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September 30, 2019 at 03:00PM
Sometimes, the lure of a technological puzzle is impossible to ignore. We've already expressed our love and admiration for the Switch remake of The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening, but equally, it's fair to say that its performance hiccups and stuttering are somewhat baffling. In a world where Switch can run id Tech 6 ports reasonably well, and virtually lock Super Mario Odyssey to 60fps, why does Link's Awakening have any issues at all? With a spare day in the schedule, I wanted to get some answers.
While most of Link's Awakening runs fairly well, this is a Nintendo game aiming for 60 frames per second - a target that the platform holder's games tend to hit with unerring consistency. Link's Awakening, however, seems to lurch between 60fps and 30fps (or more accurately, between 16.7ms and 33.3ms frame-times) in the strangest of places. Our solution to this problem: speed and power - specifically, much more of it. Link's Awakening runs at the standard Switch clocks of 1020MHz CPU and 768MHz GPU when docked, with the graphics core dropping to 384MHz in portable configuration. In all modes, an exploited Switch can be manually overclocked to push video processing to 921MHz with the ARM Cortex A57s maxing at 1785MHz.
The overworld presents the lion's share of the performance issues - just leaving the initial hut causes a sudden drop in frame-rate, for little discernible reason. Basic traversal causes minor stutter as we move around the initial beach locale, and more serious drops when transitioning between more significant areas of the map - like entering or exiting the Mysterious Forest, for example. What's curious here is that the stutter is fleeting - within a couple of seconds, we're back to 60fps.
Playing Shenmue 3's recently released demo is like coming across some strange relic, unearthed and polished off by curious digital archaeologists looking to understand turn of the century video games. The pace is stately to the point of being somnambulistic, its voice acting feels like it's been phoned in from half a planet and a couple of decades away, and the scope is limited in the extreme. I could not be any happier with it all.
I'm getting ahead of myself a little. The first thing that takes a while to comprehend is that Shenmue 3 exists, is playable, and is something I spent several happy hours playing over the weekend. The second thing that takes a short time to process is that, after all its various trials, Shenmue 3 actually might be good. As a fan who's been waiting eagerly, at times impatiently, for nearly 20 years, I am not disappointed in the slightest.
It's probably worth setting some context, though - I am most definitely a fan, a backer on Kickstarter and outside of that probably up to stalker-tier level when it comes to my support of Shenmue. I've made a pilgrimage to Yokosuka to see the setting of the original Shenmue, and have followed Yu Suzuki around the world to trace the project from its first seeds through to its eventual development.
Nintendo has announced a Brain Training game for Switch.
The announcement relates to a Japanese release - set for 27th December - for the quick maths video game. Based on the videos, below, there's two-player support, stylus support and online play.
You'll be holding the Switch vertically at times, and you can use a Joy-Con to detect the number of fingers you're holding up to answer maths questions and the shape of your hand in a game of rock, paper scissors. There's a flag-waving mini-game that involves you moving the Joy-Con about, too.
The Sony WH-1000XM3 wireless noise-cancelling headphones are often considered to be one of the best pairs you can buy right now, so it's worth noting that they're currently 25 per cent off.
Take yourself over to Amazon UK and you'll find the Sony WH-1000XM3 for £249.99. That's the lowest they've ever been at the retailer. It's unlikely they'll drop any lower - at least until Black Friday much later in the year.
Why is this pair of headphones so highly rated? Well, they simply offer outstanding noise-cancelling capabilities and terrific sound quality. They've bested their closest rival, the Bose QuietComfort series, in multiple comparisons too.
I think I remember that Popcap once had a rule about hexes. Never use hexes in a casual game, the rule went (and let's agree not to unpick that term casual at the moment), because hexes are the absolute opposite of casual. Games that have hexes are about war and history and tactics and placement. No hexes in Peggle!
And yet here's Hexaflip, an Apple Arcade game that is simple and thrilling and wonderfully challenging. Hexaflip is a brisk and breezy joy. You can learn to play it in seconds and you will still be playing hours later. And there are hexes all over the place.
Hexes is a game about getting from the start of a gauntlet to the end. You're a hex, and you move by flipping yourself across a board of hexes, one tile at a time. The genius of all this is that you really have two choices: left or right. Because you're a hex, left and right tend to take you upwards and left or upwards and right. Or downwards maybe? It's just counter-intuitive enough to make you sit up carefully and pay attention.
Retro gaming preservationist and restorer, Shane Battye, has shared images of an early N64 controller prototype that never made it to mass production.
"It houses a thumbstick significantly different to the final retail version and first appeared in a black and white press release photo alongside the Ultra 64 back in 1995," Battye explained on Twitter (thanks, Kotaku).
While Battye's controller doesn't look wholly dissimilar to the controller that eventually went into production, it does show the subtle changes Nintendo made before its final retail release, including not just the Z-trigger and joystick, but also the internal electronics, too.
Unfortunately, on September 19, 1808, the water on the street the theater was on was shut off to fix an issue with the system. The next morning, a fire started at around 4AM. With little means to effectively fight the blaze, it took just 3 hours to destroy the historic building and, along with more mundane things, a fair number of manuscripts that would today be given the always inaccurate moniker of “priceless”, as well as the late George Frideric Handel’s organ he had donated to the theater. On top of this, over 20 people lost their lives, and many dozens more were injured.
The loss of the theatre was a huge blow to the London community. You see, thanks to the Licensing Act of 1737, at the time, there were only two theaters in all of London that had been granted the right to perform full length spoken plays, and even these had to be approved before hand by government officials. All the other non-patent theaters, outside of occasionally temporary patents, were forced to restrict themselves to songs, acrobatics, dances, and the like. When they did show plays, they had to be mimed to stay within the bounds of the law.
Given the popularity of plays at the time and now with only one venue in town able to show them, efforts were quickly made to build a new theatre in place of the old, despite the lack of funds by the principal owners of the old structure to do so. You see, the insurance payout for the old building was only £50,000 (about £4 million or $5 million dollars today), with the cost to build a new theater to at least the level of the old estimated to be about three times that amount.
Stepping up to support the project, £10,000 was donated by the Duke of Northumberland. However, instead of accepting this, one of the principal owners of the theater and one of the most popular actors in all of Britain, John Kemble, refused the donation as such. Instead, he sent the Duke a bond promising to pay the sum back. The Duke, in turn, sent Kemble back his bond, along with a letter noting that as there was likely to be a bonfire to celebrate the start of construction, Kemble should throw his bond in it to “heighten the flames”.
A donation of £1,000 also came in from the Prince of Wales, future King George IV. The remaining funds comprising nearly £80,000 were acquired via subscription shares.
Money in hand, construction of the newer, improved Covent Garden Theatre began on January 2, 1809 under the supervision of famed architect Sir Robert Smirke, with the Prince of Wales himself ceremonially laying the first stone.
Things became even more urgent to get the theater built when, in February of 1809, the other theater in London allowed to show full plays, Drury Lane, burned to the ground.
Going back to Covent, nine months after the first stone was laid, a theater was born, largely superior to the original save for a few controversial changes. These included two galleries that were much smaller than the originals, meaning less seating for the plebeians. These also offered such a restricted view that patrons would come to complain that they could only see the legs of those on the stage.
Similarly, the third tier of the theatre (which had previously been freely available to the general public to purchase tickets for) had been converted into very large box seats areas to be rented by the year by wealthy patrons. These came complete with private areas where a curtain could be drawn, something quickly criticized for allegedly being so that the elite could solicit the services of prostitutes who often could be found at theaters of the age. In fact, many of the actresses themselves supplemented their income in this way, leading to the British expression “Said the actress to the Bishop”, implying illicit things actresses would tell ministers during confession. This was a precursor to the American version of an expression with the same meaning, “That’s what she said”, which was first popularized in the 1970s on Saturday Night Live.
Going back to the theater, in addition to these controversial changes, to help recoup the costs of rebuilding the new structure, Kemble raised the price of tickets about 15%, with the exception that the cost of the gallery, which as noted now had extremely restricted viewing, remained the same.
This brings us to opening night- September 18, 1809. Things started out innocently enough with the singing of the National Anthem, but then immediately turned tumultuous, with the crowd loudly chanting things like “Old prices!” throughout the performance of Macbeth.
Of course, actors and actresses of the age were used to this behavior from crowds. The idea of a “passive audience” is a fairly recent phenomenon, even in theatre. Throughout history crowds have always been encouraged in some way to express their enthusiasm, and even sometimes take part in the show, going all the way back to Ancient Greece where audience participation in plays and speeches was practically a civic duty.
The obvious downside of this is that crowds also felt entitled to express their displeasure in any way they pleased. As an example we have this 19th century account of a performance reported in the New York Times:
John Ritchie… made his debut before a Hempstead audience at Washington Hall a few evenings ago. He had a crowded house, and was warmly received, in fact, it was altogether too hot for him, there being distributed among the audience a bushel or two of rotten tomatoes. The first act opened with Mr. Ritchie trying to turn a somersault. He probably would have succeeded had not a great many tomatoes struck him, throwing him off his balance and demoralizing him. It was some time before the audience could induce him to go on with the performance. He next attempted to perform on the trapeze. As he lay upon the bar with his face toward the audience, a large tomato thrown from the gallery struck him square between the eyes, and he fell to the stage floor just as several bad eggs dropped upon his head. Then the tomatoes flew thick and fast, and Ritchie fled for the stage door. The door was locked, and he ran the gauntlet for the ticket office through a perfect shower of tomatoes. He reached it, and the show was over.
While you might think ruining the show in such a way would cause the better paying audience members to see to it that the plebs in the cheap seats would knock it off, nobody seemed to mind as half the fun of going to these shows was interacting with the performers in some way for some (particularly in the cheap seats) and for others observing what certain members of the crowd would get up to during the show. If a performance was good, the crowd would quickly see to it that anyone interfering in a negative way would be jeered down. If it was bad, well, the audience’s response was more fun to watch and take part in then. It was all about who could be more entertaining- the people on the stage, or the people in the crowd, or quite often a mixing of the two.
In this particular case, however, it wasn’t what was happening on the stage that was eliciting the negative response. In fact, that night’s performance featured Kemble’s sister, Sarah Siddons, who was almost universally considered the greatest tragedienne of the era.
Things got even worse at this inaugural performance when it was finally, mercifully over and the protesters refused to leave. This prompted Kemble to send for the police. The bobbies ended up inflaming the situation, with the seething crowd deciding to start rioting. Some arrests were made, but the crowd still refused to disperse until well into the am.
As to why the police were completely ineffective here, beyond it being difficult to control a large, angry crowd, there was apparently heated debate on whether or not the police actually could legally force a crowd who had paid to be there to disperse.
The next day, protesters once again filled the theatre, upping the ante by sneaking drums, whistles, frying pans, bells, and rattles into the performance, which they then used to completely drown out the actors on stage. On top of that, they reportedly broke out into what would be referred to as the “OP dance”, in which they more or less all stomped loudly on the benches in the pit in time as they chanted for old prices.
This type of behavior continued on during every performance until the 23rd when Kemble himself spoke to the mob during that evening’s performance, attempting to placate them by explaining: “That a committee of gentlemen had undertaken to examine the finances of the concern, and that until they were prepared with their report the theatre would be closed.”
Kemble thus closed the theatre for a few days while a report on the price change was compiled, examining whether the increase in price was justified or not. Of course, given the committee examining the issue was a subset of the shareholders in the theater, nobody paid attention to the report when it came out showing that, indeed, the approximately 15% price increase was deemed reasonable by said shareholders.
The crowd thus continued their antics when the theater opened back up, with newspapers as far as Edinburgh regularly reporting on the nightly tumult at the Covent Garden Theater. People across the nation quickly took sides, with those wanting the prices reversed referring to themselves as “OPs”, and those who were on the side of the theater owners called “NPs”.
Beyond making a ruckus at the shows, protesters also reportedly regularly gathered outside of Kemble’s home at all hours chanting for “original prices”, including coming up with a variety of unflattering songs illustrating what they thought of Kemble and his new prices.
Back in the theater, along with plastering it in banners and posters protesting the price change, the theater denizens began to sneak even more ridiculous things into performances including farm animals, flocks of pigeons they’d release inside the building, giant distracting hats and even a coffin with a banner stating in part “Here lies the body of the new price…”
Protesters additionally began turning up to performances in outlandish costumes including full drag, as well as organizing races and mock fights in the pit- in all cases, attempting to either drown out anything the actors were doing on stage or otherwise distract from it.
Kemble got so desperate to try to stop the teeming masses ruining the shows that he even went as far as paying professional boxers, including former boxing champion Daniel Mendoza (the guy who popularised that weird way all old-timey boxers seem to stand) to act as bouncers to enforce law and order.
Similar to the police, Mendoza and his fellow fighter’s presence unsurprisingly failed to calm the crowd down and caused even more tumult to erupt during performances anytime the fighters tried to intervene.
While you might think surely at some point people would get tired of the whole thing and want to just settle down and watch the performance they paid the inflated prices to see- the OPs refused to quit night after night.
And so it was that with no end in site, after about three months of near constant unrest at the shows, the former extremely popular actor, Kemble, gave in to the demands, issuing a public apology to the gathered crowd at the theatre on December 15th as well as formally restoring the old prices. Kemble also dropped all charges that had been leveled at protesters that had been arrested in the interim.
Now having the 19th century version of TV back, the masses were satiated. This was much to the relief of the royals, some of whom feared the OPs might band together against other similar perceived slights against commoners at the time as newspapers were more and more drawing parallels between what was happening at that theater with other aspects of life in the British empire. But now with their entertainment back, no such revolution occurred.
Things worked out for the theater as well, even at the original prices, with ticket sales for the following decade averaging around £80,000 per year, about double the annual operating costs.
If you liked this article, you might also enjoy our new popular podcast, The BrainFood Show (iTunes, Spotify, Google Play Music, Feed), as well as:
Bonus Fact:
If you happen to be wondering how we went from a couple thousand years of audience participation in performances to the passive audiences we have today in the span of only about a century, to begin with, shows started shifting from the actors actively acknowledging the audience was there, generally purposefully interacting with them, to instead pretending the audience was non-existent and performing as though what was happening on the stage was real and sort of “in another dimension”, so to speak. Essentially, the invisible fourth wall was created to preserve the illusion, and audiences began to more and more be expected not to break that wall down by interrupting the performance.
Other factors that helped this switch along included advancements in stage lighting, allowing for shifting the focus from both the audience and the stage to just the stage, further solidifying the invisible “fourth wall”. Accordingly, theatres were redesigned and rather than having the classic horseshoe shape (so wealthy spectators in the seats high up could enjoy the audience’s show as much as what was happening on the stage, as well as easily observe what other wealthy patrons were getting up to), now every seat commonly faced towards the stage and it became difficult to see what members of the audience were doing. Effectively, the audience ceased to be part of the night’s entertainment.
As the show began to focus more on what was happening on the stage, the cheap seats in the pit began to be upgraded from simple wooden benches to plush seats where the wealthy began to sit so they could see the performers better. When this happened, those wealthy patrons sitting near the stage were less than enthusiastic about getting hit by poorly aimed projectiles, helping to morph the rules to this being no longer accepted behavior in the theatre, though it has persist somewhat in certain other venues.
For instance, throwing things on the stage at pop music concerts is relatively common, and even the Beatles once lamented that for a little over a year period they were continually hit on stage, first with soft Jelly Babies in England and then in America with the much harder Jelly Beans. In fact, the Beatles’ 1964 performance in San Francisco had to be completely stopped twice due to the barrage of Jelly Beans becoming too intense, forcing them to retreat and implore the audience to knock it off.
Beyond this, heckling at comedy shows is still relatively common. Perhaps the best example of all where non-passive audiences have endured is at most sporting events, where boisterous behavior of patrons still often resembles that of audiences through most of history. But due to stricter rules and that the rowdier members of the crowd are typically further from the field of play, this doesn’t usually disrupt the sporting spectacle, though the athletes still have to endure non-stop taunting or cheering (and the occasional projectile) in many professional sports from fans at all levels.
Of course, it is not uncommon to have an (often inebriated) fan running onto the field of play and being chased around by security. Despite this interrupting the show, the rest of the audience paid to see, everyone tends to cheer for the runner and find the whole thing thoroughly enjoyable, particularly the longer the fan on the field can manage to evade capture… We really haven’t changed that much at all, it turns out.
Expand for ReferencesThe post That Time the British Rioted for Three Months Over the Cost of Theater Tickets appeared first on Today I Found Out.
As modders get stuck into the guts of Borderlands 3 we're seeing more and more cheeky patches around - from the practical intro-skipper to save files that let you jump immediately to level 50 characters - but nothing's quite caught my eye like this newly released one (thanks, PC Gamer), which strips out Gearbox's iconic cell-shading and bright palette for a Limbo lookalike instead.
To be fair, much of Borderlands 3's charm comes from its gorgeous distinctive art style, so I'm not entirely sure why I love the look of this mod just as much, but without the visual noise, Borderlands 3's meaty combat has never looked better. Here, check it out for yourself:
"This is just a reshade preset using the depth buffer," is all the mod author says about how they captured Limbo's iconic look, stripping away not just the colour but also the HUD and player UI.
I'm familiar with modern-day Doctor Who, but I don't watch it. In fact, I haven't properly watched a Doctor Who episode since the days when Sylvester McCoy and Ace went head-to-head with a man made out of Liquorice Allsorts.
Back then Doctor Who still felt like a sci-fi horror show for kids, featuring a healthy dose of mortal peril in each episode, but in my minds eye, the episodes were always rather colourful and a touch psychedelic. That's why I was a bit taken aback by how gloomy Doctor Who: The Edge of Time was. Are the newer series really this poorly lit?
If you want to see what I'm on about, check out this week's episode of Ian's VR Corner in the video player below. I took a trip to developer Maze Theory's offices to record an exclusive Let's Play of a portion of one of the game's five levels and this snippet shows off just how murky the visuals in the game can actually get.
For years now, the advice for PC gamers pondering a new build has gone something like this: Spend as much as you can on your graphics card, then pick up the cheapest CPU, motherboard and RAM you can find that won't handicap your GPU too badly. For most people, that means picking up a mid-range chip in the $200 to $300 range. The CPU we're testing today falls squarely in the centre of this competitive category: the $249 Ryzen 5 3600X, a six-core, twelve-thread chip based on the 7nm process.
Third-gen Ryzen has proven to be a huge step forward for AMD in our reviews of the $329 Ryzen 7 3700X and $499 Ryzen 9 3900X, so we're expecting a lot here - whether it's Intel or AMD, moving from six cores to an octo-core monster has typically delivered only an incremental rise in gaming performance, so you should be able to save a lot of money here with only a minimal hit to gaming prowess. To see if this theory holds up, we'll be stacking up the Ryzen 5 3600X not only against its immediate competitor - the Core i5 9600K - but also the higher end offerings from both Intel and AMD.
Before we get into the results, it's worth briefly covering what the Ryzen 5 3600X brings to the table. This is a Zen 2 design, like the Ryzen 3700X and 3900X, but this processor includes only one partially-enabled chiplet with six cores and twelve threads enabled out of the eight cores and sixteen threads in the fully-enabled design. That's two cores fewer than the 3700X at the same rated boost clock, so heavily multi-threaded performance - tasks like video rendering or scientific computing - could be noticeably worse but more usual tasks like PC gaming operate with very similar performance levels. You may notice that the 3600X has a higher TDP (95W vs 65W) than the 3700X, making it less power-efficient but potentially minimising the performance differential. You can see the full 3rd-gen Ryzen stack in the table below:
I was still at school when the first Terry Pratchett Discworld story appeared. My friends and I were all fans of fantasy and science fiction, whether it be video games, movies, trading cards, table-top RPGs or, of course, books. To us, these were no stranger things, yet this odd little novel, bracketed within a colourfully chaotic wraparound cover instantly became a favourite in the classroom. It was called The Colour Of Magic, and it began the saga of incompetent wizard, Rincewind, resident of Ankh-Morpork, the largest city upon the Discworld, a round circle astride four elephants and the Great A'Tuin, a giant sea turtle. Yes, it still sounds bonkers, and despite the gentle ribbing (ok, not always so gentle) of our favoured genres, The Colour Of Magic became an instant hit.
As a ZX Spectrum owner, I naturally made a beeline for the 1986 Piranha/Delta 4 graphic text adventure based on this book. But further episodes were not forthcoming, and I had to wait until 1995's DOS, PlayStation and Saturn Discworld game to scratch that Ankh-Morpork itch once more. Discworld 2: Missing Presumed...!? followed a year later, but it wasn't until 1999 and Perfect Entertainment's third Pratchett adventure that interactive Pratchett finally clicked for me. Maybe it's the combination of the author's vivid world and a cinematic genre I love, a bizarre amalgamation that proves a fertile bed for comedy; or maybe it's because everyone involved was at the peak of their powers, at one with both material and technology.
One such participant was Chris Bateman, lead writer and designer on Discworld Noir. "That was an astonishing opportunity to give to someone so early in their career!" he exclaims, before adding a surprising admission. "But I confess that I had only read The Colour Of Magic when I joined Perfect, and I was a bit disappointed by it. I loved the first part, inspired by Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser, but otherwise it seemed a little random." However, having begun work on Discworld 2 shortly after joining the developer, Bateman soon fell in love with the series. "I know a lot of fans love the Rincewind stories the best, but the City Watch for me is the heart and soul of Terry's world." Unsurprisingly, this band of dishevelled urban guardians would go on to have a key part to play in the next game, Discworld Noir.
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September 28, 2019 at 06:30PM
The developer behind the promising GoldenEye fan remake has released a new gameplay video - and it looks great.
GoldenEye 25, so named because it's due out in time for the 25th anniversary of Rare's seminal first-person shooter in August 2022, is the work of 3D artist Ben Colclough, and he released the video, below, on his YouTube channel.
Using the Unreal game engine, Colclough is remastering GoldenEye's single-player campaign. We've reported on his work before, when he released gameplay of an early Facility preview. But here we see the start of Silo up to the satellite room played on Secret Agent difficulty. While the visuals are of course modern, the gameplay remains true to the original's, with map layout, enemy placement and gun mechanics the same. You even get to shakedown technicians for their keycards. As Colclough says: "This game is a work in progress and there are many unfinished assets."
You can now play Cuphead in a Tesla.
Perhaps I should rephrase that: you can now play Cuphead on a Tesla.
Studio MDHR's rock hard run-and-gun action game has a Tesla Edition, and it's now available in the Tesla Arcade (of course there's a Tesla Arcade).
If you logged into Gears 5 last night, you might have noticed a big surprise: the price of Iron just went up.
Iron - the premium currency you can buy with real-world money - is spent on Gears 5 cosmetics such as character skins.
At launch, 500 Iron cost £3.99, 1000 Iron cost £6.99 and 2250 Iron cost £14.99.
The Masters of Doom TV series, which was announced to be in development by James and Dave Franco's production company Ramona Films back in June, has officially found its Johns - which is to say, its John Carmack and John Romero have now been cast.
Masters of Doom is an an adaptation of author David Kushner's well-regarded 2003 biography of the same name, which charts the founding of id Software and its journey toward creating Doom, one of the most influential video games of all time.
The TV show is being written and executive produced by Tom Bissell, who not only co-wrote the book The Disaster Artist (which told the story of cult movie The Room and is now an award-winning movie), but also has writing credits on the likes of Uncharted 4: A Thief's End, Gears 5, and The Vanishing of Ethan Carter.
FIFA 20 is out in the wild - and its Career Mode has already come under fire.
Players are so disgruntled they've organised a social media campaign to try and get EA Sports to fix a raft of bugs that are currently afflicting the game mode.
The campaign is certainly gaining traction. At the time of publication, #FixCareerMode was the number three UK trending hashtag on Twitter.
We will be #streaming on @twitch tonight to see what our response is on that platform! Please join us at
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We are going to #trynottolaugh
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September 27, 2019 at 05:26PM
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We will be #streaming #thisweekend! We will be #multicasting thanks to @restreamio!⠀
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September 27, 2019 at 03:00PM
Sony's latest State of Play stream was packed full of announcements - including a reveal for a rather interesting Death Stranding PS4 Pro bundle. Now, you can secure yourself one.
In case you missed it, the Death Stranding PS4 Pro features an oil-splatted cover and sickly yellow controller (I know, I'm really selling it, aren't I?) as its two main elements. It also comes with a 1TB hard drive and a copy of Death Stranding. Don't worry, Imogen has cleared up that there isn't a baby in the controller. Phew!
If that's set your mind at ease and you're looking to grab the Death Stranding PS4 Pro, then you can order yours from the following retailers. As seems to be the case with these limited items, GAME has the exclusive in the UK. In the US, there's much wider availability.
Valve has fixed NPCs not blinking in Half-Life 2, its 15-year-old shooter that may never see a sequel.
That's not all. Valve has also fixed missing sounds on Combine soldiers, fixed a hitch when saving games, and fixed SteamVR running when entering the settings menu.
The update is for Half-Life 2, Half-Life 2: Episode 1, Half-Life 2: Episode 2, Half-Life 2: Lost Coast, and Half-Life: Source. So, all the Half-Life 2s!
Five of the Best is a quite-new weekly series celebrating the incidental details in games we don't celebrate enough. Things like maps - everyone loves maps. They're the kind of things we can't do without, the kind of things which give games so much flavour and charm.
It's also designed to promote discussion because, let's face it, it's all subjective, what someone thinks is best. I have different ideas to you and, um, most people, apparently, and that's OK! I think. I hope. So join in. We've had some lovely discussions so far and you've reminded me of so many things. It's Friday after all, what else are you going to do - work?!
You can find all the previous Five of the Bests in a handy archive.
If you've played Gears 5's excellent campaign you'll probably have walked through its toilets.
But did you realise just how enormous they are?
About three quarters of the way through Act 1, Chapter 4, you find yourself in the Palace Theatre, which is currently hosting a play called Embry (yes, it's a Hamilton reference).
Apple Arcade's games are surprisingly good at suggesting there is still untapped potential in the iPhone's touchscreen. (Pun not intended but I'll take it.) Skate City turned a radial system of swipes into a whole bag of tricks, and now Bleak Sword is being widely cited as the game that redeems touchscreen sword-fighting. Honestly? It is brilliant: simple and thrilling and kinetic. What a game this is.
The basics are very simple. Your pixel stickman works through moody chunks of monochrome forests and swamps taking on beasts that range from bats to skeletal horses, eating slugs to regain health and wearing any jewelry lying around to boost stats. Imagine, for a second, meeting this person while out for a walk: half a slug hanging out of the mouth, a nice set of bangles jangling on the wrist. This is beside the point, of course. Bleak Sword is all about combat.
And what combat! Swipe to dodge, hold and then swipe for a light attack and then hold a bit longer and swipe for a heavy. Because this is three-dimensional space, the direction of your swiping is crucial. And because the enemies fight back, the true thrill of the system comes with tapping to block - and then tapping and swiping immediately to pull off an astonishingly satisfying counter.
Sony's VR headset might not be cutting-edge, but it's one of the most affordable and accessible options out there. Now Sony is launching a brand new PlayStation VR Mega Pack with five games to get you started.
It's set to include VR Worlds, Astro Bot: Rescue Mission, Skyrim VR, Everybody's Golf and Resident Evil 7. Undoubtedly, it's a strong group of games!
Astro Bot is often brought up as one of PS VR's best offerings, while fleeing from the Baker family in Resident Evil 7 is a whole lot more terrifying when it feels like you're actually in that disgusting and crumbling house. I actually like the sound of Everybody's Golf in VR, too, as it would give me the full experience of shielding my eyes from the sun and pensively watching the ball sink into a water hazard for the hundredth time.
I am aware, obviously, that you're not supposed to explain jokes. The thing is I'm not sure there's any way for me to explain what What the Golf is without at some point explaining a joke.
If I can't explain a joke, though, maybe I can define one. It's a thing that is funny. What the Golf is a game and it has lots of things in it that are funny. There! Done.
I actually played What the Golf at EGX in 2018, which feels like ages ago now, where it was just a series of very simple scenarios, one after the other, on PC. Now, it's on the brilliant Apple Arcade - what else? - and rather than that effective but pretty simple stream-of-consciousness it's now a much more fleshed-out, recognisable game, with a sort of overworld inside a weird experimental lab, where you ping a little ball about to the specific courses and get occasionally berated by a computer.
Eurogamer.net: September 04, 2019 at 03:00AM - WRC 8 review - a… | https://buff.ly/2O2mRf9 | #OurMischief, WitWGARA | ⠀
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Eurogamer.net: September 04, 2019 at 03:00AM - WRC 8 review - a new pretender to the driving crown | … https://buff.ly/2O2mSQf
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September 26, 2019 at 07:30PM
To begin with, for those unfamiliar with our Lizard overlords, while there are a variety of versions of this conspiracy theory, the general notion is that a few different types of reptilian humanoids walk among us. Chief among these creatures are a type speculated to come from the Draco constellation, because apparently the Lizard People knew their little corner of the galaxy would look vaguely like a serpent from Earth when connecting the dots during a certain part of Earth’s history, and so went ahead and spent millions of years evolving appropriately on their home planet to match. The Draconians are apparently tall, winged, reptilian humanoids who not only secretly rule over humans, but more overtly rule over other types of lizard people as well. As for those others, the second most prominent group widely held among adherents to this conspiracy are the shape shifting human/reptilian hybrids.
Naturally, thanks to the fact that the Lizard People are secretly working to control humanity, many former and current prominent world leaders, such as Queen Elizabeth II, Barack Obama, and Donald Trump, along with celebrities like Angelina Jolie, Betty White, Simon Whistler, and Katy Perry, are all known to be shape shifting reptoids.
As to why said reptoids wish to rule the world, there are a variety of reasons given, with the most prominent two being that they are here for our gold, and alternatively that they feed on negative energy from humans, particularly given off when we’re afraid, angry, or just generally anxious. Thus, they wish to create an Orwellian world government system in order to more easily manipulate our collective emotions for their own sustenance.
This now brings us to who actually first came up with the modern idea of these reptilian overlords in the first place.
While, as noted, sentient reptilians of some form or another have seemingly been around in human legend for as long as we’ve been humaning, one of the earliest and most influential references of Lizard People in more modern times can be found in Robert E. Howard’s 1929 story “The Shadow Kingdom” published in the pulp magazine Weird Tales.
Not coincidentally, these beings are shockingly similar to the modern perception of Lizard People. In a nutshell, the story involves ancient shape shifting reptilian humanoids with elaborate underground abodes who work in the shadows to rule humanity, including via infiltrating various groups and using mind control to influence world politics.
This and subsequent works by Howard would go on to popularize some version of these Lizard People, including in works by a close friend of his, H.P. Lovecraft. The concept caught on from here and has shown known signs of stopping in science fiction since.
Noteworthy here for reasons we’ll get to in a bit is one individual, mystic correspondence school founder Maurice Doreal, who would seemingly be inspired by Howard’s Lizard People when creating many written works for his followers, most notably The Emerald Tablets of Thoth the Atlantean. Except in Doreal’s case, he would use these science fiction characters to create a supposed real history of Earth that incorporates reptoids as factual beings.
Another notable incident that helped spread the idea of Lizard People occurred in 1934 and 1935 when one G Warren Shufelt was looking for gold in California. To aid in his endeavor, Shufelt invented a device that he claimed used “radio X-rays” to see deep into the Earth, and was apparently able to be used to find precious metals, like gold, as well. Of course, his device didn’t actually use X-rays, but rather used a common dowsing pendulum, as described in a January 29, 1934 edition of the Los Angeles Times,
Shufelt’s radio device consists chiefly of a cylindrical glass case inside of which a plummet attached to a copper wire held by the engineer sways continually, pointing, he asserts, toward minerals or tunnels below the surface of the ground, and then revolves when over the mineral or swings in prolongation of the tunnel when above the excavation.
Using this device, the Times piece reveals a rather astounding discovery made by Shufelt,
Busy Los Angeles, although little realizing it in the hustle and bustle of modern existence, stands above a lost city of catacombs filled with incalculable treasure and imperishable records of a race of humans further advanced intellectually and scientifically than even the highest type of present day peoples…
Shufelt himself goes on of the discovery, “I knew I was over a pattern of tunnels and I had mapped out the course of the tunnels, the position of large rooms scattered along the tunnel route as well as the position of deposits of gold, but I couldn’t understand the meaning of it.”
Shufelt made a breakthrough, however, when he came across a Hopi Native American who went by the name Little Chief Greenleaf, as well as “L. Macklin”. Shufelt claims Greenleaf told him about 5,000 years ago Hopi history speaks of lizard people who built vast underground cities in the region, recording their own history on gold tablets.
Hearing this story, Shufelt connected the dots and believed he had found one of these cities, and could prove it because within the chambers he found, to quote, “gold tablets with perfect corners, sides and ends… scientific proof of [the gold’s] existence.”
Of course, given that he was using nothing more than a dowsing pendulum, it’s not really clear how he could have detected anything, let alone gold tablets hundreds of feet below the surface of the Earth. And we’re not really sure how claiming you found gold is scientific proof of finding gold. But he sure was happy to take investors’ money to pursue the dig.
On that note, with the story being published in newspapers across the country, Shufelt was able to both garner city support for the project, in exchange for 50% of any gold found, as well as get sufficient money from investors to start excavating.
Unfortunately for his investors, as often happens when you dig deep holes, the result is eventually encountering water, with the project ultimately stopping at a depth of about 350 feet because of this complication. While Shufelt had thus successfully accomplished drilling a well, sadly, he did not manage to find any buried treasure.
As to what happen to him after, he doesn’t appear to have used his radio x-ray device on any other projects and more or less disappeared from history other than it being recorded that he died in California in 1957.
As to the Hopi legend he used to garner so much support for his project, it should be noted here that while this story is often used as support of the existence of Lizard People, beyond the fact that no such tunnels were ever found, it is explicitly noted in accounts from Shufelt at the time that these were humans who simply used the lizard as their symbol. And, indeed, while there is no known Hopi legend about literal Lizard People, it was common for the Hopi to have clans that used animal names such as a bear clan, a spider clan and, most pertinently to the topic at hand, there really was a lizard clan.
As to the rest of the story concerning underground cities and technologically advanced peoples, there is no known reference to this in any surviving Hopi legend. Of course, given their history was passed down orally, much was lost before their stories started to be written down.
That said, further raising questions about Shufelt’s story is that there is no record of a Chief Greenleaf or L. Macklin in any surviving Hopi birth and death record. Of course, while extensive, these lists are not comprehensive, so it’s possible Greenleaf really did exist. But, as with the supposed Hopi legend of these advanced Lizard People, all we have to go on his Shufelt’s word.
Whether Shufelt was simply a con artist or he legitimately believed vast tunnels filled with gold exist under the city of Los Angeles isn’t clear. Either way, his claims are occasionally used as proof of ancient Lizard People inhabiting the Earth.
Fast-forwarding to 1976 we have The 12th Planet and subsequent similar works by Zecharia Sitchin where he purports that beings known as Anunnaki from the planet Nibiru came to Earth a half a million years ago in order to acquire our, to quote, “mono-atomic gold” which they can use for traveling through dimensions, among other things. Thankfully for us humans who were used as slaves by the Anunnaki, this group ended up hightailing it off Earth because of a great flood that covered the planet. When the Anunnaki came back they apparently were involved in the building of a variety of ancient structures such as the pyramids.
Noteworthy here is that Sitchin’s Anunnaki weren’t necessarily reptilian, but, as with Shufelt’s story, would later be folded into the Lizard People conspiracy theory anyway.
This finally brings us to the man of the hour and arguably the greatest driving force behind the modern Lizard People conspiracy theory, as well as perhaps the most successful professional conspiracy theorist of all time- David Vaughan Icke.
Icke was a former popular sportscaster for the BBC and prominent Green party member. His life changed, however, around 1990 when he started feeling some invisible presence which physically led him to a book called Mind to Mind written by a psychic healer by the name of Betty Shine.
Soon enough he sought out Shine to see if she could shed a little light on how he might heal his arthritis and what the deal was with the strange presence he was encountering. After a few visits, Shine allegedly told him on March 29, 1990 that Icke was placed on Earth to work as the instrument of the spirit world, and they would be contacting him to use him as a conduit to help humanity.
Shortly after this, the messages flooded in.
In order to spare the Green Party the controversy he knew would follow when he revealed to the world what the spirit realm was telling him, in 1991 Icke decided to leave said political party. He then held a press conference along side his wife, Linda Atherton, and his girlfriend, Deborah Shaw, announcing to the world that he was, in fact, the “son of Godhead”, with Godhead described by Icke as “Infinite Mind”.
Among other things, he would make a variety of bold predictions, such as that the world would experience a cataclysmic event in 1997, which would see such things as New Zealand disappearing into the sea. This would all culminate in the entire world ceasing to exist. He further revealed that all of this was told to him by spirit voices who were using him as a conduit to communicate to the people of Earth…
While he’d expected controversy from these revelations, apparently the reality of people not only not believing him, but actually mocking him quite openly across the country was too much at first for Icke. He stated,
One of my very greatest fears as a child was being ridiculed in public. And there it was coming true. As a television presenter, I’d been respected. People come up to you in the street and shake your hand and talk to you in a respectful way. And suddenly, overnight, this was transformed into “Icke’s a nutter.” I couldn’t walk down any street in Britain without being laughed at. It was a nightmare. My children were devastated because their dad was a figure of ridicule.
At one point shortly after his infamous announcement to the world, many dozens of teens even went so far as to gather in front of his house continually chanting “We want the Messiah. Give us a sign, David.”
Despite it all, Icke soldiered on anyway, writing several astoundingly well reviewed books, such as The Truth Shall Set You Free, The Truth Vibrations, The Children of the Matrix, The Biggest Secret: The Book That Will Change the World, Alice in Wonderland and the World Trade Center, and Infinite Love is the Only Truth, among many others, with the entire catalogue having apparently sold a couple hundred thousand copies to date. On the side, Icke also sells merchandise, operates a surprisingly popular conspiracy theory website, and most lucratively of all frequently gives public talks in front of crowds of thousands, in one instance in Australia apparently grossing a whopping £83,000 (about $102,000) in ticket sales at a talk in Melbourne.
As for Lizard People, they are at the center of Icke’s vast conspiracy theory, which pretty much forges elements from just about every prominent conspiracy theory into one master theory to rule them all. Noteworthy is that much of the modern mythos surrounding the Lizard People Icke has channeled from the spirit realm bears shocking resemblance to the Sci-Fi stories that kicked off the whole Lizard People idea in the first place, as well as seemingly borrowing from the aforementioned The Emerald Tablets as well as Stichin’s works, among others.
Not completely unoriginal, Icke has come up with a number of his own elements to add to the narrative, including claiming the Lizard People use the Moon, which apparently is a spacecraft and interdimensional portal, to project a holographic reality to aid in controlling humans. In his own words, “We are living in a dreamworld within a dreamworld—a Matrix within the virtual-reality universe—and it is being broadcast from the Moon. Unless people force themselves to become fully conscious, their minds are the Moon’s mind.”
He later claimed that actually the rings of Saturn are where these signals originate with the Moon itself merely amplifying and projecting them onto Earth.
Which, I’m not going to lie- shape shifting interdimensional Lizard aliens invading Earth, using mind control, virtual reality, moon-sized space craft, and many other awesome technologies to take over the world… I would watch that movie! Can we get someone to sum up Icke’s books into one coherent trilogy, add some awesome characters, and maybe get the Watchowskis to direct?
Of course, in Icke’s version of things, it is not Keanu Reeves who will save the world, but rather himself, the son of Godhead, via him revealing the truth to the world and getting everyone to love one another. As Icke states,
Divide and rule is the bottom line of all dictatorships…Arab is turned against Jew, black against white, Right against Left. Unplugging from the Matrix means refusing to recognise these illusory fault lines. We are all One. I refuse to see a Jew as different from an Arab and vice versa. They are both expressions of the One and need to be observed and treated the same, none more or less important than the other. I refuse to see black people in terms that I would not see white, nor to see the ‘Left’ as I would not see the ‘Right’. How could it be any different, except when we believe the illusion of division is real? If we do that, the Matrix has us.
He sums up in a speech in 2012, “If we want a world of love and peace, we have to be loving and peaceful with everyone, even people we don’t like.”
In the end, that is, according to the spirit realm who is using Icke to communicate with us, the only way to defeat the Lizard People. Starve them of our anxieties, fears, and anger, and give them only the positive energy of love.
So to sum up, Lizard people in some form or another have been around seemingly as long as humans have been coming up with stories, with the modern incarnation mostly seeming to have been popularized by author Robert E. Howard, spreading through fiction from there and ultimately adapted, among other works, by others with this all culminating in the most prominent version of the Lizard People story created by the Son of Godhead, Britain’s own David Icke. For full details, see his many books which the Lizard People freely allow him to publish despite that the books reveal their ultra secret plan in incredible detail and even out some of their most prominent members.
If you liked this article, you might also enjoy our new popular podcast, The BrainFood Show (iTunes, Spotify, Google Play Music, Feed), as well as:
The post Who Started the Lizard People Conspiracy Theory? appeared first on Today I Found Out.
Developer Maze Theory's "cinematic, feature-length" Doctor Who VR game, The Edge of Time, is right around the corner, with a PlayStation VR, Oculus, and Vive release still pencilled in for the rapidly dwindling month of September. And in anticipation of that imminent launch, there's a new trailer offering a few additional gameplay glimpses.
Previously, Maze Theory revealed that The Edge of Time would ask players, safely ensconced in their VR headsets, to "solve mind-bending puzzles, grapple with classic monsters and encounter new horizons in a quest to find the Doctor and defeat a powerful force that threatens to destroy the fabric of reality". That adventure would involve journeying to destinations "both familiar and strange to recover a series of powerful time crystals".
To date, Maze Theory has shown very little in the way of gameplay for its Jodie-Whittaker-starring virtual reality experience, with the exception of one exceedingly brown introductory sequence in a Cole Hill junkyard, initially demoed during this year's San Diego Comicon. That early snatch saw players, with a little help from the Doctor, summoning the TARDIS into being in order to escape a Dalek invasion.
This week's been a busy one for chicken dinners - first we had the release of the KFC dating game, and now we have another PUBG update, which is introducing some tasty stat additions. We all love stats... right?
PC Update 4.3 has now moved from test to live servers, and brings with it the Survival Mastery system, which rewards players for their "survival skills in each match". This is essentially a new progression system where players can level up via looting, using items during combat and reviving teammates (along with, you know, actual combat). It won't reset with each new season, and runs all the way up to level 500 - where players can earn themselves an extra fancy pose. Talk about a flash in the pan.
Anyway, along with poses you can earn various items with which to decorate your PUBG ID (a new customisation option added in the update) such as emblems and nameplates. You'll be able to view other players' PUBG IDs when playing with a "teammate from the previous match", or if the ID belongs to the player you killed or the player who killed you. In my case, it'll mainly be the latter.
Many months after it was first teased for the game, Mime Jr. is finally headed to Pokémon Go.
The baby form of Mr. Mime, this dinky clown was one of the few remaining creatures still unreleased from earlier generations.
Mime Jr. hasn't been a straightforward release, as evolution Mr. Mime is a regional Pokémon only found in Europe.
UPDATE (25th Sepetember 2019): The Shenmue 3 demo is set to arrive "beginning this weekend" for backers of the trial tier of the game's Kickstarter, Ys Net has announced.
As announced previously, the demo offers a small taste of Shenmue 3 centered around "one day in Bailu Village near the beginning of the game". You can expect "story line elements, battling, minigames and more" - a little of everything, by the sounds of things.
There were some logistical details thrown in there too - keys received must be redeemed through the Epic Games Store, and you'll need 20GB of storage in order to play.
The patch notes for Fortnite's latest update reveal that this weekend, from 27th until 30th September, the game is hosting a double XP event.
This comes just ahead of Fortnite's 11th season, and is a good opportunity to get some more levels on your Battle Pass if you haven't completed it already.
As well as this, there's some brand new content in the game for players to try their hands at.
Hot off last night's new trailer and the announcement that The Last of Us Part 2 will be released on 21st February, Sony and Naughty Dog have also unveiled a jam-packed Last of Us Part 2 Collector's Edition.
It may not top the Final Fantasy 7 - 1st Class Edition in terms of sheer over-the-top goodies, but it does include a rather lovely 12" Ellie statue. In addition, you'll get a replica of Ellie's bracelet, a custom SteelBook case, a 48-page mini art book from Dark Horse, a set of six enamel pins, an art print and a set of five stickers.
There are some digital wares as final extras too: a PS4 dynamic theme, six PSN avatars, the digital soundtrack, and a digital version of the artbook. Quite a haul!
Where Cards Fall is at least two things at once: it's a puzzle game about getting from A to B, and it's a series of rather touchingly sketched-in vignettes about growing up, about isolation and memory and the predatory nature of depression. That's what I've been taking away from it, anyway. It's a lovely thing.
At the core of it are playing cards which, come to think of it, are at least two things at once too. As you wander around dreamy isometric environments you come across these piles of cards. They can be expanded to create card houses of various shapes and sizes that can allow you to cross gaps, and they can be moved around with a wonderful reptilian slither. There are rules to uncover that govern their behaviour, and pretty soon you have a bunch of lovely bite-size brain teasers to get through as you move from one scene to the next.
There is so much to like here. My favourite thing, I think, is how those cards hint at the unstable, rickety nature of memory itself, the way it can expand and contract, the flimsiness of our recollections but also the bright magic of them, the euphoria that can come from thinking about the past - matched here by the euphoria of solving something that initially seems completely impossible.
Well, that was fast. Two weeks after it was initially announced, KFC's game I Love You, Colonel Sanders! A Finger Lickin' Good Dating Simulator is out on Steam, and you can play it for free. Naturally, that's what I've done.
As someone who's supposed to be eating vegetarian food and definitely not fried chicken, I'm admittedly not the target audience for this game. However, the editors heard I like cooking animes and Fire Emblem: Three Houses, which was apparently enough to qualify me to taste-test this delight. To my surprise, I actually had some fun with it, although most of the enjoyment came from the sheer absurdity of the story - and subsequently wondering what on earth I was doing with my life.
Here's a quick explanation of what's going on here - and it's a lot.
First announced nearly five years ago, the bizarre-looking Wattam finally has a release window - it'll arrive for PC (as an Epic Games store exclusive) and PlayStation 4 this December.
Developed by Katamari Damacy creator Keita Takahashi, the game features a colourful blocky world where objects are alive (and have creepy-looking faces).
What's it all about? Credit to the PlayStation blog for asking Takahashi how the game is meant to be played: "Turn on the PS4 or PS4 Pro, grab the controller, buy/download Wattam (thanks) and hit button to start the game," Takahashi replied. He's not wrong.
Eurogamer.net: September 13, 2019 at 11:46AM - Does Control’s September update really improve performance? | https://buff.ly/2NXf5mF | @WitWGARA, #GamersUnite, #gaming, #indiewatch, #nerdy, #News, #OurMischief, #WitWGARA, Does Control’s September update …
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September 25, 2019 at 03:30PM
Next up, we have a brief message from one of our favorite and most useful sponsors- Backblaze! Backblaze really is super cheap and takes almost no time or effort to get setup and working. Unlimited automatic backups for your computer for just $6 a month. You never have to worry about losing your photos or files on your computer again. It just works. Get your free trial and help keep this podcast going by using the following link: www.backblaze.com/brainfood
Moving on to the main topic, we are looking at the fascinating story of a 17th century dwarf who would go from humble beginnings to being knighted and becoming a Captain of the Horse and member of the Queen of England’s court.
On another note, if you could do us a huge favor and rate and review this show in whatever podcasting platform you’re using (including hopefully giving us some feedback related to the new format), we would be extremely grateful. Thanks!
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The post Lord Minimus- The Renaissance Dwarf appeared first on Today I Found Out.
Three years after its original release, turn-based strategy game Civilization 6 is finally heading to PS4 and Xbox One on 22nd November.
Civ 6 launched for PC back in 2016, and since has had ports to Linux and iOS in 2017, and Nintendo Switch in 2018 - it even had a battle royale mode come out for PC earlier this month.
Along with the console release, an expansion bundle containing the Rise & Fall and Gathering Storm DLCs will be available to buy separately for Switch, PS4 and Xbox One.
Nintendo's free-to-play Mario Kart Tour has launched today for mobile phones - and there's a surprise £4.99 subscription option.
This option - priced the same as Apple Arcade, many have pointed out - lets you unlock gold cosmetic items and grants access to 200cc level races. It feels a particularly meagre offering for such a high recurring cost.
The subscription does not grant characters, karts or gliders, the things Mario Kart Tour keeps locked behind its gacha-style system. All of those microtransactions are still in the game, whether you purchase a subscription or not.
