firehose

By Alec Meer on June 7th, 2013 at 2:00 pm.

Remember Me is a sci-fi action game from Capcom and French dev DONTNOD, and it is about doing unpleasant things to people’s memories and punching other people. Mostly punching people, to be honest. Let’s see I can totally recall what I thought of it.

I know exactly what you’re thinking. You’re thinking “‘Remember Me’ refers to this Capcom action game’s plot and theme, concerning the technological manipulation, trade and abuse of memories in futuristic France.” You are incorrect. It actually refers to trying to remember lots of button combinations. The subtitle was originally going to be “No? Then you’re going to be rubbish at this game.” Check Capcom’s United States Patent and Trademark Office registration for this game, you’ll see.

Yes, this is one of those proverbial games of two halves. One half is punching, which I’ll come back to in a bit. The other half, on paper the most compelling to me and I suspect to a fair few of you, concerns dark science-fictional memory hacking in Neo-Paris. Remember Me sort of gestures broadly towards concepts of what memory, and with it identity, really means, especially when any memory can be altered, and has some fun depicting a society wherein the wealthy are hooked on being able to relive memories of positive experiences (primarily sex, as well as that hormonal condition you humans call ‘love’) on demand, while the memory-harvested poor are murderous, babble-spouting ghouls living in slums and sewers.

It’s very much a classical science fiction high concept – what if you could buy someone else’s memories? – but if you’re hoping for a homage to 80s camp, I’m afraid it’s a lot more like Colin Farrell Total Recall 2012 than Arnie Total Recall. An 80s sci-fi touchstone whose influence is very much apparent is Blade Runner – pan-ethnic fusion culture, giant light-billboards, metropolitan ultra-sprawl and the juxtaposition of gleaming high-tech with urban squalor and ruin. Very nice to look at indeed, and like BioShock: Infinite it’s one of those games where the artists look to have been free to indulge themselves, but in both plot and tone it does feel like it’s a collection of hoary old sci-fi tropes bolted together and then painted in particularly shiny colours.

Paris in the future is Neo-Paris, because obviously in the future all city names in the future will be prefixed with Neo- in the future, areas have names like ‘Slum 404′ and characters are called things like ‘Bad Request.’ In the future, everyone’s obsessed with antiquated website error terminology, apparently. It’s the future, you see. It’s just all so obvious, like the only film whoever came up with that stuff has ever seen was Tron Legacy.

The cast, meanwhile, spout mountains of Neo-Fromage and struggle to attain more depth than a slice of deli counter ham. While extreme amounts of effort seem to have gone into the visually engaging levels, all distinctively Parisian streets gone to seed or overlaid with holographic ads and brightly-coloured C-3POlikes, the words and ideas supporting that are a mess of well-intentioned but rather obvious cliches.

Two aspects of the game rise above that. Firstly, the playable character, the action hero of the piece, is a woman of mixed ethnicity, and the game doesn’t feel it has to draw attention to either of those attributes. Enemies aren’t aghast or amused that they’re fighting a woman, she doesn’t have to go on some journey of self-discovery in order to become magically capable of punching people to death, the camera doesn’t linger on her curves (though it arguably has worse problems – more on that later) and, well, she’s just there, being the star of the piece. There are many ways in which Remember Me might be compared to the recent Tomb Raider reboot, but I’m glad to see this behaving as though it’s just always been the case that a female character can be the protagonist of an action game. The cause can be strongest when it’s not making a big deal of it.

Then there’s an all too occasional minigame in which we get to manipulate – ‘remix’ – other character’s memories in order that their present day behaviour changes. For instance, make an assassin working for the memory-stealing corporation you’re trying to take down believe that they caused the death of her husband and she’ll suddenly feel disinclined to slit your throat. This is done by entering the memory of a life-saving operation her chap was receiving courtesy of The Tyrell Corporation Memorize and looking for ‘glitches’, whatever they’re supposed to be. What they do is allow alteration – loosen the straps of his anaesthetic mask or stick the wrong medicine in the machine that goes ping, that sort of thing. Soon enough, she’ll believe Weyland-Yutani Memorize offed her fella through medical incompetence/mendacity and must be taken down.

It is a little arbitrary and doesn’t stand up to much analysis, but winding and rewinding through the memory, looking for glitches and using a combination of logic and trial/error to work out which ones should be altered and in which order is fascinating stuff, with a few alternate (but fail-state) outcomes if you get it wrong. Yeah, in a way it’s a quick-time time event writ-large, but with more convincing context and variance, while the moral oddness of manipulating memories in order to have someone later do you a favour is by far the most compelling aspect of the plot. OK, you’re trying to take down an evil corporation, but does that justify making someone believe their husband died in tragic circumstances? Later narrative events do a bit more with the ethics of this stuff, but really the story just burbles off into technology-as-magic gibber and for the most part the memory-hacking is just a rare, more cerebral diversion from the game proper.

The game proper is a combo-centric punchathon, whose main activity has about as much to do with the much-touted memory-fiddling concept as the Vatican has with Grindr. (Actually, I’m probably completely wrong on that last, aren’t I?) The best point of reference is probably the fisticuffs of the Batman Arkham games – just a couple of buttons, but an emphasis on the timing of punches, keeping the blows flowing and pinballing from enemy to enemy in order to avoid openly highlighted incoming attacks.

What you don’t get is semi-freeform exploration in between this stuff – while the amount of incidental art in a level can create the illusion of wide-open spaces, you’re very much on a rail, regularly stopping off for far too many, far too long cutscenes. In between the fighting, there’s some very lightweight, Uncharted-esque parkour, but it’s meatless stuff – rote jumping and ledge-grabbing just to kill a bit of time before the next fight-dance. There are few sequences you could technically call puzzles, but I’d rather call them Doing Things That You Are Told To Do.

What Remember Me does instead of environmental freedom is flexibility of combat combos. There are no fixed combos; instead you program your own. Want a sequence that replenishes a ton of health? Stick a load of yellows in there. Pure damage? All the reds, please. Recharges your special abilities (e.g. mass stun, superhuman punching)? Purple it up.

It’s a neat idea, especially because you can mix it up again whenever you like if you feel a different tactic is required for a certain enemy, because you get bored or even if your muscle memory is just having a hard time with a particular button sequence. Even so, it gets old faster than it perhaps should – whatever the circumstance, really you’re only ever trying to achieve one of a small handful of effects (and all of which extrapolate to ‘everyone else on-screen is now dead’) against attack of the clone enemies.

I suspect people who adore the precision and self-discipline of something like Devil May Cry will get a lot more out of this than I did, but I’m afraid I increasingly became bored and frustrated when another small group of zombie things or armoured guards dropped in and I had to repeat the same dance yet again. Doesn’t help that I spent most of my time looking at the Guitar Hero-style combo bar at the bottom of the screen instead of what was actually going on – at times Remember Me wound up feeling like a rhythm action game with too many cutscenes.

I wound up playing on gamepad too, as comfortable button-tapping was far more important than any sort of precision aiming. And in any case, the camera’s a nightmare – too close to the character, often pointing itself at the corner of the floor, and generally undermining the lavish environments by making me feel as though I was trapped inside a small box.

Remember Me is one of those games I admire more than I like, then. It looks fabulous on an aesthetic level (though after early, glorious sights of an alternately augmented and squalid Paris, it shoots itself in the foot by spending about a third of the time in dreary sewers and corridors), it’s certainly kicking around a few smart ideas in both concept and mechanics, but despite early ambition it doesn’t wind up going the distance in either regard. We don’t give scores here, of course, but the degree to which Remember Me is the very definition of one very particular number does make me laugh.

I can’t remember when Remember Me is out. Oh no, that’s right, it’s ‘now.’

Bluestacks has brought Android apps to PCs and Macs. And its upcoming Gamepop console will bring Android games to the TV. But none of this is unique — there are others who have tried similar things, most notably Ouya's Android-powered gaming console. However, Bluestacks has a radically more ambitious plan, today announcing that its Android-powered console will be able to run iOS games as well thanks to Looking Glass, a piece of software that mimics Apple’s iOS APIs.

The company has already lined up some relatively large iOS and Android developers to support its console, including Subatomic studios (the maker of the iOS hit Fieldrunners), Glu, Halfbrick, Jawfish Games, and Gameloft. Altogether, the company is promising a collection of 500 of the top mobile games across Android and iOS will be playable on its console — as long as you're willing to pay a $6.99 a month subscription fee. Unlike Ouya, which sells Android games one by one, Gamepop is taking a "Netflix for games" approach.

Bluestacks has built an API that allows iOS apps to run on Android

Bluestacks says it can run iOS games thanks to Looking Glass, a virtualization tool it built that has essentially recreated the iOS API on top of Android. "Looking Glass works at the API level — it's not quite virtualization or emulation as you've known it," said Rosen Sharma, the company's CEO, in an interview. "We recreate the API that iOS provides, but we don't use any Apple bits to do it. So we skip iOS altogether." By building its own API that communicates with iOS apps, Gamepop should enable users to play iOS that are submitted to Bluestacks’ game store as if the console was running iOS — but it's not, it's running Android.

Looking Glass does all the heavy lifting to make iOS apps work on Gamepop, Goshen said, adding that the barrier for entry for game developers will be minimal. "We're doing the engineering rather than relying on developers to remake their games," he said. "Literally all developers have to do is change their payments backend so it works with our subscription model and that's it. They don't have to do anything else to their games." The entire concept of Gamepop, and it running both Android and iOS games smoothly is a confounding proposition. As fragmented as Android is, many devices can barely run native games decently — so it seems like a daunting task for an Android console to run iOS games well. And Ouya, Gamepop’s primary rival, has its own problems running games well.

While Goshen and Bluestacks are happy to promise that Gamepop will deliver both Android and iOS games, running in smooth, full-screen glory on a massive TV set in your living room, there are key parts about the product they remain mum on. The console has no solid release date, though it is set to ship sometime this winter. And the company hasn't yet talked about what the hardware will be made up of — though they have shown off renderings of what looks alot like a white Boxee Box. Goshen declined to talk about Gamepop's specs or internals, but sources with knowledge of the companies plans have told The Verge that Intel, Qualcomm and AMD will be supplying components for the console — all three companies are investors in Bluestacks, so this wouldn’t be much of a surprise.

"Everyone already has a controller in their pocket."

The controller remains a mystery as well. Bluestacks has yet to show its controller or controller apps, and this won't change anytime soon, Ghosen said. But, he added, the Gamepop controller will be built for mobile games running on TVs, and not simply an Xbox rip off, or iPod Touch wannabe. "One of the things we have learned over the past years with App Player, bringing Android to PCs and Mac, is how you should and shouldn't play touch apps from a distance," he said. "How you interact with the game is a big part of the tech here — so we're holding that close to our chest until closer to the launch date."

Through the end of June, Bluestacks is offering Gamepop for free, as long as users subscribe to its monthly gaming service for a year. If a user takes part in the free pre-order and cancels their service before 12-months passes, they'll be charged a $25 re-stocking fee and asked to mail the console and controller back to the company. If they don't, they'll have to pay a $100 "early termination charge." In July, things will get a lot simpler — the console will sell for $129 and gaming access can be turned on or off whenever a subscriber wants. Extra controllers will sell for around $20, Goshen said, adding that the planned Android and iOS controller app will mean "everyone already has a controller in their pocket."

"We don't want to be Dreamcast." Bluestacks promises that it will be announcing a number of high profile, iOS-first developers who will throw their support behind Gamepop over the coming months. Goshen wasn’t afraid to denigrate the competition, either: "Others announce a large number of games too, but we'll have a high number of games that are high quality games. We don't want to be Dreamcast or Wii U. We think the success of Gamepop will depend on having the best launch titles possible." The CEO said he isn't worried about attracting iOS developers over to his console, and that interest is already high.

Nonetheless, what Goshen is trying to do with Gamepop simply hasn’t been done before. Mobile games on TVs, to this point, have been almost universally bad. Undoing that reality would be a technical achievement with or without iOS games in the mix. There’s also a potential legal question in running iOS apps on a non iOS device. Goshen said the fact that Looking Glass uses no Apple code to recreate an iOS API means keeps him from worrying about Apple suing him over all this: "Not at all. It's squeaky clean." Apple may have something to say about that by the time Gamepop launches.

In the E3 2013 trailer for Thief, released today by publisher Square Enix, Garrett, the series' protagonist, explains his one-track mind when it comes to larceny.

"Stealing is my way of life; it sets me free in the night," says Garrett in the trailer, which contains no gameplay footage. "Every rivet and stitch lets me find what I desire. The cloth that hides me, the tools that arm me, all lead to that priceless moment."

Garrett's skills and equipment, he points out, also allow him to escape just when you think you've got him in your grasp.

Thief, a reboot of the long-running stealth franchise, is in development at Eidos Montreal and set for release in 2014 on Windows PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. Polygon reported in April that problems at the studio were impeding the game's progress. You can check out our preview of the title from the 2013 Game Developers Conference here.

Sony has reportedly signed a deal with Apple for the iRadio service, bringing the last of the three major record labels on board days before E3. AllThingsD reported the news this morning, saying that Apple was now set to announce the news of iRadio on Monday; previous reports have said it will launch in the months after WWDC. Apple reached an agreement with Universal Music Group in May, and it brought Warner Music on board just a few days ago, but Sony has remained a holdout until now, allegedly because it wanted Apple to pay more than iRadio competitor Pandora.

Amazon Studios has just announced a new tool called Amazon Storyteller, which promises to help would-be filmmakers and scriptwriters more easily realize their visions by translating scripts into full-on storyboards with characters and dialogue. The tool, which is available now in beta, scans a submitted script for scenes, locations, and characters from the descriptions and then tries to replicate it using a catalog of "thousands" of props, characters, and background locations. From there, scriptwriters can upload their own images, "recast" the characters, change locations, and generally tweak the storyboards as much as they see fit.

From there, storyboards can be shared with the Amazon Studios community for feedback, just as the community can review scripts and offer suggestions currently. It's just another example of the weight Amazon is putting behind its original content arm — and while the early results from the first set of Amazon Studios pilots were not promising, this still sounds like a useful tool for those working to get independent projects off the ground. Amazon's new Storyteller tool is free and available to check out now on the Amazon Studios website.

A major intelligence agency in the United Kingdom is part of the US government's massive secret internet user spying program PRISM, according to leaked documents obtained by The Guardian. The UK's Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), one of three top intelligence agencies in the country, has been able to view private Internet user data since 2010 under the US National Security Agency's (NSA) PRISM program, which allegedly taps into the servers of tech giants including Google, Microsoft Facebook, Apple and Yahoo. The existence of PRISM, and the breathtaking amount of Internet users' personal information it claims to have access to, were first revealed Thursday night in a leaked PowerPoint file published by The Washington Post and The Guardian.

That document said that PRISM has been going since 2006 and works by giving the NSA "back doors" into the servers of nine major Internet companies, but many of those companies have since denied that they are handing over user data in this particular way. Now The Guardian is adding another twist to the quickly escalating story of government spying, pointing out that the UK has also been able to spy on the communications of many web users without their knowledge for the past three years, and that it used this power to generate 197 intelligence reports. A spokesperson for the UK's GCHQ agency skirted the issue of its involvement in the US PRISM program, telling The Guardian it "takes its obligations under the law very seriously."

Coming on the heels of The Guardian's bombshell report on Wednesday that the NSA and FBI were also separately obtaining phone call data from every Verizon customer going back to at least April of this year, the latest report that the UK was involved in the PRISM program raises further questions and concerns about the extent of surveillance of ordinary citizens who haven't been suspected of any crimes by democratic governments around the globe.

Over the past year, reports have circulated of widespread cyberattacks, based in China, against American corporate, media, and infrastructure targets. Now it’s being learned that cyberespionage efforts extended to the 2008 US presidential election, and appear to have been backed by the Chinese government, according to former Obama national intelligence chief Dennis Blair. The disclosure was made the day before President Obama and Prime Minister Xi Jinping meet this weekend at the Sunnylands estate in California, writes NBC News. The hacking is reported to have focused on the Obama and McCain camps’ respective stances on China, and exfiltrated large amounts of internal data including position papers and private emails.

Obama previously disclosed the attacks in 2009

NBC points out that Obama previously disclosed the attacks in loose terms in 2009, saying that "hackers gained access to emails and a range of campaign files," without divulging where the attacks originated. The efforts to access confidential data were reportedly sustained for months after an email phishing attack gave the hackers access to party networks.

Private email to Taiwanese president Ma Ying-jeou

We're now learning that the McCain camp was similarly attacked. One piece of information reported to have been acquired is a private email from then-presidential candidate John McCain to Taiwanese president Ma Ying-jeou supporting the country’s efforts to modernize its military. Afterward, a McCain adviser reported being contacted by a senior Chinese diplomat about the correspondence — putting him "on notice" that China knew what was going on.

In addition to this weekend's talks in California, the ongoing cyberattacks will be at the top of the list for discussion at next month's Strategic and Economic Dialogue meeting between the countries' top diplomats. But government officials are skeptical about the prospect for speedy progress given the economic incentives at play and China's continued insistence that it's not to blame. By starting a dialogue, it's hoped that the nations can agree to standards of behavior, but that horizon could be far down the road.

Send those documents right meow!

Submitted by: Unknown