XCOM’s greatest DLC was almost a Battletech-style mech expansion before the game’s camera scuppered it all- ‘Our camera angle is not meant for 30 foot mechs, apparently’-
XCOM 2 is eight years old, somehow, which was as offensive for me to write as it was for you to read. And if you ask me, it’s still Firaxis’ high point as a studio. That’s really saying something: Those guys made Sid Meier’s Pirates, after all, but I’ve never loved one of the studio’s games so much as I loved its endlessly inventive guerilla warfare sim.
Actually, I tell a lie. I liked base XCOM 2 well enough, but I only really fell in love with it when I got my hands on its War of the Chosen expansion. Released a year after XCOM 2, WOTC beefed up the original game’s offering by bolting on new factions, maps, heroes, and—most importantly—a kind of lite version of the Shadow of Mordor Nemesis system that saw you take on a trio of supervillains with a random assortment o…
Read moreWhile players are the main motive, Final Fantasy 14- Dawntrail’s visual makeover is also meant to help devs ‘advance their careers’, says director Yoshi-P-
Final Fantasy 14’s due a new coat of paint, and if you’ve been following the ramp-up to Dawntrail, you know it’s getting one. Better lighting, shinier models, and an overall tune-up to a game that’s past its 10th anniversary by now. In a recent interview with Play magazine (thanks, GamesRadar) Naoki Yoshida—also known as Yoshi-P—let readers in on the team’s reasoning for the upgrade.
First and foremost, Yoshida says he wants to reassure long-time players that the game has a bright future ahead of it: “With Endwalker, we were able to bring one big saga to a close … I think they would be happy to have seen that conclusion, but I think they probably must have also been a bit concerned about what will happen moving forward.”
Pouring resources into a ne…
Read moreYou can now rent a ‘minibrain’ for $500 a month and the potential implications are horrifying-
I know, I know, one man’s dystopia is another man’s utopia, and it’s certainly easier to have a negative take on something than a positive one. But I struggle to accept that anyone could not feel a sense of disquiet upon hearing that you can now rent a human “brain organoid” for “realtime neural stimulation and reading”.
No, this isn’t the dream futurism of some techno-optimist, these in vitro “organoids” are actually available to rent right now from FinalSpark’s Neuroplatform (via Tom’s Hardware), FinalSpark being a wetware computing company.
For just $500 per month (or free for some projects), university and education groups can access neuronic organoid bioprocessors, which are essentially collections of brain tissue, each containing thousands of living neurons, conn…
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