, according to four sources with knowledge of the call.
    • When asked what changed from the week prior, Harrison admitted nothing had and told those on the call, “We knew.”
  • It’s still not clear exactly why Google decided to abandon the first-party studios it started building up less than two years earlier.
    • In his blog post, Harrison referenced the rising costs of game development as a factor.
  • Google is looking to find work for displaced employees elsewhere in the company.
    • However, it is having trouble doing so as Google traditionally hires generalists, and game development requires a very specialized set of skills.
  • Developers hoped Stadia’s game studios would survive its issues, if for no other reason than that Google, in theory at least, could afford to burn through hundreds of millions trying to jumpstart a new gaming platform with exclusive content.
    • Instead, it ended up burning through the trust of some of the approximately 150 developers impacted by the abrupt change in direction.
    • Now, remaining Stadia employees have to pick up the pieces while wondering how they can trust leadership and how anybody can trust Stadia.

Apple gets patent for variable iPhone display refresh rates

  • A new Apple patent published today by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office describes an iPhone display that, with high refresh mode enabled, may be capable of updating content at two times, three times, or even four times the native refresh rate, as reported by Patently Apple.
    • For example, an ‌iPhone‌ with a 60Hz display would be able to increase its variable refresh rate to 120Hz, 180Hz, or 240Hz automatically.
    • The higher the refresh rate, the smoother the content on the display will be.
  • Rumors of 120Hz coming to the iPhone 12 proved to be untrue, but there is renewed confidence that ProMotion will make an appearance on the iPhone 13.
    • During the rumor cycle last year, some claimed that the ‌iPhone 12‌ would automatically switch between 60Hz and 120Hz depending on what the user was doing on their device in an effort to preserve battery life.
    • While the ability for a device to switch between 60Hz and 120Hz is not new, the patent describing the ability for an ‌iPhone‌ to push the refresh rate to as high as 180Hz or 240Hz is.
  • The lack of a 120Hz refresh rate on the ‌iPhone‌ so far could be linked to the fact that Apple tends to treads carefully when adding features such as ProMotion that could be detrimental to battery life or systemwide performance.
    • Rumors suggest that Apple will overcome this power consumption dilemma by adopting low-power LTPO display technology for iPhone 13 models, allowing for 120Hz without a significant impact on battery life.
  • A higher refresh rate could be beneficial for several use cases, such as gaming and augmented reality.
    • If a user is simply watching a movie or messaging a friend, the display could switch back to its 60Hz native refresh rate as a means to save battery life

Nintendo Direct

  • https://www.destructoid.com/stories/everything-that-happened-at-the-nintendo-direct-for-february-2021-620089.phtml

  • Pyra and Mythra from Xenoblade Chronicles 2 are coming to Smash Ultimate

    • Rex, the main character of Xenoblade Chronicles 2, is also making a small appearance through the ultimate moves of the two aegises, which are based on their level three artes from Xenoblade Chronicles 2.
    • The rest of the gang can be seen in the special stage coming with Pyra and Mythra, which uses the titan Azurda as a base.

  • Famicom Detective Club titles headed west on Switch for the first time

    • Available for the first time to western audiences
    • Famicom Detective Club: The Missing Heir (1988) and Famicom Detective Club: The Girl Who Stands Behind (1989) bring anime murder most foul to the Nintendo platform, challenging players to pit their finest deductive skills against a list of suspects in two dark, creepy, and perhaps even supernatural dramas.
    • Put your thinking caps on, and stay one step ahead of a killer.

  • Nintendo Switch is getting in on the Fall Guys fun this summer

    • Fall Guys is currently in its third season on PC and PS4, and while it’s hard to beat the initial rush when everyone was figuring out their ideal traversal routes, there’s still a lot of joy to be found, particularly with the most recent content push.
    • There’s no doubt this game will click with the Switch audience.

  • The Outer Wilds will destroy the universe on Switch this Summer

    • Venture into a hand-crafted solar system and unravel the mysteries of the universe when the critically acclaimed OuterWilds comes to NintendoSwitch this summer!

  • Samurai Warriors V confirmed for Switch this summer

    • Experience exhilarating action set in a dramatic historical setting in SAMURAI WARRIORS 5.
    • As the latest numbered entry in the SAMURAI WARRIORS franchise, the story, characters, and visuals have been re-imagined to set the stage for a thrilling new series.
    • The story takes place after the Ōnin War during the golden age of the Sengoku period, and features a story that centers on the lives of two of the most representative military commanders of this era: Nobunaga Oda and Mitsuhide Akechi.

  • Legend of Mana is coming to Nintendo Switch and you can turn off enemy encounters

    • Legend of Mana is coming to Switch, PS4, and Steam on June 24 with enhancements like “remastered” graphics, a toggle for enemy encounters, the Ring Ring Land mini-game, and the ability to hear the original soundtrack or choose an arranged version.

  • Capcom Arcade Stadium launches today on Nintendo Switch

    • Capcom Arcade Stadium will arrive as a free dashboard bundled with 1987 shmup 1943: The Battle of Midway.
    • Players can then purchase three individual packs of games, each containing 10 classic titles.

  • Mario Golf Super Rush will have you running to Switch this June

    • Hit the green with up to four players locally or online and golf with familiar Mushroom Kingdom characters.
    • Modes range from Standard Golf to the energetic Speed Golf and an RPG-like golf adventure in story mode.
    • Intuitive motion or button controls, a shot gauge that adapts to the curve of the course, and other new features make it easy for both new players and seasoned pros to drive and putt with power.

  • No More Heroes 3, out in August, brings back odd jobs, which are used to ‘pay entry fees’ for boss battles

    • The legendary assassin Travis Touchdown makes his glorious return to the Madness!
    • Our hero, Travis Touchdown, must make it to the top of the Galactic Superhero Rankings in order to stop the evil Prince FU and his ten alien assassins from taking over the Earth.

  • Who needs Gotham Knights when you have DC Super Hero Girls Teen Power?

    • Join the fight as Wonder Woman, Supergirl, and Batgirl from the animated series DC Super Hero Girls, and save Metropolis from some of DC’s most notorious Super-Villains!
    • Each hero can battle baddies with a unique set of abilities: Wonder Woman uses her warrior skills with the Lasso of Truth and Flying Shield, Supergirl has Heat Vision and Super-Breath, and Batgirl can invent crime-fighting gadgets like the Batarang and Bat-Hook.
    • But when you’re not out fighting crime, you have to balance the super life with their lives as teenagers!

  • In-game Mario merch is coming to Animal Crossing: New Horizons

    • Mario outfits and items to celebrate Mario’s 35th anniversary!
    • With the addition of a warp pipe, players now have a quick way to traverse their island.

  • Miitopia is bringing brand new adventures to Nintendo Switch

    • Cast your friends, family or anyone you choose in a hilarious adventure to bring down the face-stealing Dark Lord.
    • Create and customize Mii™ characters of anyone you like—from your favorite celebrities to your dreaded math teacher –and assign them roles and personality traits in the fantasy adventure of a lifetime.
    • You can even add wigs and makeup to give your characters more…character.
    • Watch your characters come to life as your favorite actor and dear old grandma team up to topple the villainous Dark Lord that resembles your grumpy neighbor!

  • Neon White might be the most out-there game in today’s Nintendo Direct

    • Neon White is a lightning fast first-person action game about exterminating demons in Heaven.
    • You are White, an assassin handpicked from Hell to compete with other demon slayers for a chance to live permanently in Heaven.
    • The other assassins seem familiar, though… did you know them in a past life?

  • Knockout City is a dodgeball-style sports title coming from Electronic Arts

    • Team up and duke it out with rival Crews in Knockout City™, where you settle the score with EPIC DODGEBALL BATTLES.
    • Brace yourself for outrageous fun and intense competition in an all-new take on team-based multiplayer games.

  • Star Wars: Hunters is a free-to-play online shooter coming this year

    • STAR WARS: Hunters™ will connect players in real time to battle in settings inspired by iconic STAR WARS locales.
    • Players will join squads of all-new and authentic characters, including daring Bounty Hunters, heroes of the Rebellion and Imperial stormtroopers, in an action game that immerses players in a fast-paced and visually stunning STAR WARS galaxy.

  • Project Triangle Strategy is a new HD-2D action-RPG with a Switch demo today

    • Command a group of warriors as Serenoa, heir to the Kingdom of Glenbrook in a tangled plot where your decisions make all the difference.
    • Key choices you make will bolster one of three convictions—Utility, Morality, Liberty—which together make up Serenoa’s world view and influence how the story will unfold.
    • When faced with truly momentous decisions, multiple characters will weigh in by casting their votes on the Scales of Conviction.
    • mIn these moments, the allies and decisions you make can determine the fate of whole nations and the continent of Norzelia itself.

  • World’s End Club, out in May on Switch, looks like a fine follow-up to Danganronpa

    • Renowned game writers Kotaro Uchikoshi and Kazutaka Kodaka return with a brand-new game that’s easy to dive into and full of twists and turns.
      • This charming and vivid story of friendship and mystery will captivate new and experienced players alike!
    • The “Go-Getters Club,” a group of misfit students from all over Japan, find themselves trapped in a strange theme park during a class trip.
      • In order to unravel the mystery of their circumstances and find an escape, they must take part in a “Game of Fate” that will test their bonds of friendship!
      • With colorful visuals, charming characters, accessible gameplay, and a compelling story, this is an experience you will never forget!

  • Ninja Gaiden Master Collection is slicing up Switch this year

    • Enjoy 3 games from the NINJA GAIDEN series in this single collection.
    • The nostalgic yet timeless high-speed action of the series unfolds on the latest hardware, so look forward to heated battles with fearsome opponents!
    • In addition to Ryu Hayabusa, the 4 female characters Ayane, Rachel, Momiji, and Kasumi are also playable. Pair up favorite characters, and switch between characters during battles.

  • Zelda Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity expansion pass features new weapons, characters, stages, and more

    • The pass will run players around $20 and includes purchase bonuses, as well as two waves of DLC content.

  • Hades deserves a physical edition and it’s getting one on Nintendo Switch

    • Announced during today’s Nintendo Direct, Hades will get a Switch physical edition with the game, a download code for Darren Korb’s soundtrack, and a 32-page character compendium on March 19.

  • The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword HD has button and motion controls

    • Take to the skies, draw your sword, and experience the earliest story in the Legend of Zelda series.
      • Join Link in his high-flying quest to save Zelda, a childhood friend who must confront her destiny.
      • Soar between floating islands and descend to the treacherous surface world in this updated HD version of the Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword.
    • Master realistic swordplay that matches your movements
    • Swing your sword and angle your slashes to uncover and break through opponents’ defenses using intuitive motion controls.
      • Link will match the angle of each strike you make with the Joy-Con controller, creating immersive swordplay that relies on strategy and accuracy.
      • Movements feel smoother and more immediate thanks to the Nintendo Switch system’s increased processing power and HD graphics.
      • Take advantage of the newly-added button only control scheme—perfect for playing in handheld mode or on the Nintendo Switch Lite system.

  • Plants vs. Zombies: Battle for Neighborville is coming to Switch with a $40 Complete Edition in March

    • Now on Nintendo Switch, tackle hilarious missions and defeat epic bosses in the Weirding Woods, Mount Steep, and Neighborville Town Center to collect medals and unlock outrageous outfits.
    • Party with up to three friends and goof around in Giddy Park or dive into some 8v8 multiplayer in Turf Takeover, vanquishing opponents, blasting gnome bombs, bouncing on pink ooze – it’s the most fun you’ll have since sliced bread.

  • If it’s still on your bucket list, Stubbs the Zombie is getting a remaster on March 16

    • Be the Zombie. Kick A** and Take Brains.
    • It’s 1959 and the city of Punchbowl, PA, is a beacon of progress and ideal living.
    • Show the living that law and order are no match for a dead man on a mission.
    • Your boyfriend’s back Maggie and Punchbowl is gonna be in trouble!

  • Today’s Nintendo Direct ‘one last thing’ is Splatoon 3

    • Enter the Splatlands, a sun-scorched desert inhabited by battle-hardened Inklings and Octolings.
      • Splatsville, the city of chaos, is the adrenaline-fueled heart of this dusty wasteland.
    • Even in this desolate environment, Turf War reigns supreme and battles rage in new stages located in the surrounding wilds.
    • Dynamic new moves help these fighters dodge attacks and cover more ground, along with a new bow-shaped weapon to sling ink.
      • Stay tuned for more information to be revealed, as the Splatoon 3 game is scheduled to release for the Nintendo Switch™ system in 2022.

This Week In Gaming History

February 13 – 1995 – Oregon Trail II – Windows

  • Oregon Trail II is a sequel to Oregon Trail.
    • The game follows the basic structure of the predecessor, which is a simulation of traveling through towns and wilderness in the state of Oregon, with adventure-like gameplay elements and educational material.
    • The sequel changes, enhances, and adds many gameplay features.
  • The player is able to choose an occupation for the protagonist, such as banker, doctor, gunsmith, carpenter, journalist, butcher, pastor, artist, and many others.
    • Different occupations bestow various bonuses to the protagonist, and are equipped with passive skills, which will influence the rate of success during certain random events and activities.
    • For example, a high medical skill will make it more likely that the protagonist recovers from a disease; sharpshooting skill contributes to the instant-kill rate when hunting animals, etc.

February 14 – 2005 – Star Fox Assault – GameCube

  • The Lylat System has been at peace for several years after the mysterious disaster was averted on Dinosaur Planet.
    • But, alas, Andrew Oikonny, who has been kicked out of Star Wolf, seems to have taken over Andross’s army, and to make things even trickier, strange insect-like creatures called Aparoids have started to appear all around and destroy and assimilate objects.
  • Star Fox Assault marks a return to the space and air combat in the spirit of the original Star Fox and Star Fox 64 games.
    • In addition to this, Fox and friends get to fight on foot, using various different kinds of weapons, and the Landmaster tank.
    • The game includes a 10-mission campaign as well as a rather varied multiplayer mode.
  • The Aparoids may be based on either the Borg from Star Trek, or the Phalanx from Marvel Comics, as they are both techno-organic alien races bent on the assimilation of all organic life.

February 15 – 1996 – Nester’s Funky Bowling – Virtual Boy

  • Nester, once the mascot of Nintendo Power, and his sister Hester have decided to star in a bowling game
  • As with every other bowling game in existence, you roll a ball down an alley in an attempt to knock down 10 pins.
    • To do this in this game, you have to try and match up two gauges: Spin and Power.
    • The Spin gauge determines how far left or right the ball will go, and the Power gauge determines how hard your character throws the ball.

February 16 – 1993 – Mystery at the Museums – DOS

  • Mystery at the Museums is the second in the Adventures with Edison series.
    • The game is sponsored by Smithsonian Institution and allows the player to visit different museums.
  • A detective agency is searching for missing treasures.
    • They’ve been misplaced or hidden in museums.
    • Accompanied by Edison, a happy little fellow, the players visits the museums and must solve various puzzles.
    • Puzzle types include: match two or three hidden pictures of a kind, slide the tiles to compose the picture, falling block puzzle, match the constellation from a selection, etc.
    • The answers are fulfilled with additional educational information.
  • There are game sessions of different difficulties for childen in the age category 6-13+.
    • Finding all the treasures in a session places the winner in the High Scores table.
    • The looks of Edison may be adjusted. The game session progress is saved / loaded for each game profile.

February 17 – 2011 – Burrito Bison – Browser

  • During a peaceful shopping session, Burrito Bison was kidnapped by gummy bears and forced to wrestle.
    • The only way home is through three giant gates of Candy Land.
  • At the start the player chooses an angle and launches Bison into the air.
    • Without the speed he won’t be able to escape, so bounce at bears to maintain it.
    • Rocket pants will help to fall faster, but they have charges, gained by various actions.
    • Also, dead gummies drop money, which can be spent for upgrades after every run, increasing Bison’s attributes and chances to meet certain enemy types.
    • The enemies are divided into harmful cops, who should be avoided, and helpful ones, gaining speed via explosions or minigames (i.e. click button as fast as possible or at right timing).

February 18 – 2004 – Pitfall: The Lost Expedition – Xbox, PS2, GameCube

  • You play as Pitfall Harry, intrepid adventurer on a mission to rescue an archaeological expedition that has gotten lost in the Peruvian jungle.
    • Along the way you’ll do battle with your arch rival, Jonathan St. Claire, and help fulfill an ancient prophecy to save the world.
  • Gameplay takes the form of classic platformer action meets Metroid-style adventure as you explore through jungles, ruins, caverns, and mountains, looking for items that will open new avenues for exploration in a huge, connected world.

February 19 – 2009 – Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II – Windows

  • Plot:
    • In the 41st century everything is nothing but war.
    • Orcs, Eldar and countless other races fight against the Human Imperium with the sole goal to annihilate and eradicate them from the face of the galaxy.
    • One of those many battles is fought by the Space Marines Order “Blood Raven” that has begun to cleanse the planets of subsector Aurelia from Orcs, Eldars and Tyranids.
  • The single player campaign, which can also be played cooperative with a friend, consists of two parts.
    • The first part is the planet overview. Here the player sees which territories he has already conquered, the ones currently threatened and from where emergency signals are sent.
    • From that screen he also selects skills and equips his heroes, sees the messages of the day and ultimately decides to which battlefield he turns his attention next.
  • When the territory has been decided upon, the player needs to choose from his available squads a maximum of four to send into battle.
    • As opposed to multiplayer, new units cannot be built during the battles and there is only access to a very limited amount of reinforcements.
    • Each squad is led by a hero who gains experience in battle, levels up and can equip so-called war gear like better armor, dropped by boss enemies or awarded at the end of a mission.
    • At each level-up his stats also improve and he gets two skill points that can be allocated to the heroes four main characteristics including strength or stamina.
    • When the player invests enough points into one element, a new ability for the hero is unlocked and it can be used on the battlefield.
  • In multiplayer the player needs not only choose which of the four races he wants to play but he can also decide on one of three heroes that are roughly categorized based on offensive, defensive and support skill.
    • During the skirmishes the hero again gains experience, levels up and can then decide on the fly which upgrade to install.
    • And while in single player the hero can only be revived by other heroes once he dies, in multiplayer the player can revive him instantly for a price.
    • The longer he waits with the revive order, the less it costs.
  • The resources needed to pay the price and build new units in the army headquarters are automatically collected every few seconds once the player has conquered a requisite point on the map.
    • In addition, the player needs to conquer energy points to get the energy required to upgrade his units.
    • All these efforts are ultimately needed to either destroy up to five enemies or conquer and hold enough victory points until the enemies points’ account has reached zero.
  • Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II is mentioned in the book 1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die by Tony Mott

Tidbits

  • God of War has a 60fps patch for PS5, and it really polishes an amazing game for the more powerful PS5.
    • Richard Leadbetter from Eurogamer said:
    • Let’s put it this way, across one hour and 45 minutes of play, just 33 frames were dropped from a total in excess of 378,000 – and those were in a non-playable cutscene.
  • Halo 3 received its last official new map all the way back in 2009, as part of the Mythic II Map Pack release.
    • Now, 343 Industries has announced that a new map, first featured in Halo Online, will be added to the next round of Master Chief Collection beta testing.
    • The Update to the Master Chief Collection will also include a server browser, to find specific game types.

 

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PS2J News 332 – Track or Not To Track

Free Games

  • Twitch

    • Algo Bot

      • 2018
      • Puzzle game that has you maintaining a pan-galactic colony ship by managing a cute robot through a visual programming language

    • Little Big Workshop

      • 2019
      • Management sim with an open-ended sandbox experience where you start with a small tabletop workshop and expand to a desk-filling factory, running multiple production lines and managing your cute workers

  • Epic Games

    • Dandara: Trials of Fear Edition

      • 2018
      • 2D platformer and Metroidvania based on the Afro-Brazilian warrior of the same name that has you traversing the world by warping between white surfaces
      • Trials of Fear Edition adds a bunch of things like new areas, a new boss, new powers, and a new secret ending

  • Sony

    • Concrete Genie

      • 2019
      • Action-adventure game where you discover a paint brush that can bring your art to life, infusing them with different personalities and powers depending on how you draw them

    • Control Ultimate Edition

      • 2020 bundle version of the 2019 release, including the Foundation and AWE expansions, brand new to the PS5 and Xbox Series in February
      • Action-adventure game that revolves around the Federal Bureau of Control, a secret US government agency tasked with containing and studying phenomena that violate the laws of reality. You play as the new director and use your powerful abilities to defeat the deadly Hiss
      • This is a messy one- the developers set it up so that only people that own the Ultimate edition can get a free upgrade to the PS5 and Xbox Series consoles, so players that bought it in the first year of release are left out in the cold
        • They also stated that save files could be brought forward to the latest consoles from the original release if you bought Ultimate Edition on the last-generation consoles, but just yesterday they announced that there is actually no way to bring your old save file to the next-gen consoles
        • Now Ultimate Edition is being made free on PS4 and PS5 two weeks after it was just on sale, but unlike ManEater they aren’t offering any refunds for people that jumped on the deal, even if they haven’t booted it up yet while waiting for the PS5 release

    • Destruction AllStars

      • Brand new 2021
      • Vehicular combat game billed as a “global sports entertainment event where stars & cars collide”, where each hero vehicle has different abilities and once your car has been destroyed you need to survive on foot

  • Microsoft

    • Gears 5

      • 2019 optimized for the Xbox Series
      • Third-person shooter that takes place months after the events of Gears of War 4 that has you uncovering the origins of the Locust and the truth behind your family history

    • Resident Evil

      • 2015 HD remaster of the 1996 release
      • Survival horror game that helped define the genre, where you play a member of the elite task force S.T.A.R.S as they investigate the outskirts of Raccoon City following the disappearance of your team members

    • Dandara: Trials of Fear Edition (also on Epic)

      • 2018
      • 2D platformer and Metroidvania based on the Afro-Brazilian warrior of the same name that has you traversing the world by warping between white surfaces
      • Trials of Fear Edition adds a bunch of things like new areas, a new boss, new powers, and a new secret ending

    • Indiana Jones and the Emperor’s Tomb

      • 2003
      • Action-adventure game that has you taking the role of Indy as he travels to 1935 China to prevent a powerful artifact from falling into evil hands, pitting you against evil Nazis and the Asian underworld

    • Lost Planet 2

      • 2010
      • Third-person shooter set 10 years after Lost Planet: Extreme Condition where terraforming efforts have started to change the face of the planet but mankind is still locked in a civil war for thermal energy

Apple’s released updates for pretty much all of their devices except for Mac, including bug fixes, security updates for vulnerabilities that may have been exploited in the wild, and a new Unity watchface inspired by the Pan-African flag

  • Some people online think the security updates may be related to the GreyKey iPhone hacking device, but we have yet to see any solid reports
  • Related to the new watchface, as part of Black History Month Apple has also introduced a limited-edition “Black Unity” Apple Watch and sport band, using the colours of the Pan-African flag and inscribed with messages like “Black Unity”, and “Truth. Power. Solidarity.”
    • They also have plans to use their apps like Maps and Music to spotlight Black businesses, musicians, developers, writers, influencers, and news stories

Facebook is apparently preparing an antitrust lawsuit against Apple for an unfair approach to privacy and default apps

  • Facebook is claiming that the App Tracking Transparency features, allowing users to opt-out of being tracked, are unfair because they don’t appear for Apple’s built-in apps
    • The problem here is that Apple doesn’t track users or share data for advertising purposes, so it doesn’t really apply
  • Facebook will apparently also be focusing on Apple’s refusal to allow other messaging apps to be set as the system default, claiming that limitation is an effort to prevent people from switching to competing brands
    • I’m sure this has nothing to do with them lobbying Apple in September to allow Facebook Messenger to be the default messaging app and being soundly rejected
  • The big bullet point here seems to be that Facebook’s accusing Apple of making changes to line their own pockets, while the reality seems to be that all Apple’s doing here is giving us control over how Facebook monetizes us
  • We’ll have to see if these actions actually get filed, but a lot of it just seems like an tantrum because Facebook will have to start asking permission before harvesting data from iPhone users

In related news, Google is actually pulling the tracking features from their iOS apps

  • Many of Google’s apps still have yet to submit their data privacy labels to the App Store, which will show what data they’re gathering, but in the meantime they’ve announced that rather than ask users to allow themselves to be tracked Google will instead remove tracking altogether
  • Google’s warned that app developers may see a “significant impact” to their Google ad revenue on iOS after the new policy takes effect, but if tracking is so important to their business then they could always leave it in and use the permissions prompt to justify it to their users
  • The fact that they’d rather stop than ask permission is pretty dang telling

Microsoft revealed plans to double the price of Xbox Live Gold this week, drawing so much fire that they reversed course 15 hours later

  • In their planned rollout their cheapest option would have stayed at $60, but cut down to 6 months instead of the current 12
  • The prevailing theory is that this change would have been to push more people toward Game Pass Ultimate, which offers the benefits of Gold with the Game Pass subscription service that’s pretty solid but not necessarily for everyone
  • On the plus side, now instead of doubling the price of Gold they’re keeping prices as-is and also making changes for free-to-play games to allow them online without a Gold membership
  • So it at least shows that they’re open to criticism and willing to make their services a little better instead of much worse

Disney’s making changes to its Disney+ lineup as part of their Stories Matter initiative, an effort to reckon with the company’s history of racist stereotypes and negative depictions

  • Several titles with problematic content like Peter Pan, Aristocats, The Lady and the Tramp, and Dumbo, have been removed from profiles set up for children, though they can still be viewed from regular accounts
  • When watched they also display a strong condemnation of their contents, saying that the stereotypes were wrong then and are wrong now, acknowledging the harmful impact, and saying they want to learn from it and spark conversation so that parents can make sure their children have a good mental framework in which to place these movies
  • Conversations about race and stereotypes aren’t easy to have with kids, but you can’t just throw those types of racist caricatures at impressionable minds willy-nilly without doing some harm in the process

This Week In Gaming History 2000’s Edition!

January 23 – 2001 – The Typing Of The Dead – Sega Dreamcast (North America)

  • This is essentially the same game as the arcade light-gun rail-shooter House of the Dead 2, except they’ve turned it into a edu-tainment typing trainer.
    • Instead of guns, your characters have keyboards strapped to them, and instead of shooting the zombies that constantly jump out at you you’ll need to type out the words attached to the zombies in order to kill them before they crack open your head and feast upon the goo inside.
    • The game ranks you on your typing speed and provides various tutorials and other edu-tainment sundries.
  • Otherwise it’s pretty much the same game as House of the Dead 2.
    • Much like the Resident Evil series, the zombie hordes have gone from infesting a vaguely gothic creepy old mansion to infesting a vaguely gothic decaying city, and its your job to stop them and save the human race (as usual).

January 24 – 2000 – Crazy Taxi – Sega Dreamcast (United States)

  • Crazy Taxi is an arcade-like racer where the player takes the role of a taxi driver who weaves his way through crowded streets, across sidewalks, and even underwater, in a wild and frantic race to deliver passengers on time.
    • The courses are largely set inside cities crowded with general traffic and pedestrians (which can’t be run over, they dive away).
    • The main goal is to bring as many customers as possible to their destination in time.
    • Available customers are marked through circles and the color represents the distance and the fare they offer.
    • Green means long rides with plenty of money, and red ones are very short.
  • In the main Arcade mode, there is a timer that quickly runs down.
    • It can be replenished by picking up customers.
    • While driving reckless maneuvers are encouraged.
    • Players can disregard all traffic rules and customers give extra tips for speedy and dangerous driving, but these can only be cashed when the customer arrives at his destination in time.
    • By the same token, the reward at the end of a ride is based on the amount of time left, as each customer also has a personal timer.
    • The city is filled with slopes and jumps, and the game uses a very loose driving model.
    • No damage can be done to the car, so driving as fast as possible is encouraged.
    • While driving players can toy with the gears to perform two special tricks: a crazy drift and a crazy boost to speed up more quickly.
  • Next to the Arcade mode, there is an Original mode and Crazy Box where specific goals need to be met on closed down courses.
    • In the regular modes, it is possible to disregard the usual timer and play for a fixed amount of minutes.
    • At the end of the race, the player is rewarded with a license, either D, C, B or A, with S for outstanding performance.
    • Next to the interactive courses from the arcade version, there is a new course for home consoles.
    • There are four cabs and drivers to choose from.
    • The cars have different statistics and the drivers’ different attitudes while racing.
    • The game has a soundtrack featuring The Offspring and Bad Religion (not for the Xbox 360 version).

January 25 – 2005 – Playboy: The Mansion – PS2, Windows, Xbox

  • Live the life of Hugh Hefner in this “Virtual Hef” simulation.
  • As a young Hugh Hefner, it is the player’s goal to build the Playboy empire through sexy parties and putting together Playboy magazine every month.
    • Build friendships and business contacts with celebrities, political figures, musicians, sports stars and more through hosting events and charming over people.
  • On the business side, Hef has to hire a staff to take photos and write articles for the magazine.
    • The “Playboy Photoshoot” mode allows the player to take the role of photographer.
    • On the personal side, invite friends into your inner circle, and find a girlfriend… or two…. or more.
    • The better the parties Hef throws, the more fame he gets, as well as more interesting people to fill the magazine.
    • More money means a larger staff, and more items (toys and furniture) for Hef to display in the Mansion.
  • Doing well in the game earns Hef points which can be used to purchase extra features, such as cheats and archive photos of Hef and past issue covers.

January 26 – 2003 – Devil May Cry 2 – PlayStation 2

  • Devil May Cry 2 is the sequel to Devil May Cry and once again casts you as Dante, the demon slayer.
  • You control Dante as you battle demons through various levels, ultimately reaching the conclusion and to find out just why these demons are trying to kill everyone.
    • To aid you in your quest, you once again have your trusty sword and various attributes, as well as new moves, like running on walls, aerial kicks, and multi-directional shooting.
  • This time around, Dante is not alone, as you have a partner, named Lucia.
    • Just as much of an asskicker as Dante, Lucia utilizes a kind of knife which she can rapidly throw at her enemies.
  • All the special skills from the first game are here, again activated by your Devil Trigger, which has been improved for the sequel’s release.

January 27 – 2004 – Cops 2170: The Power of Law – Windows

  • COPS 2170 is a tactical strategy game of squad combat with RPG elements set in a futuristic cyberpunk world.
    • It is a prequel to Paradise Cracked, an earlier game by the same company.
  • In the game you control Katy, a new officer fresh from the academy that aims to make a solid career in the police force.
    • You will control her as your main character and recruit additional partners to undertake several missions, which usually involve combat across the urban sprawls of the future against several factions and gangs in the city.
    • As the game progresses a plot starts to surface involving a deranged criminal who aims to bring the city to its knees.
  • You can control up to 6 characters and additional backup NPCs, each with their own stats and equipment and issue orders to them on squad-based turns.
    • Since you are part of the police force there’s no resource management and instead the equipment availability is decided by your rank, which depends on the conditions in which you complete each mission.
    • The game uses a fully polygonal engine and features branching mission objectives and different outcomes based on your in-game actions.

January 28 – 2003 – Black & Bruised – GameCube, PlayStation 2

  • Black & Bruised is a cartoonish take on boxing with 18 different boxers, each with their own personality and fighting style.
    • There are five different modes including multi-player, exhibition, and a story mode told with CG with each boxer’s life story is played out in story mode.
    • Each boxer has a different special attack and power-ups can be picked up to use in matches.
    • There are 30 different facial expressions for each boxer reacting to punches and misses giving them a life-like appearance.

January 29 – 2001 – Oni – Windows, Macintosh, PlayStation 2

  • Plot:
    • It’s 2032.
    • The planet is now ruled by the World Coalition Government which annexed 80% of the countries, with the remaining quickly dragged into the WCG.
    • While their official goal was to solve humankind’s problems, it was about money.
    • Massive spending bankrupted poorer countries, and soon all traces of individual government disappeared.
    • For those who were poor, the situation didn’t improved one bit, and for the richer, maintaining the status was done at the expense of their privacy and personal freedoms.
    • To make things worse, life outside the major cities, far from the atmosphere processors is nearly impossible, as the so-called “Wilderness Preserves” are poisoned, and those who venture into them risk a painful death.
    • Konoko, fresh out from TCTF (Technology Crimes Task Force, a secret police to take cyber drugs and weapons from the streets, as well as explore the induced technophobia to operate and investigate on a blank check permission) academy is placed under the command of Terrance Griffin and Dr. Kerr and linked to a SLD – an android – called Shinatama, who is neurally linked to her.
    • However, Konoko knows next to nothing about her past, other that she was orphaned at the age of three and felt “different” to other people while was being brought up under the wing of TCTF.
    • After many years in training, she has finally the chance to prove herself to Griffin and the TCTF, and so, heads for a warehouse rumoured to be under the control of the Syndicate, a criminal organization which grew exponentially after a young man called “Boss Muro” climbed to the top of the organization.
  • Inspired by the classic Anime series Ghost in the Shell by Shirow Masamune, gameplay is a mix between generic third-person shooter and a classic beat’em up.
    • While Konoko has at her disposal several hand-to-hand acrobatic moves (with more unlocked as the player advances), she can also find weapons in the levels, and the decision to go armed or bare-fisted is only up to the player.
    • Each weapon either draws from ballistic or energy cell clips, the number of rounds in each clip depending on the weapon: a Black Adder (a short, one-hand machine gun like an Uzi) can get 30 rounds from a ballistic clip, while a Mercury Bow (a sniper railgun sans scope) only two.
    • Combined with the limited availability of clips, this adds a strategic element to the game, as the player can only carry a weapon at a time, so if a powerful weapons runs out of ammo, the player must choose between keeping the weapon and fight hand to hand with the enemies until Konoko finds fresh ammo clips, or discard it for a lesser gun that uses different ammo.
    • However, if the player runs out of ammo completely when facing a tough challenge, Konoko can “overdose” on hypo sprays (used to heal damage) by using them over her natural health bar, which provides her with faster movement and tougher blows.

Tidbits

  • Reddit took to the stock market this week to inflate the price of stocks like GameStop in order to stick it to hedge funds that have been banking on the prices dropping soon
    • It got to the point where trading had to be frozen multiple times, and the popular trading app RobinHood took the potentially illegal position that their users are now no longer allowed to buy those stocks, only sell
    • Because of this multiple government officials from both sides of the aisle, including AOC and Ted Cruz, have called for an investigation and potential sanctions against RobinHood
  • CDPR has released modding support tools for Cyberpunk 2077, with promises to keep them up to date as patches continue being developed, so we should hopefully see some interesting things added to Night City as time goes on
  • In local news, Edmonton has a new Smash Bros inspired burger joint called Burger Brawl, that has two chefs pitting burgers against each other elimination-style each weekend with new challengers announced each Thursday. Check them out at burgerbrawl.ca

Looking forward to playing The Medium this weekend

  • The Medium is a psychological horror game played in third-person as Marianne, a medium who can travel into the spirit realm.
    • Being able to inhabit both worlds aids puzzle solving.
    • Her psychic abilities may also be used against hostile forces and are recharged by interacting with energy spots called spirit wells.
  • The Medium is developed by Bloober Team, who came up with the idea in 2012.
    • Bloober meant to enhance the immersion by changing their traditional perspective from first- to third-person and taking advantage of Xbox Series X/S’s background streaming.
    • They modelled the supernatural setting after Zdzisław Beksiński’s dystopian surrealist artwork.
    • Lead designer Wojciech Piejko said The Medium imparts the message that “there is no universal truth”.
    • Composers Arkadiusz Reikowski and Akira Yamaoka were tasked with scoring the physical and spiritual plane, respectively.
    • Using synthesiser and analogue sounds, Reikowski likened his approach to that of Stranger Things and Chernobyl.
    • Yamaoka worked on the Silent Hill franchise, which inspired the game, including its fixed camera angles.
    • He was persuaded to take on the music when Piejko gave him a gameplay demonstration. Singer Mary Elizabeth McGlynn, also of Silent Hill fame, will contribute vocals.
    • Troy Baker voices the primary antagonist, known as the Maw, for whom another actor performed the motion capture on stilts.
  • The Medium was originally announced for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and Wii U in 2012, but for want of better technology, reappeared in May 2020 as a Microsoft Windows and Xbox Series X/S title.
    • Originally scheduled for 10 December 2020, the release was eventually delayed to 28 January 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic

 

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PS2J 328 News – Year in Review

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

Free Games

  • Twitch

    • Battlefield 3 (on Origin)

      • 2011
      • First person military shooter set during the fictional War of 2014, taking place in the Iran-Iraq region, with missions framed as flashbacks during your interrogation

    • HyperDot

      • 2020
      • Minimalist action arcade bullet hell with one rule- dodge everything

    • The Spectrum Retreat

      • 2018
      • First person narrative driven puzzle game set in the near future that has you exploring the peaceful yet unsettling Penrose Hotel, trying to unearth the truth

    • Wizard of Legend

      • 2018
      • Indie top down 2D roguelike where players take control of a wizard travelling a procedurally generated dungeon, killing monsters and collecting spells to become the Wizard of Legend

    • Lost Horizon

      • 2010
      • Historical point and click adventure game in 1936 where you have to travel the world protecting powerful relics while staying one step ahead of the Third Reich

    • Sigma Theory: Global Cold War

      • 2019
      • Turn-based strategy game in a futuristic cold war where you have to run an intelligence agency to secure control of the singularity

    • Turmoil

      • 2016
      • Indie strategy and management sim inspired by the 19th century oil rush, that has you drilling for oil to become North America’s next big entrepreneur

    • Close to the Sun

      • 2019
      • First person horror adventure game set in an alternate 1897 that has the journalist Rose Archer setting out to save her sister

  • Epic Games

    • Cave Story+

      • The enhanced 2011 release of the 2004 title
      • Metroidvania style game that has you playing Quote, a robot who has suffered amnesia and must blast his way through cavernous areas to find his backstory. Often considered the quintessential indie game because of its one-man dev team and influence on gaming

2020 year in review

  • 290 free games across PC, Xbox, and Playstation platforms
    • Some highlights I’ve personally enjoyed are:
      • Gato Roboto (Xbox) – Streamlined Metroid-style game where you play a cat in an armoured mech trying to save your stranded captain and his crashed ship
      • Shadow of the Colossus (PlayStation) – Gorgeous remake of the action adventure game that has you taking down a series of monolithic enemies
      • A Short Hike (PC) – One part Animal Crossing and one part Breath of the Wild, it’s a small exploration game that has you exploring an island and (eventually) climbing a mountain
      • The Stanley Parable (PC) – An exploration game with many endings, that starts with you exploring an office building and going along with the narrator, then can get pretty surreal
      • Hollow Knight (PlayStation) – Metroidvania by way of Soulsborne, with tight controls and a nice art style

  • January

    • Quibi was introduced at CES 2020 in Las Vegas, but unfortunately its dynamic portrait/landscape video player couldn’t keep it afloat among so many other streaming services and it was shut down in October
    • The Xbox Series X was unveiled, the PS5’s logo was shown off, and the FBI kept trying to convince the world that encryption is bad because the only way to stop a bad guy with a lock is a (hopefully) good guy with omniscient, unblinking access to everyone’s data
    • CD Projekt Red pushed back Cyberpunk 2077 for the first time, saying it’s done but just needs more polish
      • Despite that and even though they went ahead with crunch time development, it was delayed two more times but should hopefully be here in another week

  • Feburary

    • Simon Weckert managed to simulate a traffic jam in Google Maps by carting a wagon with 99 smartphones around, causing vehicles using the service to avoid his route
    • E-cigarette maker Juul was sued for predatory advertising, including ads on sites like Cartoon Network and Nick Jr
    • Bioware announced that they would halt Anthem’s seasonal updates in favour of an overhaul, and if they pull it off we could see another No Man’s Sky style rebirth
    • Sonic the Hedgehog achieved the biggest opening weekend of any video game movie at $57M in the US, dethroning Detective Pikachu’s $54M

  • March

    • Apple settled with the US class action lawsuit regarding performance throttling on devices with older batteries
    • A Nintendo PlayStation prototype, the planned CD system for the Super Nintendo, sold at auction for $380,000
    • allthestreams.fm launched in a weird experiment, playing content from the six major streaming services but not letting you choose what each of them played
      • The site is still up, but all the streams have been replaced with the old VHS FBI warning

  • April

    • Zoom’s video conferencing app had a lot of shady practices come to light, including Facebook data harvesting, bypassing normal installation procedures on Mac, not properly encrypting chats, and exposing thousands of videos online thanks to easily-predicted file names
    • The Internet Archive shifted its online Open Library to allow two-week book checkouts of any ebooks, regardless of how many copies were purchased by the library or how many are checked out
    • Sony’s DualSense controllers were first unveiled, and it turns out the haptics and triggers are even nicer to use than we were expecting
    • Apple and Google first announced their joint exposure notification effort to make reliable, meaningful contact tracing easier for the COVID-19 pandemic. This has seen decent adoption, but some jurisdictions are still adamant on using their own home-rolled solutions regardless of efficacy or efficiency

  • May

    • We started to see spam and phishing attacks related to fake COVID exposure notifications, cementing why it’s important to have this kind of thing standardized
    • Wink, a smart home hub manufacturer went from a buy-once system to a subscription model requiring $5/month or your smart home would no longer work with less than a month’s notice
      • Based on the winkhub subreddit, this marked the beginning of the end and had many users migrate to alternatives that don’t rely on the cloud
    • Reports found a new piece of keylogging malware used by law enforcement to trick people into revealing their phone passcode, hidden behind nondisclosure agreements and protective orders
    • Conspiracy theorists began attacking 5G cell phone towers under the impression that the new frequency was somehow causing the coronavirus outbreak

  • June

    • George Floyd was murdered by Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, who spent almost nine minutes kneeling on Floyd’s neck asphyxiating him while Floyd did not resist, sparking protests and reigniting the Black Lives Matter movement
      • We can’t forget how law enforcement evolved from oppressive practices in white societies, be it union busting, slave catching, or the relocation and elimination of indigenous people, and we need to do better
      • The tech world tried to show respect by delaying events, posting supportive messages, making donations, and even shutting down online services during the memorial
      • There has also been a push to include underrepresented and marginalized people in corporate leadership, with the SEC considering regulations forcing diversity
      • And Juneteenth has become a more widely recognized holiday milestone in the US, celebrating the federal order declaring that all slaves were to be set free and marking a true independence day for the country
    • Star Citizen became the most expensive game in history, reaching $350M invested and still no release date in sight
    • And we got our first taste of Apple’s new processors, which have since proven to be a radical jump in computing

  • July

    • A reboot of the cult classic series Clone High was announced, but we still have yet to hear many details about what it will look like
    • Nintendo’s president officially apologized for the Nintendo Switch Joy-Con drift issues
    • Apple’s iOS 14 beta began highlighting just how common it was for apps to access your phone’s copy/pasted data without permission, or even use your camera and microphone when you’re not expecting it, leading to many updates and “fixes”
    • High profile Twitter accounts were hacked as part of a bitcoin scam, including Barack Obama, Elon Musk, and Apple

  • August

    • Trump first announced his planned TikTok ban / forced sale, citing security concerns, which has been pretty messy with the US and Chinese governments trying to affect who it’s sold to and if the sale will even go through
      • The original deadline was September 15th, but there’s still no end in sight
    • Epic threw down the gauntlet, violating Apple’s App Store guidelines with the iOS version of Fortnite in a seemingly calculated move to look like the little guys getting smacked down but really it looks like they just got greedy and wanted to stop paying the industry-standard 30% on in-app purchases
      • Their lawsuit against Apple for removing the game from the App Store is slated to move forward in the Spring, but with Apple recently announcing that developers making <$1M a year only need to pay 15% their case doesn’t look good
    • Republicans in the US tried yet again to pass laws against proper digital encryption, trying to make the case for adding backdoors that magically only good guys can use

  • September

    • Microsoft and Sony released all the details on their new consoles, with Xbox All Access looking like a solid choice for a good console with no money down, and the PS5 Digital Edition competing with the Series S on Price but the Series X on performance
    • Apple announced that they were delaying the cross app tracking prevention features originally slated to be part of iOS 14, much to the relief of advertising companies like Facebook and Google, but we should be seeing them early next year
    • Facebook announced the Oculus Quest 2, a very, very shiny piece of hardware luring many into the clutches of the social network
      • There’s a reason it’s the cheapest VR out there
    • Microsoft purchased ZeniMax Media for $7.5B, one of the largest purchases in gaming history, and brought a whole slew of IP under their control, including everything from id and Bethesda

  • October

    • Google announced a new standalone ChromeCast model that doesn’t need your phone to control it, but were suspiciously silent about Stadia support
    • The quintessential Facebook game, FarmVille, announced that they would be shutting down at the end of 2020
    • LA Comic Con announced that they would be hosting their full in-person event in December, but then two weeks later completely cancelled any events for 2020
    • The UK started closing the loophole in their distracted driving laws that allowed people to play mobile games or record video while driving
    • NASA announced plans to install a 4G cellular network on the Moon

  • November

    • Cloud gaming on the Switch came to North America, with triple-A titles Control and Hitman 3 announced for the console through a <100MB download
    • Google revamped their Google Pay app, highlighting peer-to-peer payments, and including a bunch of data-scraping features if you want it to show nearby deals and discounts
    • The UK set up a ban on misleading mobile game ads, like those pull-the-pin ones that don’t actually show the real gameplay of the app
And hey.com gave us all the ability to email a literal dumpster fire

A comment on YouTube summed up what happened since Cyberpunks announcement

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

This Week in Gaming History

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

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

November 29 – 1975 – Square – Mainframe

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

November 30 – 2010 – Disney Epic Mickey – Wii

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tidbits

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

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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

 

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

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

And thanks to the rest of our ‘fanily’ that support us.
And if you want to support us too, its as easy as clicking this link!
And talk to us in the comments!

PS2J 308 News – Renegade Scientists

Free Games

  • Epic Games

    • Killing Floor 2

      • 2016
      • First person wave-based shooter than can be played solo or with up to 6 players cooperatively, it has you descending into continental Europe after it’s been overrun by murderous clones called Zeds
      • They also added an asymmetrical PVP mode that has one or more players taking on the role of the Zeds to kill the mercenaries

    • Lifeless Planet: Premier Edition

      • 2014
      • Adventure puzzle platformer that has you exploring an alien planet where you stumble upon a derelict Soviet Union science outpost and try to piece together how they got there and where they’ve gone now
      • The Premier Edition brings new content, improved graphics, new original music, and additional voice-acting

    • The Escapists 2

      • 2017
      • Top-down strategy RPG that has you playing an inmate in a prison, following daily routines, completing quests for fellow inmates, and seeking opportunities to escape
      • It also includes local and online multiplayer, either cooperative where two players help eachother break out or competitive where two teams see who can break out the fastest
  • Ubisoft is hosting their first all-digital conference streaming live on July 12, and if you log on to ubisoft.com/forward during the event you can get a free copy of Watch Dogs 2

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Randonautica

  • Choose Your Own Adventure

  • Creepy findings

  • Randonaut Responsibly!

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

99% Invisible

Freedom House Ambulance Service

Tidbits

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

Homework

 

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

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

And thanks to all our ‘fanily’ that support us.
And if you want to support us too, its as easy as clicking this link!
And talk to us in the comments!

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

Free Games

  • Epic

    • Horace

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

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

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

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

Article by Patrick Klepek, Published on VICE

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

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

Article By Andy Chalk, Published on PC Gamer

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

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

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

 

Overwatch Lunar New Year starts!

The Year of the Rat hits Overwatch from day of recording, January 16th, and goes all the way to February 5th.
The announcement was followed by a clip of the Sombra skin. It is called Face Changer Sombra. She has a headdress an the mask changes periodically. It is based on someone performing Bian Lian, which translated to ‘Face-Changing’, an ancient Chinese dramatic art that is part of the more general Chinese opera. Performers wear brightly colored costumes and move to quick, dramatic music. They also wear vividly colored masks, typically depicting well known characters from the opera, which they change from one face to another almost instantaneously with the swipe of a fan, a movement of the head, or wave of the hand.
Doomfist’s Epic skin is called Monk, and his Doom Fist is gold with purple highlights. It also has the chinese character, Jingang, which is a Buddhist monastery in Kangding, Sichuan, China. He has a shaved head, white eyes, and his clothes have the style of being held on with bindings.
Winston’s Epic skin is called Ancient Bronze. The metal looks like an old patinaed bronze with Jade decoration in it.
Hammond’s Epic skin is called paper cutting. It looks as if the red paint was cut away to reveal a white floral pattern. Paper-cutting is an old art form that has roots all over the world, but is popular decoration during Chinese New Year.
Brigitte has a Legendary skin called Opera. She appears to be dressed as if she were performing in a Chinese Opera. Her shield is very ornate, with a fine China like border, and a large flower in the center.
Lucio’s Legendary skin is called Samul Nori. Samul nori is a traditional Korean style of music. Samul means for objects, and nori is To Play. It involves performers playing music on: a kkwaenggwari which is small gong; a Jing which is a larger gong;  Janggu which is an hourglass-shaped drum; and a Buk, and a barrel drum similar to the bass drum. This music is commonly played for traditional festivals, which Lucio looks dressed for. And his gun, looks like a drum.
Moira has a Legendary Skin called Mask Dancer. It is in the same vein as Orisa’s skin last year, where they are both Mask Dancer performers. Her belt has a mask look at the buckle. And she wears a red mask that has a yellow fire effect coming from the eyes.
Other event unlocks:
  • Bastion Emote: Kite Flying
    • Bastion flies a rectangular Korean style kite, and it flies away on him
  • Hanzo Emote: Sky Lantern
    • Hanzo pulls out and lights a paper lantern that flies gently into the sky
  • Bastion Victory Pose: Hot Soup
  • Pharah Victory Pose: Lion Mask
  • Torbjorn Vistory Pose: Fire Work
  • And a Junkrat gets a new Highlight Intro: Feast
    • It is Junkrat, suffed full of dumplings, and is a mirror of Road Hog’s Highlight Intro where he eats all the steam buns.
  • And a handful of sprays and voice lines

Jeff Kaplan talked about Role Queue changes they have been testing

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

 

Tidbits

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

Smash Bros Update

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

Who is Byleth?

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

With Fighter Pack 2 on the horizon

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

 

 

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

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

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PS2J 282 News – Hot Mario

Free games

  • Epic Games

    • Rayman Legends

      • 2013
      • Action platformer in classic Rayman fashion that has up to four players simultaneously making their way through levels, collecting Lums, and defeating enemies

  • Sony

    • Titanfall 2

      • 2016
      • First person shooter that prioritizes fluid movement and adaptable tactics, and then you drop a gigantic robot in the arena and wreck shop
      • The sequel also introduced a single-player campaign with a buddy-cop / Half-Life feel

    • Monster Energy Supercross

      • 2018
      • Arcade motocross racing game that lets you customize your rider and bike for single-player or against racers all over the world

  • Microsoft

    • Insane Robots

      • 2018
      • Roguelike turn-based card battle game that has you leading a robot rebellion through randomly generated survival arenas

    • Jurassic World Evolution

      • 2018
      • Business simulation game based on 2015’s Jurassic World, where you build a dinosaur park on the Las Cinco Muertes Archipelago

    • Toy Story 3

      • 2010
      • A platformer loosely based on the film of the same name that also includes a free-roam Toy Box mode set within the fictional Woody’s Roundup television series

    • Castlevania: Lord of Shadow – Mirror of Fate HD

      • 2013
      • Side-scrolling action-adventure game that reveals the story of the Belmonts as they battle across generations against the forces of darkness

Google’s Stadia launch is making waves with its underwhelming performance in the wild

  • Apparently despite Google’s insistence that games will run in 4K resolutions at 60 fps, Bungie has stated that the Stadia’s version of Destiny 2 renders at 1080P and then upscales to improve the quality
    • This appears to be a common strategy, with Red Dead Redemption 2 also rendering at 1440p and upscaling after the fact
  • Google’s released a statement basically saying that they support 4K and 60fps, and they give developers “the freedom of how to achieve the best image quality and frame rate”
    • They went on to say that they expect developers will be continually improving gameplay and graphics as time goes on
  • Still, after Google’s vice president announced that all games at launch would support 4K, this is a bitter pill to swallow for many who spent almost $200 on the platform and signed up for the $10/month service in addition to the cost of the games themselves
  • In an effort to ease the pain of new users Google’s given a couple of free games to early adopters- Farming Simulator 19: Platinum Edition and Tomb Raider: Definitive Edition, and refunds for both for people who recently purchased them at full price

Valve revealed more details about Half-Life: Alyx, and it looks gorgeous

  • The graphics are just beautiful, and gameplay seems to be the familiar mix of shooting and problem solving that Half-Life fans are used to
    • They’ve also brought gravity gun-like mechanics with the gravity gloves, which seem to allow for full-scale gameplay in smaller rooms by letting you catch and bring stuff towards you that you can’t otherwise reach
  • The game can apparently be played either sitting, standing, or with roomscale movement, and players can use finger-tracking or trigger-based controllers to either teleport around or walk smoothly with an analog stick
  • It’ll officially support the Valve Index, HTC Vive, Windows Mixed Reality, and Oculus Rift headsets. The Oculus Quest will also work when connected to a PC
  • That PC is going to need some beefy specs though, with Alyx’s minimum requirements including mid-high range processors and graphics cards, as well as 12GB of RAM
  • It will apparently be a “full-length” game, hitting Steam in March 2020, and preorders are available for $60USD. Owners of the Index will get it for free

Facebook has acquired Beat Games, the developers of Beat Saber, and I’m not sure how to feel about it

  • On one hand, Beat Saber is an amazing game and the team behind it deserves all the money and recognition
  • On the other, Facebook is my least favourite company and I can’t help but think there’s going to be a combination of nickel-and-diming and privacy invasion coming soon
    • They’ve already announced Facebook support incoming with “social features, new modes, music, and more”
  • Apparently the dev team will join Oculus Studios to continue work on all currently supported platforms, and current plans for 360 degree levels and more music remain unchanged

And last we have a blast from the past for you- contaminated romaine lettuce has hit once more, causing 67 cases of E. coli across the US

  • You might remember this from way back in episode 191, 193, and 226
  • This time the outbreak has been linked to romaine grown in Salinas, California, and the CDC is advising consumers and retailers not to eat, sell, or serve any romaine grown in the region
  • If you’re not sure where your romaine came from it’s best to just toss it to be safe

Deathwing crashes Heroes of the Storm

Deathwing breaks many conventions of what people are used to with a hero in Heroes of the Storm.
He is the largest playable character in the game, making him a massive target. Even larger than when Alexstraza, uses her dragon form, but Deathwing will always be in his dragon form.
He is a melee bruiser, with energy instead of mana. He has huge advantages, and its balanced by extreme weaknesses.

His strengths

  • Deathwing is permanently Unstoppable. He is immune to all crowd control effects
  • He does area damage
  • All his abilities are not only strong, but cannot be interrupted
  • He has a high health pool, and a ton of armour
  • He has global mobility
  • And Crowd Control abilites

His weaknesses

  • He is unaffected by allied abilities, that’s no buffs or heals
  • Poke damage can’t be healed easily, so its quite dangerous
  • With a massive health pool, percentage-damage attacks do quite a lot
  • His abilities have a obvious wind-up, all his attacks are telegraphed
  • Once he uses Dragonflight, his options are limited

His abilities

Passive

  • Aspect of Death

    • Deathwing has 4 armour plates which grant 10 armor each. Each quarter portion of his health lost, loses a plate. And health gained does not restore armor plates. Only Dragonflight will heal are restore armor plates.
    • Deathwing is unstoppable and deals 100% additional damage to heroes.
    • And his contempt for even his allies prevent them from using friendly effects on him.

Mount

  • Dragonflight

    • 45 Second cooldown
    • After 3 seconds, fly into the sky, becoming immune to all effects and gaining 2.5% Health per second.
    • Taking or dealing damage puts this ability on a 5 second cooldown.

1 Key

  • Form Switch

    • Switches Deathwing between Destroyer and World Breaker forms, each granting access to two unique Basic Abilities.

Q

  • Molten Flame

    • After 1.5 seconds, Deathwing breathes stream of flame. Drains 30 Energy per second.

  • Destroyer – During Dragonflight

    • Slam down to the ground, dealing damage to enemies in the area and gaining access to Destroyer form
    • Can be in air however long you want.
    • Can land on any point with vision.
    • Other abilities have a 3 seconds cooldown after landing.

W

  • Incinerate – Destroyer Form

    • After 0.75 seconds, Deathwing flaps his wings, dealing damage to nearby enemies.

  • Lava Burst – World Breaker Form

    • After a 1 second delay, deal damage to all enemies in the area and create a pool of magma that deals damage and slows enemies. Lasts 6 seconds.

  • World Breaker – During Dragonflight

    •  Slam down to the ground, dealing damage to enemies in the area and gaining access to World Breaker form

E

  • Onslaught – Destroyer Form

    • After 0.5 seconds, Deathwing lunges in a direction dealing damage to enemies and slowing them by 35% for 2 seconds. Deathwing bites enemies at the end of the lunge, dealing additional damage.

  • Earth Shatter – World Breaker Form

    • Create a fissure of earth that deals damage to enemies hit and stuns them for 0.75 seconds.
    • Attack comes out in a cone, only effecting the edges

R

  • Cataclysm

    • After 2 seconds, Deathwing flies in the targeted direction, dealing damage on impact and leaving scortched ground that deals damage over time. Lasts 6 seconds.
    • Deathwing starts with his epic ability, but it starts on a 270 second cooldown at the beginning of a match.

Amiibo releases while we’re gone!

  • Good news for Canadians, Best Buy pre-orders have been really good for amiibo lately
    • In my experience at least
  • Shovel Knight
    • 3 Pack!
      • Plauge Knight
      • Specter Knight
      • King Knight!
    • Golden Shovel Knight
  • Smash Bros
    • Ricter
    • Dark Samus

 

Be safe holiday shopping with BBB 

  • Holiday shopping is fun, but be safe
    • It’s black Friday sales the weekend of this episodes release
    • and Christmas shopping is up while we are taking our December break
  • When sales are on, so are the scammers
    • If a sale looks too good to be true, it probably is
    • The Better Business Bureau is here to help!
    • You can search by keyword
    • Scam Type
    • Country
    • And even Date Reported
  • Make sure you talk to your less techsavvy family and friends
    • Don’t click links in unexpected emails
    • Don’t use links provided
      • Navigate to the site yourself
      • Use caution when using a link that is required for a promotion

 

Tidbits

  • Apparently Apple will be revamping their software development processes after the buggy launch of iOS 13, implementing “flags” to allow software engineers to selectively enable or disable unfinished or buggy features in testing
  • According to Phil Spencer, Microsoft’s Head of Xbox, VR support is not in the cards for the next Xbox (currently known as Project Scarlett)
    • In a statement to gaming site Stevivor, Spencer said that he thinks VR is isolation and games are a communal, kind of together experience
  • No Man’s Sky is getting yet another huge, free update- this time letting you upgrade your favourite ships all the way up to S-Class
    • The new upgrade system is being introduced alongside a lot of other pieces like a ship salvage system, inventory upgrades, the ability to have multiple multitools, and a ton of other quality-of-life improvements

Alan’s Top Recommendations of the Year!

  • Movie
    • Spider-Man: Into the Spiderverse (ep 230)
  • Netflix series
    • Russian Doll (ep 239)
  • Book and series
    • The Calculating Stars (ep 242)

 

Literally Misleading

Last Week:

Reddit User – red_4
An ex-con makes it big.
Ant Man

 

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

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

And thanks to all our ‘fanily’ that support us.
And if you want to support us too, its as easy as clicking this link!
We are a proud member of the Alberta Podcast Network powered by ATB
And talk to us in the comments!

PS2J 270 News – Wild Cards

Nintendo Direct

  • Super Nintendo games are coming to Switch Online subscribers
    • Highlights are:
      • Kirby’s Dreamland 3
      • Star Fox
      • Super Mario Kart
      • Super Mario World
      • Super Mario World 2: Yoshi’s Island
      • F-Zero
      • Super Metroid
      • Legend OF Zelda: A Link to the Past
  • A wireless SNES controller will also be released, for $30 US
  • Smash Bros is adding Terry Bogard from Fatal Fury to the roster
    • Fatal Fury is a 2D fighting game made for Neo Geo, and eventually ported to other platforms
  • New costumes added including the highly requested Sans from Undertale.
    • Purchase of the Sans outfit for the Mii Gunner, also gives players access to the awesome song Megalovania, its a new version of the song made for Smash Ultimate as well.
  • As of the announcement, Banjo-Kazooie is playable in Smash Ultimate
  •  Assassin’s Creed: Rebel Collection will be available December 6
    • This includes AC IV: Black Flag and AC Rogue
  • Overwatch is coming to Switch
    • It makes me hesitant to buy it again, but the motion controls to aim are intriguing.
    • If they work with the Pro controller I may need to purchase one
  • Star Wars Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast will be available for Switch on September 24
  • Bethesda is re-releasing Doom 64, our November 22nd
  • Super Kirby Clash is a free-to-play Kirby for four players, Available now
    • Over 100 different quests
    • Fight enemies as a team of four, either locally or online.
  • Luigi’s Mansion 3’s “Scream Park” mode will pit 2 to 8 players against each other in arena-style ghost battles.
  • Pokémon Sword and Shield got a few features detailed
    • “Pokémon Camp” where you can play with your Pokémon, a much more robust character-customization system
    • And you can make Curry Rice mode where you can customize curry dishes and eat them with your Pokémon
  • Animal Crossing: New Horizons gets details on the game’s crafting mode
    • You can collect raw materials around the island, craft tools, use those tools to get more craftables
  • Return of the Obra Dinn, coming to the Switch this fall.
    • It is a puzzle video game developed and published by 3909 LLC, a Japan-based studio led by American designer Lucas Pope. It was Pope’s second commercial game, following 2013’s Papers, Please.
    • The graphics are very interesting, and look like they are video on a kindle or similar eReader
  • Tetris 99 is getting a new mode called “Invictus,”
    • A mode for the absolute best of the best players. You have to have won in the previous Maximus mode, which requires you to win in the basic Tetris 99 mode.
    • There’s also a two-player versus CPU mode that’ll be paid DLC.
    • A packaged version of the game is coming September 6.
    • All available now.
  • Game Freak’s game called Town Is Now Called Little Town Hero.
    • The main character’s name is “Axe,” but he doesn’t have one, or any other weapons, besides “Ideas.”
    • This game from the developer of Pokémon looks like a pretty straightforward JRPG with some clever battle ideas.
    • Music composed by Undertale creator Toby Fox.
    • Coming October 16.
    • You can pre-purchase and pre-load it today.

Witcher Corner

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt — Complete Edition on Switch
  • Coming out October 15th, 2019
  • The graphics are good, but it defiantly shows that it was not optimized for this hardware
    • Maybe its because I’m bad at it, but I accept the lower graphic quality on my Skyrim for Switch, because it feels far more casual
    • There is less information you need to process on the smaller screen for Skyrim
    • Witcher has a more complex user interface as well as needing to see detailed information, making playing on the go seemingly more difficult
The Witcher series on Netflix
  • This series leans more on the content of the novels than the games
  • It will be releasing late this year but I found something interesting, there is a show already out.
  • The Hexer, is a 2002 Polish film
    • The film received generally negative reviews after its release and since, with reviewers being generally positive in regard to actors and music, but critical of the plot and special effects.
    • A 13 episode television series of the same name was also made.
    • The series has been described as better than the movie which preceded it, but the poor critical and fan reception of the movie, which was described as a glorified, incoherent trailer for the TV show, was cited as one of the reasons for the series cancellation after 13 episodes.

Josh recommend’s The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance

  • I have only seen the first episode, which is an hour long
  • The world looks vast and beautiful
  • The characters, the ones featured in the film and new ones, are believable to the universe
    • It is interesting to me to see the Emperor a lot younger
    • Since a plot point in the movie is him dying from old age
  • Feels like it was made with the exact parts from the original film
  • The cast is amazing! Some name that stood out to me include:
    • Simon Pegg
    • Sigourney Weaver
    • Mark Hamill
    • Helena Bonham Carter
    • I’m sure people will recognize more than I did
  • It is everything I wanted from the Legends of the Dark Crystal, which was a manga based on the universe before the movie takes place, but only ran for 2 volumes
 

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PS2J 247 News – TV at Noon

Free Games

  • Epic Games
    • Transistor
      • 2014
      • From the creators of Bastion and Hades, it’s an isometric sci-fi themed action RPG that has you running through a stunning futuristic city wielding an extraordinary weapon of unknown origin
  • Ubisoft
    • In light of the fire at the Notre Dame de Paris, which caused its roof and 300 foot spire to collapse, destroying almost all of one of the oldest surviving timber frames in Paris, Ubisoft is giving away Assassin’s Creed Unity (which heavily features the landmark) on PC this week until April 25th to give more people a chance to experience it and raise awareness
    • They’ve also announced a 500K Euro donation to aid the restoration and reconstruction, and encourage others to contribute if possible
    • Assassin’s Creed Unity
      • 2014
      • Action-adventure game set in Paris during the French Revolution, using the classic third person open world we’ve come to expect but also revamping combat, parkour, and stealth after the previous entry, Black Flag
 

You might recall us talking about Facebook earlier this month, and how to confirm your email they expect you to hand over your email account’s password

  • Turns out, giving access to your personal information to a company in the business of selling your personal information was a bad idea- who knew?
  • According to Business Insider, Facebook harvested 1.5M people’s email contacts list without consent, and “unintentionally uploaded them”
  • A Facebook spokesperson has also confirmed that the harvested contacts were NOT just used to recommend friends, but also “improve ads”
  • This has gotten to the point where the Irish Data Protection Commission is now in contact with Facebook and considering next steps
 

Smash Ultimate v3.0 is here!

  • First up we’re finally seeing Joker from Persona 5 added to the roster as part of Challenger Pack 1, and his playstyle looks pretty interesting
    • He’s got some moves with a knife and gun, and it looks like he has a charge gauge that allows him to summon his Persona, which upgrades his attacks, greatly improves his recovery, and gives him a combination counter and reflect move
    • His final smash is also interesting- it triggers similarly to Marth’s, with a horizontal rush, but a quick press of the thumbstick makes him sweep back in the other direction in case you missed the first time
  • And speaking of Persona, we’re getting a Persona stage called Mementos with 11 different audio tracks that can affect the appearance of the stage and Joker’s victory screen
  • We’re also seeing new paid DLC Mii costumes for Morgana, Yu, Makoto, Teddie, Tails, and Knuckles
  • The stage builder we saw leaked in an ad last week made an official appearance, but if it supports 8 player stages they’re keeping it on the down-low
    • It does have new things like customizable moving or spinning platforms and multiple layers for decorative elements
  • They’re also adding in the ability to edit and share videos, download other players’ Mii setups, and adding Smash World on the Switch Online app for voice chat, browsing videos and custom stages, and managing your spirit teams
 

Disney has revealed some of the details on their upcoming Disney+ service, and it sounds pretty dang decent

  • Disney+ will launch in the US on November 12 for $7/month
  • It’ll include a huge library of old movies and shows, including Marvel, Pixar, and Star Wars titles, along with new content made exclusively for the service
  • There won’t be any ads (which really should be a no-brainer on a paid service) and users can download things to watch offline whenever they want
  • All said and done, this could offer Netflix the kick in the pants we need to stop them from continuing to raise their prices
 

Samsung’s Galaxy Fold is hit reviewers this week, and it’s not looking good

  • Multiple reviewers are having the devices break after just a few days of use
  • The Verge had theirs sprout a random bulge on the display, possibly due to some debris getting into the hinge, but whatever it was pressed into the display hard enough to break it
  • CNBC’s screen started flickering and failing after the first day
  • And Bloomberg’s started showing similar screen issues after two days
  • All told, it’s a rough start for the $2K device. This is really a prototype, but somehow they’re going forward with preorders
 

Labo VR is getting some tough reviews online, citing tiny experiences and terrible screen resolution

  • It also only tracks rotation, not movement, which is pretty standard for a cardboard headset but a tougher proposition in 2019
  • You also have to keep one hand on the headset holding it to your face the entire time, which gets tricky when playing mini games like putting, playing basketball, or throwing a boomerang
  • And it doesn’t help that Nintendo continually breaks immersion with not only how short the playtimes are on their bundled game, but also prompts to take a break every five minutes
  • End of the day, if you already have a switch and you’re curious about VR, then this is maybe a good idea… but it seems like there are also better options available
 
 

Tidbits

  • The first trailer for Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order has hit, and it looks solid!
    • I mean, it’s still coming from EA so be wary, but if they finish it we could finally see a good Star Wars game for the current gen of consoles
    • Releasing on November 15th
  • Speaking of Star Wars and trailers, the new Episode IX trailer looks solid!
    • It’s called The Rise of Skywalker, and the tagline is “This Christmas, the saga comes to an end”
  • The new all-digital edition of the Xbox One S is coming this May, and it’s kind of disappointing
    • It’s basically the existing S with no disc slot, and it’ll sell for about as much as retailers are already selling the S in game bundles (though Microsoft is trying to keep it $50 cheaper than the disc-spinning alternative)
  • In a cool earth-friendly move, Japan is making their medals for the 2020 olympics out of discarded smartphones and laptops
    • The requisite gold, silver, and bronze will be extracted from around 50,000 tons of recovered or donated e-waste and obsolete gadgets
    • For perspective, it takes about 100 fliphones to recover three grams of gold
 

Recommend Buffy the Vampire Slayer

  • I’m very late to the party, but I’m really enjoying it
  • Half delightfully 90’s high school life, half Supernatural-style monster of the week (though, I suppose Supernatural is really Buffy-style monster of the week really)
  • It looks like a series that people had a lot of fun making

 

Literally Misleading

This one is from Fanily member Scott. Check out his twitter @scottybomb and his podcast The Read-Along, its a weekly book club for where you can follow along with Scott and Anita!
 
MOVIE – “A man must join forces with an amnesiac to track down the man who kidnapped his son.”
 
If you have a Literally Misleading Description, message Josh directly on our Discord, or Twitter @fushigiyami

 

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A huge thanks to Dalton, 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!

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PS2J 246 News – Name Change But At What Cost?

Top story this week, two college students stand accused of costing Apple nearly $900,000 in losses with their creative counterfeiting scheme

  • The scam had the students ordering large amounts of fake, unusable iPhones from China, and then sending them in to Apple while claiming they were under warranty
  • All the claims indicated “No power/wired charging issues” as the reason, to explain why they wouldn’t start up, and then they just needed to get lucky and have Apple employees send a replacement before the fakes were found out
  • All told they sent in over 3000 warranty claims, and while about half of them were rejected the other 1500 phones were replaced by Apple no questions asked
  • The real phones were then sent back to China and sold to bargain-hunting consumers
  • The worst part here is if they’d operated on a smaller scale they might not have even gotten caught- Apple seemed content with sending hundreds of warranty replacements to a random person’s home address, and the only reason they were caught was because Hong Kong customs officials seized several shipments of the fake iPhones after noticing the shipping methods and packaging didn’t match Apple’s usual standards
 

The Switch is getting VR support on some major titles this month

  • You might recall us talking about Nintendo’s Labo VR headset back in episode 240
  • First, Super Mario Odyssey is getting a bite-sized bonus experience with mini missions set in the Cap, Seaside, and Luncheon Kingdoms
  • Then, from what I’ve read, Breath of the Wild is getting full VR support!
    • It doesn’t convert the game into first person, but rather makes your head the camera for more fine-tuned control and immersion
    • According to Nintendo, “turning the feature on and off is a snap”
  • It’ll be interesting to see how the graphics change in these modes to get the framerates that VR really needs, plus there aren’t any details yet on how exactly the cardboard headset will strap on, or if you have to just hold it the whole time
  • Both experiences require free software updates, coming on April 25th
 

Sony’s PlayStation Network ID change system is finally live this week, but it hasn’t really improved much since we talked about the beta release back in episode 221

  • The name change is only supported by games originally published on or after April 1, 2018
  • At least 10 games have known “critical issues” , including Everbody’s Golf and Little Big Planet 3, that can have users losing ingame progress, progress toward trophies, and in-game currency either earned or paid
  • There are also a bunch of games like Bloodborne, Uncharted 4, GTA V, The Last of Us, and Warframe that have problems ranging from just displaying your old ID to reverting all settings back to their defaults
  • There’s a list of games that Sony has tested available on the PlayStation website, and if that all sounds good you can get your first name change for free and then future changes are $10 (or $5 for PS+ subscribers)
 

Third party controller company PDP is bringing a basic missing feature to the Switch

  • Their new wired controller coming in June will include a headset port for any games using Vivox in-game chat (like Fortnite)
    • Currently the Switch has very limited voice chat support, so games like Splatoon require you run a separate app on your phone and use a splitter to combine the audio manually
  • Potentially the hardware could work with any in-game chat, but it will be up to game developers to decide how they want to proceed with support
 

Amazon’s coming under fire this week after Bloomberg reported on their Alexa Improvement facilities, where thousands of employees listen to voice recordings captured whenever Alexa thinks it hears a trigger word

  • Even more damning, rather than scrambling identifiers and distorting audio, they actually link your first name, account number, and serial number to the recording
  • There is a way to turn off the feature, but it’s on by default and not immediately apparent when you’re setting up a new device
  • If you’re concerned about privacy you should absolutely go through your Alexa settings and review exactly what’s getting sent where
 
 

Design and Game Awards

 

Tidbits

  • Netflix has removed the ability to AirPlay videos from your phone to other devices, which has been a feature for the last 6 years, citing technical limitations
    • A spokesperson provided some more details later, saying that because AirPlay support is rolling out for third-party devices they’re taking their ball and going home
      • I mean, they’re saying there isn’t a way to tell what device is being streamed to or to certify the experiences, which is kind of a non-answer considering they already couldn’t tell what TV you’re using so…
  • A new ad for Smash Bros Ultimate on Nintendo’s YouTube channel may have accidentally spoiled a Stage Builder mode coming soon
    • Within the first couple seconds of the video you can see the Smash Ultimate menu including an icon for Stage Builder in the bottom corner, so it’ll be interesting to see if they announce that update in the next Nintendo Direct
  • Using 10 radio telescopes working in parallel to act as a giant telescope the size of Earth, astronomers have put together the first-ever picture of a black hole
    • It’s an amazing feat of technology and programming years in the making, and we’ve gotten our first good look at this super massive black hole that’s 55M light-years away and about the size of our entire solar system
 

Recommend The Academy by Bentley Little

  • It’s an paranormal horror/thriller that’s centred around a high school that suddenly starts going through some unsettling changes
  • It does a great job of building an atmosphere of dread and unease
  • If you’re looking for a creepy slow burn with moments of solid wtf, you’ll probably like it

 

Literally Misleading

MOVIE – Brothers party their way all the way to success!

 

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

A huge thanks to Dalton, 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!

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

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And talk to us in the comments! Or…

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