Pronty: Fishy Adventure launched on Steam this week. It's Metroidvania set underwater, which thanks to Aquaria will be a pretty familiar concept to connoisseurs of indie games. But Pronty's standout feature is its weapon, a sort of cyborg swordfish that has a mind of its own, and it gives the game's combat a very fun hook.
You play as Pronty, a little anthropomorphic fishy assigned as a defender of a fallen undersea city. The creatures around that city have mutated due to pollution, and - this being a Metroidvania - you'll have to explore the surrounding waters, fighting monsters and solving puzzles to unlock new abilities that will open access to new areas.
Your javelin attacks wherever you click, and you can mash your mouse button to lay out attacks on the enemies. But Pronty moves slowly while directing the javelin, and you still have to dodge attacks - so basically, you're controlling two characters at once. Eventually you'll get abilities like a dash that marks enemies for extra damage from the javelin's attacks, forcing you to control yourself and your weapon in ever-tighter concert.
Gunfire Reborn had a quiet launch into Steam Early Access back in May 2020, but after a few updates, its combination of Borderlands-style loot shooting and elements of roguelike games drew players in by the tens of thousands. Now it's finally out for real, and it's continuing to keep those players coming back.
You take control of a hero character with their own special abilities, picking up randomly-generated weapons as you blast your way through randomly-generated levels - either on your own, or in co-up for up to four players. In strict genre terms, this is a roguelite, as you'll regularly unlock additional options to start new runs in new ways.
"V1.0 indicates the end of Early Access and a new beginning," as the devs explain in the launch announcement. "The current version still needs to be further improved, but we have faith in polishing the game into a better one that will satisfy you all through unceasing tweaks and updates. We will appreciate every piece of feedback and suggestions from you as always and never stop to improve the game."
Chris Columbus is conductor of the nostalgia train, but considering this year marks the 20th anniversary of "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone," we'll let it slide. In a recent interview with the AV Club, Columbus let loose and told all sorts of behind the scenes stories about the making of the first film. If you're a potterhead, it has to be an especially exciting time, but even if you're only casually interested in what's going on, it is fascinating to see how an incredibly successful and formative movie gets made. And clearly, Columbus is down to dish all of the details.
One of the more interesting tidbits to come out of his AV Club chat involves the late, great Alan Rickman, who fully embodied the role of Severus Snape, Hogwarts' cruel potions master. According to Columbus, Rickman was apprehensive about taking the role and was worried about being typecast as a go-to villain. As Columbus explains:
"I remember [producer] David Heyman and myself had to do the British actor's dinner tour for quite some time. We went out to dinner with Richard Harris to convince him, and Maggie Smith to convince her. Alan Rickman was the same, and he was reluctant because he didn't want to be typecast as a villain, particularly after Die Hard, and I guess Robin Hood [Prince Of Thieves]."
I Can Tell You How To Bottle Fame
We all know how this story ends, Rickman obviously took on the role and became a cornerstone of the "Harry Potter" film franchise, but apparently Columbus alone didn't seal the deal. Rickman was lucky enough to get a sneak peak at Snape's character arc, and it changed the way he perceived (and subsequently played) the role. As Columbus tells it:
"We convinced him to do it, and then J.K. Rowling took him out to dinner and told him something about what was going to happen to Snape throughout the series and in the seventh book. So when we would be on set, he would do these tiny little idiosyncrasies with his performance, and I couldn't figure out where it was coming from. I'd walk up to him afterwards and say, 'What was that?' He would say, 'Oh, you'll know when you read the seventh book.' It was like, 'Well, yeah, but that doesn't help me now. I'm directing the first movie.'"
The "Harry Potter" film series (and especially the first movie) has been talked, and written about, relentlessly, but we can't deny how fun it is to learn these little tidbits. If Columbus's goal here is to get me in the mood to re-watch the first movie, he's winning. Now all I want to do is settle down on the couch with some hot chocolate and see if I can pick up on Rickman's little cues. And while Columbus might have been annoyed with them at the time, everything clearly worked out in the end. "Once I read the seventh book, though," says the director, "I thought, "Oh, that was brilliant, his choice."
Rockstar has issued an apology for the "unexpected technical issues" that marred the release of Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy - The Definitive Edition last week and led to the quick removal of the PC version from Rockstar's online store. From a report: Last week, Rockstar said that the PC version of the game was being taken down "as we remove files unintentionally included in these versions." That led to reports that the package included copies of original soundtrack songs that had not been re-licensed for the new release. Other reports suggested that the original package accidentally included uncompiled source code and revealed some interesting programmer comments, including references to the infamous "hot coffee" scene that caused the game so much controversy back in 2005. Today, though, the developer admitted in a blog post that "the updated versions of these classic games did not launch in a state that meets our own standards of quality, or the standards our fans have come to expect."
We noted some of the remaster's many issues in our initial impressions, which recommended that you skip the bundle for now. Since then, players have chronicled countless bugs and questionable "remastering" decisions. Those range from disturbing textures to eye-searing rainfall to hilariously broken cutscenes to car-inflating wiggles to odd-looking character models and plain old typos that weren't in the original game.
Box86 as the open-source project to run Linux x86 binaries on other CPU architectures like ARM is out with a new feature release along with the accompanying Box64 project for x86_64 treatment. With today's Box86 update is even expanded Vulkan support now good enough for handling DXVK...
An anonymous reader quotes a report from CNBC: The CDC's independent panel of vaccine scientists unanimously endorsed Pfizer and Moderna's boosters for all adults, one of the final regulatory steps before the U.S. can officially start distributing the doses. The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices voted to recommend the shots. The Food and Drug Administration authorized both company's vaccine boosters for everyone 18 and over earlier on Friday, and CDC Director Rochelle Walensky is expected to clear the doses soon after. The panel's recommendation would open up eligibility to everyone 18 and over in the U.S., but the group more strongly endorsed shots for older Americans by saying everyone 50 and over should get a booster. It previously said people over 65 and some other high-risk people should get a third shot. Once Walensky signs off, tens of millions of Americans who've received their two initial shots at least six months ago will be eligible to get a third shot as soon as early as this weekend. "Pfizer said its booster dose was 95% effective at preventing symptomatic infection in people who had no evidence of prior infection in a clinical trial of 10,000 participants 16 years and older," notes CNBC. "Moderna didn't submit its efficacy data for its booster, telling the panel it was still gathering the data."
The PlayStation 5 is a fascinating and unique piece of hardware, and while we’ve already heard some details about the creation of the system, it’s always fun to hear more. Thankfully, system architect Mark Cerny has provided just that in a new video for Wired, which you can check out for yourself, provided you have around 15 minutes to spare.
Cerny touches on a number of topics we’ve already heard about – the PS5’s GPU, controller, 3D audio, ect. – but he also reveals some interesting new details. When discussing the PS5’s solid-state-drive, which has been pushed as one of the core features of the machine, Cerny revealed that it was Epic’s Tim Sweeney that pushed hardest for the new tech.
We'd been getting requests for an SSD all the way back to PlayStation 4. In particular, Tim Sweeney, who is the visionary founder of Epic Games, he said hard drives were holding the industry back. He didn't say hard drives though, he said, "rusty spinning media." [...] Developers asked for an NVME SSD with at least 1 GB/s of read speed. And we looked at that and we decided to go maybe 5 to 10 times that speed. It's always good to have a high target there.
Interestingly, Cerny also specifically calls out Epic’s new Unreal Engine 5 Nanite technology, which depends on the SSD to stream high-quality assets to games. It really does seem like the PS5 was, to a certain degree, designed around the demands of Epic and Unreal Engine 5. The fact that the engine was first shown on the PS5 was more than just a PR stunt.
Cerny touches on a few other subjects he hasn’t really detailed before, including the PS5’s “invisible compression,” which is what developers are using to reduce PS5 file sizes. Many assumed the more efficient SSD was the cause of the smaller files, but no, it’s just a very efficient compression system built into the PS5’s Integrated I/O. If you’d like to get more interesting little tidbits like this, do check out Mark Cerny’s full discussion.
Around a year into the PlayStation 5 era, what are your thoughts on the design of the system?
That said, the team behind RPCS3 also recommended disabling the smaller Gracemont high-efficiency CPU E-cores to get the most performance out of your shiny new processor.
If you are using an Alder Lake (Intel 12th Gen) CPU with RPCS3, make sure you disable the little cores, otherwise you're leaving a lot of performance on the table. With disabled E-cores you get AVX-512 and higher ring ratio. ADL's performance is by far the best of any CPU arch.
11900K vs 12900K, both clocked at 5.2GHz, both with AVX-512 enabled and HT disabled. On God of War: Ascension's starting area, this is a +10 FPS uplift, from ~68 to ~78. Intel 11th Gen already outperforms Zen 3 on RPCS3 by quite a bit, 12th Gen makes the gap even bigger.
When they were asked whether there was any plan to make Alder Lake CPUs work as is, they replied with the following tweet:
We can't force BIOS settings through the emulator. At best, we can add a warning asking users to change it. Alder Lake on base configuration works, it's just slower.
Nowadays, RPCS3 is in a great state. After years of tireless work, about a month ago the team announced there are no PlayStation 3 games or apps that don't boot on the emulator. According to the official compatibility list, the vast majority (63.67%) of titles is playable, while 30.52% of the PS3 software goes in-game but still suffers from performance problems or glitches.
RPCS3, which runs on the Vulkan API (deemed better than DirectX), also supports AMD's Fidelity FX Super Resolution and even lets you take advantage of the PlayStation Eye Camera functionality in supported games with any camera of your choosing.
RPCS3 now has support for PlayStation Eye Camera functionality! And of course, you can use any camera you want with it pic.twitter.com/m6MjmkJFJY
Winamp was a music player first released in 1997, which quickly grew in popularity as one of the best media players for PCs. However, it started to lose steam after a string of poorly-received updates in the early 2000s, and there have been a number of short-lived attempts to revive the project. Winamp is now under active development again, but the latest revival doesn’t sound too similar to the original application.
The original Winamp media player was in development from 1997 to 2013, with v5.666.3516 as the final release. In October 2018, an unfinished build of v5.8 was leaked, and Radionomy (the owner of Winamp, now known as Shoutcast) decided to make it publicly available. More updates were promised, but they never materialized. Now the Winamp website has been redesigned again, promising an “innovative refresh of the world’s most iconic audio player.”
There isn’t much information available right now, but the new project doesn’t sound like a standard music player. One section on the site says it will have “a unique space for creators” that will “connect closely with […] fans and earn a fairer income.” AudioValley, the parent company of Shoutcast and Winamp, says the new Winamp will “become the one-stop platform for audio enthusiasts, which connects creators and consumers of music, podcasts, radio stations, audiobooks, and any other peripheral content.”
The new Winamp sounds more like a new audio streaming platform, similar to Spotify or Pandora, than an update to a music playing application. AudioValley might just be using the Winamp name to generate publicity (like this article) for an audio platform that most people might not care about otherwise, but I’d love to be wrong — there’s definitely a shortage of media players right now that aren’t simple web apps.
Checking out the wee little weeCee! It's a mini PC capable of running MS-DOS and Windows off a MicroSD card that plays well with tons of classic PC games and software, boasting Sound Blaster Pro and Wave Blaster/GM compatibility, along with SXGA 32-bit color graphics with VGA out. Awesome stuff, so let's try it out with some DOS and Windows 98 games!
"Ghostbusters: Afterlife" arrives in theaters this weekend. Fans will have to decide for themselves how they feel about the franchise's revival after all these years (this longtime fan was sad to walk away disappointed), and they just might be the determining factor in whether or not the movie gets a sequel. Just in case, director Jason Reitman has included a couple credits scenes to tease the future of the franchise. Well, at least the post-credits scenes sets up a possible sequel. Meanwhile, the mid-credits scenes seems to mostly be an amusing goof that didn't fit anywhere else in the movie.
The Mid-Credits Scene
After the flashy credits sequence has rolled featuring various blueprints and diagrams of the things Egon Spengler documented about the paranormal threat facing Summerville, Oklahoma and the rest of the world, there's a mid-credits scene that brings us back to New York.
We're in what appears to be the apartment of Dr. Peter Venkman (Bill Murray) and Dana Barrett (Sigourney Weaver). It's not explicitly stated that the two are together, and Venkman could easily be paying a friendly visit. But Dana is wearing a wedding ring, and it only makes sense that these two rekindled their romance in the years since we last saw them in "Ghostbusters II," even if the sequel is largely ignored in "Ghostbusters: Afterlife." You're telling me no one remembers the Statue of Liberty walking down the streets of New York? Okay, buddy.
Anyway, Dana is holding up the psychic cards that Venkman used to test his students for telepathic abilities in the experiments that were heavily skewed in favor of the women. Venkman is the one doing the guessing this time, and he's hooked up to the machine that electrocuted students (usually the male students) if they got an answer wrong. Dana is impressed by Venkman's ability to guess the cards correctly. But that's when she realizes Venkman has cheated by marking the cards on the other side so he can determine what they are. After being shocked for the suspicion, he's shocked again when he reluctantly admits his deception on top of the fact that he never electrocuted the female students.
It's an amusing gag because it's lovely to see Bill Murray and Sigourney Weaver together after all these years, and they still have the playful banter that makes us love them. However, I can't help but feel annoyed that this was the only way that they managed to get Sigourney Weaver into the movie. It's completely independent of the movie's narrative, it doesn't really do anything beyond revealing that Venkman and Dana are likely together. There had to be a better way to fit her into the movie. Even Venkman giving Dana a phone call after the movie's climax would have been preferable.
Anyway, that brings us to the post-credits scene, which sets up a possible sequel.
The Post-Credits Scene
The post-credits scene picks up after the final shot of the movie before the credits, where the Ecto-1 was seen returning to New York City. Winston Zeddemore (Ernie Hudson) promised the car he'd take care of her after seeing the state she'd fallen into after they saved the day and defeated Gozer the Gozerian (more on that right here). The post-credits scene finds him making good on that promise and more.
But before we get to Winston, there's a "Ghostbusters" deleted scene that has been brought into the canon. In this scene, we see 1984-era Egon (Harold Ramis) and Janine Melnitz (Annie Potts). In the scene, Janine gives Egon her lucky coin from the 1964 World's Fair at Flushing Meadow. Suddenly we cut to present day where the aged Janine looks fondly at the coin. We find her in the office building of Winston, and as we learned from Ray Stantz (Dan Aykroyd) earlier in the movie, he's become a billionaire businessman.
Winston tells Janine that the time he spent with the Ghostbusters reminded him that he had the "tools and the talent" (yet another reference to the original movie) to be a better man than he'd become. He says that no matter what he's achieved over the years, he'll always be a Ghostbuster. Using his fortune, Winston paid off the debt left behind by Egon Spengler, which should leave his surviving family in a much better position. However, it's what he's possibly planning to do that's more interesting.
We see Winston arriving at the old Ghostbusters headquarters, which hasn't been turned into a Starbucks as Ray mentioned earlier in the movie. He drives the Ecto-1 into its home and takes a stroll through the abandoned building. Meanwhile, in the basement, the containment unit that caused the Manhattan Crossrip of 1984 (thanks to Walter Peck) has a red light that's blinking. That would seem to indicate that there are still some ghosts that might need to be dealt with, and it could be on the verge of another major paranormal event.
What Does This Mean For The Future Of Ghostbusters?
This would seem to imply that there's still work that needs to be done, and that Winston might be on the verge of putting together a new team of Ghostbusters. If that's the plan for the sequel, does that mean Phoebe (Mckenna Grace) and Trevor (Finn Wolfhard) would be involved? Perhaps Winston paying off Egon's debt might allow them to come back to New York City.
Personally, I'm not sure how I feel about this. If there's a way to pass the torch that doesn't require the whole team to stick around, then the franchise could perhaps continue easily. That was always the intention of the various sequels that have been developed over the years, with the original team passing the torch to a new team of Ghostbusters. But Bill Murray was always the holdout when it came time to get the band back together to properly hand off the proton packs and neutrona wands.
Perhaps now a new team can be assembled with today's best comic talent and keep the "Ghostbusters" franchise alive. But it probably depends on the box office turnout for "Ghostbusters: Afterlife" this weekend. There's a whole production company called Ghost Corps. on the Sony Pictures lot that is likely hoping to continue the franchise in some way, and if "Afterlife" is successful, then it opens up plenty of possibility. If that's the case, hopefully it won't take another 30 years for them to figure out how to do it.
December 4, 2021: The original GTA Trilogy is back, but only on Rockstar's launcher for people who own the Definitive Edition.
Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy - The Definitive Edition is out, and while I hate to put too many qualitative statements about a game here in a news story, there's no way around it. It's bad. Rockstar previously provided an update on the "unexpected technical issues" plaguing the remastered open-world games and promised patches are coming and the originals getting relisted.
One of those has happened, at least, although not in the way everyone would like. The original versions of Grand Theft Auto III, Vice City, and San Andreas are now available for free for anyone who purchased the new Trilogy - or plans to pick it up before July 1, 2022. However, there is no word on when the classic trilogy will be relisted on the Rockstar launcher to buy as a separate bundle as the developer promised - or whether the games will come back to Steam or any other PC storefronts after they were pulled in October.
Jake DeMarco, 38, was watching live surveillance video of his dog Ryder playing in the backyard when he noticed something rather odd: Ryder was seemingly romping around with another dog. According to DeMarco, his entire yard is "secured by a locked high fence, and therefore impossible for a canine to scale." — Read the rest
After literal decades of waiting, "Ghostbusters: Afterlife" has arrived in theaters, serving as a proper sequel (though also kind of a reboot) to the original horror/comedy classics from the '80s. While 2016's "Ghostbusters" opted for a full-on reboot, this latest installment is more akin to a proper "Ghostbusters 3," taking the same route as "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" or "Creed," introducing new characters to bring in a new generation of fans, while marrying the past to the present. That being the case, there is much to dissect and much to consider with this one, and we're here to break down the movie's hugely consequential ending, as well as what it might mean for the future. Let's dig in, shall we?
Warning: massivespoilersahead for "Ghostbusters: Afterlife." Proceed with caution.
A Brief Recap
The events of the movie are set into motion when Callie (Carrie Coon) is forced to move herself and her children, Trevor (Finn Wolfhard) and Phoebe (McKenna Grace), to a rundown farmhouse in the middle of a nowhere town in Oklahoma following the passing of her long-estranged father. Rather importantly, her father just so happened to be Egon Spengler, played originally by the late Harold Ramis. Callie has no nostalgic feelings about her father and is mostly there to collect any inheritance left behind. Unfortunately to her chagrin, Egon didn't have much in the way of valuable goods, and instead had quite a bit of debt.
While Callie struggles to adjust, Phoebe quickly discovers a lot of her late grandfather's ghost-busting gadgetry, and Trevor finds a girl named Lucky (Celeste O'Connor) to fawn over, keeping them both occupied. But as Phoebe and her summer school teacher Mr. Grooberson (Paul Rudd), as well as her newfound friend Podcast (Logan Kim) soon discover in fiddling with Egon's old gadgets, ghosts are very real, and they are a looming threat to this sleepy town. Mr. Grooberson is also the one who lets Phoebe in on her lineage, which leads to some friction between her and her mom.
They come to find out the ghost they accidentally released was either the Gatekeeper or the Keymaster, which made its way to the old mine on the edge of town, which just so happens to be a selenium mine. As fans may recall, this is the same material that the building featured in the original movie's climax was made out of. And there is also a shrine dedicated to none other than Gozer. It all comes back around.
A Phone Call To The Past
After taking the newly-repaired Ecto-1 out for a destructive joyride around town to try and capture Muncher, the Slimer-esque new ghost we meet earlier in the movie, the kids find themselves in jail. Phoebe then pushes to use her one and only phone call to phone the number she found in her grandfather's secret workshop earlier, and it just so happens to reach Ray Stantz (Dan Aykroyd), who reluctantly hears Phoebe out, especially once he finds out who she is. This serves as a way to fill in some gaps, with Ray explaining that the Ghostbusters broke up once business slowed down, as there simply weren't too many ghosts around anymore.
Egon claimed that the end of the world was coming, and that Summerville, Oklahoma was where it was going to begin. Ray and his pals didn't believe him, leaving Egon to clean the Ghostbusters out and make his way to the town himself in order to try and prevent this spooky catastrophe. Ray felt betrayed, while Peter Venkman (Bill Murray) had returned to teaching, and Winston Zeddemore (Ernie Hudson) had actually done quite well for himself as a businessman.
As one might expect, Callie is pissed off when she comes to bail out her kids. Unfortunately, the proton pack and ghost trap remain in the police impound locker. But those items are sorely needed before long, as the Gatekeeper and Keymaster possess Callie and Mr. Grooberson, paving the way for the return of Gozer.
It's A Trap
The kids take it upon themselves to go about bustin' these ghosts and freeing the town from the grip of Gozer. They suit up using the equipment in Egon's basement, giving us our first proper Ghostbusters team moment of the movie, with Phoebe, Lucky, Podcast, and Trevor filling those shoes. They release Muncher at the police station to eat through the bars so they can get the equipment back, enabling them to free Callie from Terror Dog possessing her. Callie is now fully on board as they haul ass in Ecto-1 back to Egon's farm. This is where everything starts to come together.
It turns out that Egon, known around town as the "dirt farmer," actually wasn't crazy. He had been keeping the ghosts at bay in the mine for years using the proton packs, while laying out his grand plan to stop Gozer once and for all. The capacitors and carefully laid traps underneath the dirt on the farm served as one big trap capable of taking down Gozer. Phoebe luckily is able to figure this out and, with the help of the team, they lure Gozer back to the farm to try and successfully deploy the trap which, unfortunately, Egon could not do in the opening moments of the movie, leading to his death.
As one might expect, despite an admirable effort, this does not go according to plan and the power fails yet again at a key moment. Also, the mini marshmallow men decide to make things extra tricky for Podcast and Trevor, disabling one of the proton packs. For a moment, all seems lost. But then a trio of guys who have danced with this devil before show up to save the day. Yes, Peter, Ray, and Winston show up in full Ghostbusters gear, proton packs in hand, ready to help vanquish Gozer once again.
A Sweet Trip On The Nostalgia Train
We get some in-character moments from all three of the original members as they pair with Phoebe and the gang to do away with Gozer. At a crucial moment, the final piece of the puzzle comes into play, as we see a ghostly hand guiding Phoebe's proton pack alongside the three original Ghostbusters. It is, indeed, the hand of Egon's ghost, which reunites the original gang, with one member visiting from the afterlife, to finish what they started all those years ago. Egon had uncovered the prophecy that foretold the years Gozer could return. One of those years was 1984 and the next was 2021. He wasn't crazy, and Ray realized that, which prompted him to round up the gang for one last ride. Little did they know they would be reuniting with Egon as well.
Trevor manages to get his proton pack in gear, using it to fire up the capacitors. With the trap functioning, they trap Gozer and the day is won. Callie, the original trio, and his grandkids all get to have a nice moment or two with Egon before he disappears back into the ether of the afterlife. While many questions remain regarding Egon's abandoning of his family, it seems Callie gets some much-needed resolution here, as do his original ghost-busting pals.
Who Ya Gonna Call Next Time?
The final moments of "Ghostbusters: Afterlife" firmly place some pieces in place for a continuation. For one, Phoebe, Trevor, Podcast, and Lucky have discovered a knack for this line of work, and they could easily pick up where Egon and the gang left off. But Winston, seeing the sad state of Ecto-1, takes the car back to New York City to presumably fix her up and get her back in proper ghost-fighting shape.
This movie manages to deliver a complete story all on its own, while setting the table for things that could be in the future. Unlike "Dune" however, if we never got another "Ghostbusters" movie, this would still feel whole enough that it wouldn't leave fans feeling cheated out of a full story. Beyond that, it gave longtime fans a reunion they may not have thought was possible. People will surely have mixed feelings about resurrecting Egon in ghost form. All I can say is, in my theater, people seemed truly happy to have that moment.
What director Jason Reitman, following in his father Ivan Reitman's footsteps, manages to do here is pretty impressive, all things considered. He provides a new generation of characters for fans to embrace, while still connecting this latest entry to the past. More than that, he gives us what the "Star Wars" sequel trilogy wouldn't/couldn't with that reunion of the original characters. Han, Luke, and Leia never got to share a moment together in Episode VII and beyond. Peter, Ray, Winston, and Egon did. Again, while certain people will process that nostalgia-motivated move differently, this may have been our last chance to make that happen. That is not to be dismissed.
On the latest Park After Dark: Ricky's dressed up smart today, he's got a job interview - but is he qualified? (Clue: fuck no!) Watch now at https://bit.ly/pad3-26 and the TPB/SwearNet appy thing!
Potential CMOS issues for Xbox hardware are being looked into, according to Phil Spencer.
Speaking with Axios, Spencer confirmed that they are aware of the potential issues and they are looking into them to allow for the "ongoing relationship between the player and the content that they own".
The hardware team is hearing the message about our consoles should.. allow for the ongoing relationship between the player and the content that they own. So like, we hear the message and the teams are looking at things
CMOS battery issues can potentially lock users out of games they have purchased, so it is nice to hear that Microsoft is looking into these issues for Xbox consoles. Sony recently fixed these issues on PlayStation 5, and now all games work even with a missing or faulty CMOS battery, with the exception of games redeemed via PlayStation Plus. Before the issues were fixed, all digital titles were not playable with a missing or faulty CMOS battery, which was a huge issue for the console's Digital Edition.
A major cause for concern is the effect the issue has on digitial titles. As stated, without the
battery and an internet connection, all digital titles stopped working. Whilst this is a bad thing for all PS5 owners, it is particularly troubling for PlayStation 5 Digital Edition owners. That console has no option to play physical media whatsoever, making the eventual expiration of all purchases made on the console inevitable and unavoidable. Unless Sony patches the issue, it is simply a matter of time before all digital purchases cease to function.
You can find more on how the CMOS battery issues affected the PlayStation 5 console by heading over here.
Today we would like to invite you to read a guest article by Ondřej Koch from the LEVEL magazine, one of the top video game periodicals in the Czech Republic.
Prior to the fall of the Iron Curtain, people on the eastern side who wanted to make or even play games had very little opportunity to do so. The first generation of developers coming from the lands which used to form the federation of Czechoslovakia until 1992 didn’t get a chance to play most of the titles considered as classics or industry standards.
The console market was practically non-existent until the beginning of the millennium. This resulted in Czech and Slovak games being very different – believe it or not, mostly in a good way.
So how exactly do the games coming from studios based in the Czech Republic and Slovakia differ from your usual gaming experience? First, it is the unprecedented focus on realism and high, but fair difficulty, which triggered the success of series like Hidden & Dangerous, ArmA or truck simulators. Second, it is the artistic virtuosity of games coming from Amanita Design, Altar Interactive, Attu Games and many, many more. Whenever those two qualities manage to meet perfectly, major international success is born. That is the story of games like Mafia: The City of Lost Heaven or Kingdom Come: Deliverance.
All the aforementioned titles and talented creators have secured spot on a gaming map for Czech Republic and Slovakia. The rise of the indie scene followed quickly, without the historic burden which fundamentally affected the previous generation of developers. Tens of games are released every year, ranging from small platformers to ambitious FPS titles or serious experiences curated by the leading academics working for the game studio based at the historic Charles University.
Three or four titles coming from the Czech Republic within the list of best-sellers on any given platform were not an unusual sight during the past decade. That is an astonishing achievement by creators coming from a country with a population of North Carolina. If you haven’t played some of the Czech and Slovak classics yet, this is a chance you don’t want to miss.
The best of Czech gaming, curated by the kid of the Velvet Revolution
As a person born just a few months after the peaceful revolution in Czechoslovakia took place, I was lucky enough to see the rise of our gaming industry from humble beginnings. The games were scarce, therefore our generation spent months playing the favourite titles over and over again, extracting every tiny bit of content and sharing the experiences together. Here are 5 classics that formed the current generation of Czech (as well as Slovakian) players & developers:
The original title inspired by The Godfather trilogy ignited the spark of the Czech gaming industry back in 2002 and sold more than 3 million units, followed by two sequels and a 2020 remake. However, many would argue that the story and spirit of the first Mafia is something never accomplished again. Most of the Czechs who completed the story of Tommy Angelo and his sinister, yet hilarious accomplices, remember the entire street layout of the city of Lost Heaven until today.
This is not your regular real-time strategy, but I promise it is one of the best you will ever play. Imagine a substance filled with so much power it would light up a country. Good news – a bunch of American scientists found it in the fields of Siberia. The bad news is that you will need a group of soldiers, technicians, and scientists to be sent a few million years back in time to transport it to the United States. If anybody dies during the process, you will miss them for the rest of the campaign. You didn’t think that the Russians are allowing the transfer that easy, did you?
A young, talented man called Jakub Dvorský handed over his diploma thesis about a little living deadwood at the Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design in Prague in 2003. Almost nobody expected this moment to be pivotal for the creation of one of the most successful studios in Czech history. Our word for deadwood is a “samorost”, and some of you may already know where this is heading. A little flash-based interactive story (which you can play for free!) was followed by the second and third instalment later on, as well as by many lovely, charming, touching and slightly disturbing (most of them all together) titles made by Amanita Design.
I remember running through vast Czech forests and abandoned industrial buildings with a bunch of friends armed with airsoft guns dearly. When playing ArmA, the experience was quite similar, but we were somehow writing the history (though only virtually). The focus on realistic simulation was unprecedented at the time, as well as over 400 square kilometres of terrain and massive collection of equipment from both sides of the Cold War conflict. Be ready to die A LOT.
The last title on the list was only released in 2018 but already made it to the list of instant classics. Daniel Vávra (director of the original Mafia game) and his team depicted a complicated story full of heroes and villains which takes place in 1403 around the Sázava river right in the heart of Bohemia. The adventures of Henry, son of a blacksmith, gained international attention and even brought crowds of new visitors to the actual Sázava Monastery, one of the centrepieces of the game.
We hope that you enjoyed reading this article. Check our Weekly Sale that features Czech and Slovak games for more interesting titles accompanied by cool discounts.
It's been ten years now since Jeremy Renner made his Marvel Cinematic Universe debut as Hawkeye in the first "Thor" movie. Finally, a decade later, Hawkeye is about to headline his own solo adventure. He's the last of the six founding Avengers to do so, but when his six-episode series "Hawkeye" premieres on Disney+ next week, he won't be completely alone, since Hailee Steinfeld is also buddying up with him. Steinfeld plays fan-favorite character Kate Bishop, who has history with Hawkeye in Marvel Comics but who is making her first entrance into the MCU with this show.
Another aspect of Hawkeye's comics history that we haven't seen depicted in the MCU yet is his hearing loss. This is something that the "Hawkeye" series will address, and for star Jeremy Renner, it's something that he can relate to on a personal level, since he himself is hard of hearing. In a recent press conference (via The Illuminerdi), Renner said of his character's hearing loss:
"A lot of that's in my life. I'm only hard of hearing, so I'm not deaf. I thought it was just a really wonderful thing, cause it is, it's always been a part of Clint's character in the comics, and we found a way to make it a truthful entry point for his life and how it affects [his] life. And now, there is a wonderful vulnerability that comes in. There's a lot of ties into other characters because of it, in a fun way, in a negative way, in a positive way, it's really, really interesting there. I found it to be quite a dynamic, interesting ... sometimes an obstacle, sometimes an asset not being able to hear."
Hearing-Impaired Marvel Heroes
Hawkeye's classic comics costume put a pointy purple mask on his face and a big capital "H" on his forehead, but in 2012, after the first "Avengers" movie, writer Matt Fraction and artist David Aja reinvented the character and established many of the tropes that are now making it into this Disney+ series. Fraction was involved in "Hawkeye" in a consulting capacity "throughout the process" of production, and one of the tropes from his comics run that the series is adopting is Clint Barton's open use of a hearing aid.
As Screen Rant notes, Hawkeye's hearing loss dates back to a story from the 1980s when the bang from one of his own sonic arrows left him mostly deaf. By ditching his old mask and showing his ear in close-up, Fraction and Aja's run was able to draw renewed attention to it. It's just one of the challenges Hawkeye will be facing in this series, which — despite its light-hearted Christmas tone — will also see his darker side as Ronin resurface.
Of course, Hawkeye isn't the only hearing-impaired hero in the MCU. Just a few weeks ago, we saw Lauren Ridloff's Makkari, the MCU's first deaf, ASL-fluent hero, arrive in "Eternals." On Disney+ Day, Marvel also announced a future streaming series centered on Echo, a deaf hero with photographic reflexes. Characters like these are helping Marvel make great strides in who and what it is representing onscreen as its movies and shows continue to dominate popular taste around the world.
The first two episodes of "Hawkeye" debut on Disney+ on November 24, 2021.
Covid-19's patient zero was not somebody who contracted the virus from a Wuhan lab, and was not an accountant from another city altogether, as many have theorized, according to a US scientist who has extensively researched the coronavirus' origins. Patient zero was, after all, a woman who sold seafood at a Wuhan live-animal market. — Read the rest
We're finally here, the Icarus release date is today! Developer RocketWerkz has shared what kind of hardware your gaming PC will need in order to secure your ticket to the game's hostile alien wilderness. The Icarus system requirements are surprisingly high, especially when it comes to RAM, but it's a tad more forgiving on the GPU side of things.
Icarus is a new sci-fi survival game from Dean Hall, the creator of DayZ. You and up to seven other spacemen must work together to survive missions that can last from just a few hours to several weeks. For those who reckon they'll master the game's challenge in no time, Hall has said the development team aims to "add new items, missions, biomes, talents and balance changes after launch. Icarus will be a living, evolving game."
Unfortunately, no AMD CPU or GPU system requirements have been provided, but we do know the game supports AMD FSR and Nvidia DLSS, which should both help to boost fps. Nonetheless, those with the best graphics cards and best gaming CPUs from team red should be able to run the game just fine.
Labor boss and mobster Jimmy Hoffa vanished without a trace in 1975, almost certainly murdered by the Mafia. Since then, the search for his body has captured the American imagination. Indeed, some believe he's buried underneath what was once the New York Giants stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey. — Read the rest
RPCS3 now has support for PlayStation Eye Camera functionality!
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