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In 'John Wick Hex,' time is the most precious commodity
"John always double-taps." Mike Bithell, the creator of John Wick Hex, is showing off the game for the first time at E3 2019, in a mirrored room at the Hotel Figueroa that feels ripped right out of The Continental. In his game, every time a player chooses to shoot, the miniature version of John Wick fires two rounds, because, after all, John always double-taps in the movies.
'Wolfenstein: Youngblood' makes me want more co-op shooters
Wolfenstein: Youngblood is definitely a spin-off, not a sequel. It helps explain why the latest game in the reinvented Wolfenstein universe feels and plays so differently. When first revealed, I was intrigued by the idea of making the blunt, gory, Nazi-hunting first-person shooter into a cooperative game. In Youngblood, you work alongside a buddy or AI assistant to unlock doors, ransack storage and cut a swathe through fictional armor-plated soldiers and robots.
Phil Spencer: xCloud runs 'fine' on 4G
Xbox needs cloud gaming to work. Microsoft has been pushing the industry toward a digital-first, streaming future since 2013 -- years before players or infrastructure were remotely ready for the idea. It makes sense: Microsoft is uniquely positioned as a gigantic technology company with deep roots in gaming, and they're able to leverage vast resources and expertise in AI, server infrastructure, hardware and software to set standards of gameplay-delivery systems.
The magnificent reappearing act of Richard Hofmeier
Richard Hofmeier was an early superstar of modern indie games. In 2010, he released Cart Life, an unassuming, grayscale title that he described as, "a retail simulation for Windows." In actuality, it was a poignant and powerful portrayal of modern existence. Cart Life captured the loneliness, triumphs and hopeless frustration of maintaining friendships, providing for a family and dreaming big in the capitalistic rat race, all tenderly animated in a sharp noir palate. Cart Life became an underground hit, and then a mainstream success. It landed on Steam in 2012, and in 2013, it was nominated in three categories at the Independent Games Festival Awards, where it battled giants of the day, including Hotline Miami, Kentucky Route Zero, Gone Home and FTL. Cart Life won all three categories. Hofmeier was the first-ever winner of the Excellence in Narrative prize, plus he secured the $5,000 Nuovo award for innovation and the $30,000 Seumas McNally Grand Prize. And then, he vanished.
Riot Games is expanding 'League of Legends,' even in the midst of scandal
League of Legends has been online for nearly 10 years. During that time, it's competed with newcomers like Dota 2, PUBG, Overwatch, Fortnite and a slew of online first-person shooters, yet it's managed to remain one of the most popular games on the market, reporting 100 million monthly active players in 2016. One reason for this is the fact that League of Legends is free to download, with tiers of characters and items unlockable via microtransactions and playtime. However, a game can't survive for long if players don't stick around, which is why developers at Riot Games are constantly working on ways to evolve and enrich the League of Legends universe, both on and off the screen.
How B-movies influenced 'Mortal Kombat 11' fatalities
Mortal Kombat fatalities are legendary for their gruesomeness. The finishing moves are physics-defying ballets of blood and shattered bone, and in Mortal Kombat 11, they're just as ridiculous as ever. D'vorah vomits acid-covered larvae down an enemy's throat before they're ripped apart from the inside by a giant corpse bug; Geras traps an opponent in a wall of sand and rips them in half lengthwise with a single hard tug; Cassie Cage kicks people so hard in the crotch that their skeletons fly right out of their bodies; Baraka rips off an enemy's face in two layers, stabs their brain and then eats it like a shish kebab.
How Oppo fit a 10x zoom camera into its 5G phone
Oppo may have already teased its first 5G smartphone in Zurich earlier this month, but today, the company is bringing its entire Reno family -- including the mid-range Reno and the flagship Reno 10x Zoom -- to Europe. This means the Chinese brand will be going head to head with Huawei using its very own 10x hybrid zoom camera outside of its home territory. With the $1,000 Reno 5G leading the party ahead of its May launch, the Reno 10x Zoom follows with a €799 (about $890) base price due in early June, whereas the Reno lands at a more modest €499 ($560) on May 10th.
Do Micro Four Thirds cameras have a future?
For years, photographers and industry pundits have predicted the demise of the Micro Four Thirds (MFT) camera system. Many believe that the smaller sensor has been superseded by APS-C cameras and the ever-growing lineup of full-frame mirrorless shooters. "Not suddenly, but slowly over the course of the next couple of years," photographer and author Tony Northrup said in a YouTube video last October. The upload, which attracted more than 200,000 views, triggered a wage of counterarguments from prominent MFT users like Peter Forsgård, Joseph Ellis and others. Six months later, there's still no consensus.
Use the camera in your brain to master street photography
Like many camera buffs, I've done a fair amount of street photography, stalking subjects in markets, parks and tourist areas. Unfortunately, I often come away with little to show for it. That's particularly frustrating, because I live in Paris on a beautiful street with endlessly interesting subjects and settings. My challenges with the genre -- poor ideas, a fear of confrontation and technical challenges -- certainly apply to other types of photography. However, they're magnified on the streets, due to the improvisational nature and factors out of my control, like subjects, lighting conditions and weather.
Flirt with Satan, but not your best friend, in emo adventure 'Afterparty'
You can flirt with Satan in Afterparty. In the coming narrative-adventure game from Night School Studio, the Prince of Darkness is hosting a rager on the outskirts of hell's waiting room, a city where fresh corpses are processed before being shipped off for an eternity of torture. There's a standing challenge for anyone who passes through: If you can outdrink Satan, you get to return to Earth. So, lifelong yet mysteriously deceased best friends, Lola and Milo, try to infiltrate Satan's party, accept his bet and, in the process of trying to drink more than Lucifer himself, they can even see if he's down to clown.
Snapchat can survive, but it can't do it alone
Snap Inc. co-founder and CEO Evan Spiegel kicked off the first-ever Partner Summit last week in Los Angeles with a sort of syrupy soliloquy about how the Snapchat camera "lets natural light from our world penetrate the darkness of the internet." He went on to say the internet was "started as a military research project" and, therefore, "it's just not our natural habitat." The point Spiegel was trying to make (I think) is that building a platform like the internet is a collaborative process. And he sees Snapchat as a world where good things can happen, but he doesn't want to build it alone.
Snapchat now lets you play live, multiplayer games with friends
Well, it looks as if the rumors were true: Snapchat is, indeed, launching its own gaming platform. Snap made the news official at its Partner Summit, which is taking place in Los Angeles. The company said that, starting today, it will begin rolling out a series of games made exclusively for Snapchat, including one it developed itself called Bitmoji Party. Snap says what makes its games service unique is that each title is designed for "high-fidelity, synchronous" gameplay, meaning you can you play them in real-time with your friends directly through the app.
Snap expands its short-form original series lineup with 10 new shows
It was only last October that Snap entered the short-form, scripted-video space with the launch of Originals, a collection of titles created from the ground up with smartphones in mind. But the company isn't stopping there. Today, at the Snap Partner Summit in Los Angeles, it announced 10 new original shows that are scheduled to arrive starting in May of this year. Like the existing Originals, such as Bringing up Bhabie and The Dead Girls Detective Agency, the fresh series are mostly geared toward teenagers -- a demographic that has become increasingly important to the company's business.
Snapchat Stories are coming to Tinder
Tinder ditched its Moments feature in 2015, but that doesn't mean the popular dating app is done with giving users access to ephemeral (aka disappearing) content. Later this year, those of you on Tinder can start posting Snapchat Stories directly to your dating profile, Snap announced today at its Partner Summit in Los Angeles. Thanks to Snap Kit, which lets third-party apps use Snapchat's augmented reality camera, you'll be able to use send Snaps to a new "My Tinder Story" option right inside the app. That means you'll have to use Snapchat if you want to use this feature, as the Tinder app will only be used for viewing, rather than publishing, your Snaps.
Snapchat 'Landmarkers' bring the Eiffel Tower to life in AR
Snap is kicking off its Partner Summit in Los Angeles with a few announcements about the feature that makes Snapchat tick: augmented reality Lenses. For starters, Lens Studio, which lets anyone create their own AR filters, is getting a new feature called "Landmarkers." This will allow creators to bring landmarks across the world to life using Lens Studio's augmented reality tools, including the US Capitol Building (Washington, D.C.), Flatiron Building (New York City), TCL Chinese Theater (Los Angeles), Buckingham Palace (London) and, as pictured above, the Eiffel Tower (Paris). Snapchat users near any of these locations can check out the new Landmarkers Lenses starting today, and the company says AR support for more landmarks will be coming in the future.
The rich and mysterious story buried in 'Dead Cells'
There's a story in Dead Cells. Motion Twin's glossy, pixelated platformer is known for offering brutal battles and rich customization options in a sprawling, neon castle ravaged by bloodthirsty beasts, but there's also a plotline lurking below the constant threat of death. Far below. Like, so far that it even surprised the people who created Dead Cells. "The story and the lore in this game was really, like, chaotic. Really chaotic," lead designer Sébastien Bénard said. "Really, really a mess," marketing manager Steve Filby added. "At the beginning we did not want to have any kind of story, at least not too much," Bénard continued. "We knew that the loop between dying and getting back into action should be as short as possible and lore was just getting in the way."
Razer says software, not hardware, is holding back mobile gaming
In between launching a range of outlandish pink products and affordable accessories so far this year, Razer made the surprising move of abandoning its online game store and mobile team. The latter, in particular, is an awkward move after two generations of Razer Phones, while the likes of ASUS, Xiaomi, Nubia and Vivo are capitalizing on the rapidly growing mobile gaming market. Never one to admit defeat, CEO Min-Liang Tan said this was just part of his company's evolving mobile gaming strategy, with its focus shifted to software as the industry transitions to 5G.
'No Man's Sky VR' puts the universe on your headset for free
No Man's Sky studio Hello Games has rolled out a steady stream of updates to take its stargazing simulator from "cautionary indie tale" to "Best Ongoing Game award nominee" in just two years. No Man's Sky is a sprawling exploration of the universe and a near-infinite number of its planets, filled with crafting, digging, flying, building and hodgepodge creatures of all kinds. And, soon, it'll all be in VR.
Google is convinced it can get game streaming right
Phil Harrison won't budge. As a vice president and general manager at Google, he's spent the past 15 minutes explaining why Stadia, the company's freshly announced game-streaming service, will actually work on the existing internet infrastructure across North America and Europe. He's focused on the investments Google has made over the past 20 years in cloud networks, talking up the company's 7,500 server nodes, custom CPUs and partnerships with major internet service providers.
'The Atomic Tree' explores the bonsai that survived a nuclear blast
Filmmakers don't accidentally make a movie for virtual reality headsets. Creating VR media is a multi-step process involving specialized cameras and equipment, not to mention an entirely new approach to storytelling. Creators tell a story in VR because they crave a deeper human connection than the one offered by a static, 2D screen, even if it means their work will be seen by fewer people.
