.-AdiiLo-.

Original release date : November 19, 2020 Music : Marcin Przybyłowicz Game mode : Single player, multiplayer Start of the project : 2012 First Release Date : November 19, 2020 Platforms : Xbox Series X, PlayStation 4, Google Stadia, Xbox One, Microsoft Windows The studio is continuing to work on melee feedback to make it feel the best it can before launch. Originally scheduled for as early as April 2020, CD Projekt Red has delayed Cyberpunk 2077 twice as it continues to spit and polish every aspect of its RPG. And with just three months left until the November 19 launch, the studio is taking some aspects down to the wire. This includes the game's melee combat, which can be a huge part of the experience for some players. The feature is not where CD Projekt Red wants it to be yet. However, with more time to go before the launch, it could be significantly improved. In an interview with VG247, senior gameplay designer Pawel Kapala explained that the team is still working on the first-person melee system, stating that they're not "100% happy" with its implementation yet. "We're spending a lot of time trying to perfect that, and we basically, we're not 100% happy, mostly with visual feedback on the hits, on the melee," Kapala said. "So, we're still working on it." Visual feedback is crucial in melee combat. Tuned correctly, it can be the difference between a big swing feeling like it's connecting with a weighty target or just slicing through thin air as damage numbers pop up. Finding this balance in a game where combat is determined by role-playing statistics is difficult, as you want to make the player feel powerful while also adhering to their current weaknesses. It's a problem many games before Cyberpunk 2077 have struggled with, but Kapala is confident the extra time the studio has given itself will be enough to nail it down. He concluded by saying that the system presented to journalists just a few months ago has already been drastically improved. CD Projekt Red hosted the second Night City Wire stream for Cyberpunk 2077 recently, showing off the three distinct prologues you can play though as well as a breakdown of many of the game's weapons. This builds on the game's Mind Dance gameplay shown off during the previous stream, which we got to go hands-on with in our latest preview.

The Chrome-specific apps let developers write one app that would run on Windows, Mac, Linux and Chrome OS, and were to have been retired the summer. Google this week rescinded several deadlines it had set earlier this year on ending Chrome apps, giving the format until mid-2022 before pulling all support. Introduced in 2013 as a way to offer functionality not available on the web, the Chrome-specific apps also gave developers a way to write one app that would run on Windows, Mac, Linux and Chrome OS. In January, Google laid out an end-of-support schedule for the apps, saying then that as of Chrome 83 – slated for a June 9 launch – the browser would not support apps on Windows, macOS or Linux. However, it would offer a grace period – until December – for managed browsers in business. A policy was to be available that would extend support from June to December 2020. (Originally, Google said in 2016 that Chrome would reject running apps by early 2018, so this has been in the works a while.) Those dates no longer apply. Now, support for Chrome apps on Windows, Mac, and Linux will end in June 2021, a year later than before. And IT administrators will be able to call on a group policy setting to extend support through June 2022 – about 18 months later than previously – on managed copies of Chrome in the enterprise. Google also upended the previous deadlines for submitting apps to the Chrome Web Store, the official repository for the programs. In January, Google had said the store would stop accepting new apps in March 2020, although existing web apps could be updated until June 2022. The changes split public from private apps; the latter are those created by enterprise developers and offered only to that enterprise's workers. While no new public apps were accepted to the Chrome Web Store after March of this year, private apps can now be added to the mart until June 2022. All support for Chrome apps will expire in June 2022. Google again stressed that the drop-dead orders do not apply to Chrome extensions (also referred to as add-ons). "This change does not impact support for Chrome Extensions. Google will continue to support and invest in Chrome Extensions on all existing platforms," wrote Anthony Laforge, the technical director of the Chrome platform team, in an Aug. 10 post to a company blog.

That’s only about $30 more than some 60Hz monitors Right now, I’m typing this post on a 1080p @ 144Hz monitor that cost me $300 when I bought it back in 2016, and while the price has fallen somewhat on displays like this over the years, it’s still difficult to find them below $200. That’s where the AOC C24G1 monitor comes in. Currently on sale for $144.99 on Amazon (down from $179.99), it’ll give you FHD gaming at 144 fps for a fraction of the best monitors from bigger brands. The AOC24G1 Gaming Monitor is a curved 24 inch monitor with a max 1920 x 1080 resolution and a max 144Hz refresh rate. It has a 1500R [CENSORED]ture, is Freesync compatible and uses a VA panel with a 1 ms refresh rate. It can also connect to a 100 x 100 VESA mount and has ports for HDMI , DisplayPort and VGA. The idea here is to give esports and competitive game enthusiasts access to higher refresh rates than competition without charging a premium. That means a standard resolution, but if your focus is on speed over fidelity and you haven’t yet seen frame rates over the usual 60 fps, this monitor deal is a great way to try them out.

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Nickname : @.-AdiiLo-. Tag your opponent : @Hossam Taibi Music genre : Deep House. Number of votes : 6 Tag one leader to post your songs LIST : @.-AdiiLo-.

Accepted DH1 : DH2 : LISTEN TO THE SONGS BEFORE YOU VOTE , ANY NONE SENSE VOTE WILL LEAD TO VOTE CANCELL OR REMOVAL

Horizon Zero Dawn came to PC with a less-than-stellar port, and if Sony wants to bring more of its games to PC, then it needs to deliver better experiences. Over the past console generation, Xbox released the majority of its first-party games on PC, giving players the choice of where they want to play. Wanting PlayStation to follow suit is an obvious thing to ask for, but it wouldn't just be beneficial to players. PlayStation has one of the deepest, most beloved histories in gaming and is home to some of the most prestigious modern developers out there--a first-party PlayStation game launch is always an event. Releasing its games on PC would make each PlayStation launch an even bigger deal, with a whole new audience and section of the internet to pore over every detail. However, if the company plans to go forward with more PC ports, then PlayStation needs to do a better job of introducing PC players to its esteemed worlds. A strong first-party lineup has reinforced the company's image as the dominant console platform this generation. Its critically acclaimed releases garner a long-term affection that is rarely seen for single-player games--people are still playing and praising the five-year-old Bloodborne, for example. Even its less favourably received games are successful commercially, with Days Gone topping sales charts in the UK for weeks after its launch. And as of August 2019, it was the sixth highest-selling PS4 exclusive in the US, beating out Uncharted: Lost Legacy, Infamous: Second Son, and every MLB game. Horizon Zero Dawn is the third highest-selling PS4 exclusive, and when it came to PC in early August, the 3-year-old game proved po[CENSORED]r. SteamDB recorded an incredible all-time concurrent player count of 56,557 players, and that's not counting anyone on the Epic Games Store. That's a lot of people playing a single-player game at the same time on one platform, and it's not even a brand-new release. It's easy to imagine how Horizon Forbidden West or the Demon's Souls remake would be even more po[CENSORED]r, especially with day-and-date releases. Unfortunately, the players who did purchase Horizon Zero Dawn on PC were met with a myriad of issues , including crashes, poor performance, and bugs as well as graphical and audio issues. These issues can be fixed, as Horizon developer Guerrilla Studios has promised to do , but the PC gaming community is not one to accept a lesser version on a platform capable of so much more. As of this writing, Horizon sits at a "Mixed" user rating with more than 15,000 user reviews, many of the criticisms pointed toward the technical issues. This is a game that received near universal acclaim on its original PS4 release--it deserved better. PlayStation benefitted from its association with Death Stranding. The Kojima-directed game received an incredible PC port, but it isn't actually a first-party game--it's developed by Kojima Productions and published on PC by 505 Games. Unfortunately, whatever goodwill PlayStation gained through osmosis was squandered with its poor PC port for Horizon Zero Dawn. As PlayStation's main competitor, Xbox Game Studios has enjoyed a number of great PC launches, thanks to the Play Anywhere program it started in 2016. This allows players to swap between their Xbox One and PC with cross-buy and cross-save, and if you buy the digital version of a game on Xbox One, you get access to it on PC through the Windows 10 Store. It's also had great success with Xbox Game Pass for PC (included with Game Pass Ultimate), which gets you a huge library of PC games for a monthly cost. Beating the flying pigs and homesick cows, Xbox has even started to release its games on Steam, something that was unexpected, yet has been met with great praise. Sea of Thieves is thriving on Valve's platform, with over 30,000 "Very Positive" user reviews. Halo: The Master Chief Collection also boasts a "Very Positive" rating with more than 90,000 user reviews. Xbox has openly accepted Steam's Early Access program, releasing Obsidian's kid-shrinking survival game, Grounded, to more than 5,000 user reviews and a "Very Positive" rating. Of course, Xbox has released games that were less favourably received than these, but when the company nails a PC port, players respond in kind. That's what makes the Horizon Zero Dawn port so disappointing. While Xbox has embraced a number of different options for PC players, PlayStation has floundered its first, long-awaited attempt. It can easily turn things around, though, and a PC port can be fixed. One of the most infamous PC ports, Batman: Arkham Knight, launched to an incredible amount of backlash due to poor performance and even a lack of certain graphical features that were present on the PS4 and Xbox One--the game was also locked to 30 FPS on PC. Warner Bros. removed it from Steam, fixed the port, and re-listed it later that year, still offering full refunds to anyone who bought the game originally. After all that, it's now sitting pretty with a "Very Positive" user rating and over 30,000 reviews. However, PC players still remember that initial port and likely won't forget it when Rocksteady's Suicide Squad game nears its release date. Actions speak louder than words, and Rocksteady and Warner Bros. will have to prove themselves to gain that launch-day trust back. PlayStation should remember this and not mistake its high PC player count as a 100% success. PlayStation would be wise to follow Xbox's suit and publish its games on PC alongside their PS5 release dates. But it still needs to prove that it can create PC ports that are worth players’ time and money. If it wants its games to be as desired and lauded as they are among console players, then it needs to help its impressive stable of developers create great PC ports.

Flagship is almost ready to set sail Just at the start of this week, Nvidia announced that it's hosting a special GeForce event on September 1st, and it's no secret that we can expect the new Ampere-based graphics cards to be revealed. It's not clear yet which that will be, but Micron apparently didn't get the memo and spilled the beans on at least one part: It will be supplying the 12 GDDR6X memory modules in the RTX 3090. The information comes straight from Micron, though it was first spotted by VideoCardz. In the brief, Micron unmistakably states that the RTX 3090 will come with 12 GDDR6X modules with a capacity of 8 Gb each, which makes for a total frame buffer of 12 GB. The memory will operate over a 384-bit memory interface at 19-21 Gbps for a total bandwidth of between 912 to 1008 GBps, which would push the RTX 3090 over the 1 TBps milestone. And let's be clear: It's going to be 21 Gbps GDDR6X. 21st anniversary of GeForce 256, the "world's first GPU" from Nvidia. A 21 day countdown to the September 1 announcement. Ergo, 21 Gbps. "In Summer of 2020, Micron announced the next evolution of Ultra-Bandwidth Solutions in GDDR6X." read Micron's brief. "Working closely with NVIDIA on their Ampere generation of graphics cards, Micron's 8 Gb GDDR6X will deliver up to 21 Gb/s (data rate per pin) in 2020. At 21 GB/s, a graphics card with 12 pcs of GDDR6X will be able to break the 1 TB/s of system bandwidth barrier!" Micron also noted that in 2021, it will come out with 16 Gb GDDR6X modules that can reach up to 24 Gb/s per IO pin. Does that pave the way for a 24GB Titan RTX refresh? Maybe! Micron also provided the above chart in its PDF that details the power per bit requirements for high performance memory. GDDR5 sits at the far left, the 'worst' solution that's still seeing use. Moving to the right we get GDDR6, GDDR6X, HBM2, and HBM2e. Considering the additional costs related to using HBM2, the apparently modest gains in power were deemed unnecessary by Nvidia and AMD this previous generation, and they'll be joined by the upcoming Intel Xe HPG gaming GPU . This confirms the RTX 3090 rumors that have been circulating, and the RTX 3090 appears to be the 3000-series flagship part. Maybe we'll get a 3090 Super or 3090 Ti next year? Anyway, it's been pretty clear that Nvidia's next GPUs would be the RTX 3000 series, but with plenty of speculation about model names. Micron also revealed details on its upcoming HBMnext memory today, though that's unlikely to go into consumer parts any time soon.

Mozilla has renewed its lucrative nine-figure deal with Google to ensure its search engine is the default in Firefox in the US and other parts of the world. Within hours of the browser maker laying off a quarter of its staff this week, a well-placed source told The Register Moz had signed a three-year agreement with Google. On Thursday, a spokesperson for Mozilla confirmed the partnership had been renewed though declined to go into specific detail on the contract duration and sums of money involved. However, our source told us Moz will likely pocket $400m to $450m a year between now and 2023 from the arrangement, citing internal discussions held earlier this year. A Mozilla spokesperson told us: “Mozilla’s search partnership with Google is ongoing, with Google as the default search provider in the Firefox browser in many places around the world. We've recently extended the partnership, and the relationship isn't changing.” More than 90 per cent of Mozilla's funding comes from web search providers that pay for the right to be the default search engine in Firefox in their regions. According to the organization's latest financial figures, $430m of its 2018 total revenue of $451m came from those internet giants – primarily Google, we understand. These deals were due to be renewed or renegotiated by November this year. As a non-profit open-source operation, Mozilla spends as much as it receives; its 2018 staffing bill was $286m with a headcount of about 1,000, or about $286,000 per person, on average. Despite the renewal with Google, which essentially guaranteed a continuation of its revenue for the next three years, Mozilla axed 250 of its techies on Tuesday, and shut down its office in Taiwan, blaming the “economic conditions resulting from the global pandemic.” Crucially, the organization vowed to double down and "ship new products faster and develop new revenue streams" – products like its bookmarking app Pocket, its virtual social meeting rooms Hubs, and its $4.99-a-month VPN subscription service. Priorities “The people who are included in the reduction are both true Mozillians, and professionals with high degrees of skill and expertise and commitment," CEO Mitchell Baker said in a memo to staff. "This action is not in any way – not, not, not – a reflection on personal or professional qualities.” Mozilla's Servo team, which was working away on a new browser engine for Firefox in Rust, was closed down by the cuts. The group working on the Mozilla Developer Network – the essential bible for web devs and programmers – was hit hard, too, as were some of its security, policy, and tooling staffers. “The role reduction and restructuring Mozilla just announced allowed us to adjust our finances to ensure stability over the long term, strengthening our ability to build and invest in products and services that will give people alternatives to conventional Big Tech,” Mozilla told us. As part of its belt tightening, Baker is set to take a cut to her, as of 2018, $2.5m-a-year compensation package. Other bosses will see their compensation "impacted," too. “C-level executive compensation at Mozilla, including the CEO's, is driven by a number of variables and will be impacted this year,” a spokesperson told us. The more skeptical among you may be thinking Mozilla used the pandemic as cover while it rejigs its workforce to reduce its reliance on Firefox – which is thoroughly dominated by Google Chrome on desktop and especially mobile – and tries to come up with new products so that it can stay afloat if or when Google turns off the money tap. On the other hand, with other browsers adopting Chrome's Chromium engine, Google may want to keep Firefox alive as a competitor to avoid yet more abuse-of-market-dominance complaints. Google declined to comment. ® A Moz spokesperson has been in touch to remind us that the Servo team's work made its way into Firefox in various forms, and to assure us Rust will be used to develop other parts of the browser. "The Servo research project proved that Rust was an excellent language for browser development," the spokesperson said, "and incubated a number of important technologies that are now part of core Firefox, such as the style system and our new lighting fast GPU-based rendering system, WebRender. "Going forward, we will be writing many new browser components in Rust directly in Firefox rather than in a separate project."

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Two new patches are coming for Modern Warfare and the battle royale game Warzone; here's what we know so far. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare and Warzone have received a new update that fine-tunes several weapons within the games. Senior communications manager Ashton Williams detailed on Twitter how weapons such as the FAL and M91 will receive increased damage, while a second patch--still to come--will also fix graphical corruption issues with weapons. The full patch notes from Infinity Ward can be found below for the update that's out now on PC, PS4, and Xbox One, but be aware that server issues are impacting the games right now. The game's file size has grown over the last several months with huge updates, so ensure you have room on your system's drive. This is especially important on PC, taking up more than 200GB. The Holger light machine gun will also have increased damage range and ADS speed, while the Bruen MK9 will see its damage range reduced. General fixes have also been implemented for an error that players occasionally received when opening the weapon armory and an exploit in the Shooting Range trial. Following the release of the update, Infinity Ward confirmed players are having trouble connecting to servers. The studio says it's working to resolve the problem but didn't offer any estimate for how quickly that might happen. "We're looking into an issue where some players are unable to connect to the servers. We'll post another update when we have more information. Thank you for your patience," Infinity Ward tweeted. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare Patch Notes August 11 General fixes Fix for an issue where explosive rounds on the Rytec AMR could still be equipped in CDL modes Fix for an error players could receive when opening the weapon armory Fix for an exploit in the Shooting Range trial Weapons FAL Increased headshot damage (2 hit at range with 1 headshot) Reduced near damage (limbs and lower torso always 3 shot) Holger-26 Increased damage range Increased ADS speed Bruen MK9 Reduced damage range M91 Increased near damage Increased ADS Speed Original story: Call of Duty: Modern Warfare and the battle royale game Warzone are set to receive a pair of new updates in the future. Senior communications manager Ashton Williams announced on Twitter that the first update will fix bugs, make some weapon tuning changes, and clear out an exploit. The second one will address a "graphical corruption issue" related to weapons. It will also fix a problem that caused the "Play Again" option to break. There is no ETA on when these patches will arrive, however. We'll report back with the full patch notes when they are published. In addition to the ongoing updates for Modern Warfare and Warzone, Activision is preparing to announce this year's new game, which is believed to be Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War. Recent teasers have suggested that Activision will further pull back the curtain on the new game this Friday, August 14. However, the official reveal of the new game is expected to come later.

Budget boards for your next build? ASRock A520M-ITX/ac Don't fret if the pricing for B550 motherboards is preventing you from upgrading. VideoCardz received information that ASRock is reportedly preparing up to five different A520 motherboards for budget seekers. According to the publication, A520 motherboards will launch later this month, which differs from DigiTimes' report of a September launch. A520 is the entry-level chipset for AMD's 500-series, and being A-series, CPU overclocking is pretty much off the table. It's reasonable to expect A520 to arrive without PCIe 4.0 support, although AMD hasn't officially said otherwise. VideoCardz revealed two motherboards from ASRock's upcoming A520 army. The A520M-ITX/ac comes in a mini-ITX form factor, while the A520M Pro4 has a larger microATX footprint. ASRock A520M-ITX/ac ASRock A520M-ITX/ac ASRock A520M-ITX/ac The A520M-ITX/ac's resemblance to the existing B550M-ITX/ac is uncanny. If it wasn't for the model name on the PCB, you could swear you're looking at the B550M-ITX/ac. The A520M-ITX/ac appears to feature an eight-phase power delivery subsystem, a configuration that's commonly found on cheaper B550 motherboards. As expected of the mini-ITX form factor, the motherboard only has two DDR4 memory slots, but memory overclocking should be superb given the shorter traces to the processor. The motherboard accommodates up to five storage devices. There are four SATA III connectors and a single M.2 slot up front. The A520M-ITX/ac only has one PCIe x16 slot so graphics card selection requires extra consideration. Connectivity-wise, the A520M-ITX/ac is an identical copy of the B550M-ITX/ac. The rear panel reveals a DisplayPort and HDMI port for displays. Of course, you'll have to pair the motherboard with an AMD APU to use either output since the normal Ryzen chips don't come with an iGPU. An Ethernet port and wireless networking are also available for your usage. The rear panel holds two USB 2.0 ports, one USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A port, two USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A ports, one USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-C port, one PS/2 combo port and three 3.5mm audio jacks. The B550M-ITX/ac retails for $129.99 , so we expect the A520M-ITX/ac's price tag to be a lot more friendly on the pockets. ASRock A520M Pro4 ASRock A520M Pro4 ASRock A520M Pro4 The A520M Pro4 looks a little different to the B550M Pro4. For starters, the A520M Pro4 doesn't have a fancy white heatsink over the power delivery subsystem. The images don't uncover its design, however, the B550M Pro4 is equipped with an eight-phase configuration so we can expect the A520 variant to carry the same setup, if not less. The A520M Pro4 puts four DDR4 memory slots at your disposal. We spot four SATA III ports in total, two less than the B550M Pro4. Nonetheless, the two M.2 slots remain untouched. Unlike the A520M-ITX/ac, the A520M Pro4 lacks wireless connectivity so you'll be connecting to the Internet through the standard Ethernet port unless you purchase a wireless card. In terms of expansion, the A520M Pro4 supplies two PCIe x16 slots. It's only missing the PCIe x1 slot, which is present on the more expensive B550M Pro4. Similar to the situation with the A520M-ITX/ac and B550M-ITX/ac, the A520M Pro4 has the exact same rear panel as the B550M Pro4. Display outputs consist of one D-sub port, one HDMI port and one DisplayPort output. The diverse mix of USB ports includes one USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A port, one USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C port, four USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A ports and two USB 2.0 ports. Lastly, the motherboard has three 3.5mm jacks for connecting audio devices. The B550M Pro4 sells for $114.99 , and the absence of a couple of the features on the A520M Pro4 should allow ASRock to price the motherboard more competitively.

Users could loan up to $200 if Square testing works out Cash App, the peer-to-peer payments service developed by Square could soon be offering selected users loans of up to $200. Although still in the testing phase, with Square trying out the system on around 1,000 mobile payment app users, who can request the short-term loans available in amounts between $20 and $200. Requests made via the mobile app get instant approval and need to be paid back within four weeks - however there is a one-week grace period if you don't make the deadline. Loans come with a flat 5% interest fee, while non-compounding interest is added at 1.25% each week after the grace period expires. Cash App loans While the loans could be seen as a useful short-term benefit of using Cash App the additional costs resulting from those rates have the potential to add up rapidly, resulting in a sizeable 65% APR figure. It’s therefore likely most users will settle any outstanding amounts as soon as possible given the high costs to borrow such relatively small amounts of dollars. Due to the potential implications of offering loans in this way it’s not clear whether Square will be rolling the idea out as a permanent feature. The new feature boosts Square’s growing range of non peer-to-peer money transfer products. They include the likes of free plastic in the shape of the Cash Card, rewards program Cash Boost and Cash App Investing.

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Accepted! DH1 : DH2 :

Nickname : @.-AdiiLo-. Tag your opponent : @XZoro™ Music genre : Dance Number of votes : 6 Tag one leader to post your songs LIST : @.-AdiiLo-.

Both songs are good, but I prefer DH1 for the vocals and rythm.

Developer: Epic Llama Publisher: BUKA Entertainment Release Date: 13/08/2020 Price: £11.99 / $14.99 COMEDY IS THE NAME OF THE GAME Meet Cid, the demon of Darkestville. He lives in a castle on the outskirts of Darkestville, along with his pet fish Domingo and his companion, Mr Buttons. He spends his days and nights happily tormenting the people of Darkestville who, with the exception of his arch-enemy Dan Teapot, consider him more of a nuisance than any real threat. One day, good old Dan hires a famous group of demon hunters to defeat Cid once and for all! Unfortunately, not all goes to plan. Between fooling the not-exactly-well-named Romero brothers, talking townsfolk out of useful objects, and occasionally arguing with demons, life in Darkestville is certainly colourful! The characters are immediately likeable, having a kind of corny Saturday morning cartoon vibe about them. The accompanying humour is childish and yet still had me giggling like a loon within the first five minutes – that may speak more to my mental age than anything, but it was damn fun! I hadn’t even finished the prologue before I decided to set aside the whole Sunday for it, just to bask in the delightful lightheartedness that was sure to come. A CLASSIC STYLE THAT NEVER GROWS OLD Point-and-click games are exactly what they sound like; objects and people within the world before you are interactive, and clicking on them will present a variety of options. Items can be picked up here and there, that are then required somewhere else to solve a puzzle or open a path to another area. Darkestville Castle handles it like a pro – if it isn’t broken, don’t fix it! The objects you can interact with never stand out, making some areas a real click-frenzy to try and find the one thing you’ve missed, or trying every item in your inventory on something to see if anything will work. The lack of puzzles means that the point-and-click could easily become redundant, but Darkestville Castle avoids this by making the environmental interactions particularly interesting or sneaky – for example, at one point I had to pick up an item, inspect it to find something else, and then use the 2nd item somewhere that seemed completely bizarre to start with. There’s a decent amount of thinking outside of the box which is fun, but the lack of quest log is a bit of a pain when you’ve been so busy solving little things that you’ve forgotten the whole point. There were only two things I really took issue with from a gameplay perspective: scrolling scenes, and the inventory screen. The scenes are larger than the screen they’re on, so there’s a lot of moving back and forth to find things. It just feels a little old-fashioned considering how much you can fit on a Switch screen! The inventory screen was kind of clunky in touchscreen mode. Pressing the appropriate button opens the screen, and clicking on an item selects it, but to then use the item in the environment you have to be careful where you click to close the inventory screen as the inventory takes up nearly the entire screen. It’s easy to accidentally click on something, and Cid attempts to use your item on that when you’re just trying to close the inventory. It works fine in docked mode, as moving the cursor out of the inventory automatically minimizes it, but it got annoying quickly when playing in the otherwise more natural-feeling touch mode. SCOOBY-DOO, EAT YOUR HEART OUT! Darkestville Castle is in a classic cartoon style, with 2D environments and navigation that’s reminiscent of point-and-click games in days gone by. Cid does navigate the scenes, moving deeper into a room as well as along it, but everything is done in a very flat way that ends up oddly comical. The colours are vivid, with the various locations being exactly what you’d expect from a corny cartoon; from the spooky, grim, slightly ramshackle castle where Cid lives to the overly opulent Mayor’s house, everything just screams of a typical child’s imagining of such a place. The soundtrack only enhances the lighthearted nature of the game, somehow mastering the perky yet spooky vibe that I grew up loving in shows like Scooby Doo (the proper cartoon version, not this new 3D style stuff). Another wonderful thing is the fact that every line is voiced. There’s a giant insect character, and even she’s voiced with appropriate buzzing sounds! Stephanos Rex did a brilliant job as Cid, as well as a whole host of other characters. Check out the credits – he voiced literally half of the characters, making each one feel unique and alive. While Cid is admittedly my favourite, being the perfect level of irreverent, you have to admire the man’s talent. While point-and-clicks shouldn’t be that hard to translate to the Switch, there are a surprising number that have not-inconsequential performance issues. Thankfully, Darkestville Castle doesn’t suffer from this. The animations flow smoothly, and I never had any issues with responsiveness. Granted, the load screens are slightly longer than I’d like, but that’s a minor inconvenience at most. CAN YOU THINK OUTSIDE OF THE BOX? Difficulty is a really (ironically) difficult thing to pin down in a point-and-click game. They’re generally only as hard as your mind is inflexible – what one person may solve quickly, another will spend ages trying to figure out. There’s no failure in Darkestville Castle, only how long it takes you to figure something out and collect all the pieces! While the interactive objects don’t stand out from the scenes in any way, there is a button that highlights all interactive objects in a scene so even if you do get stuck it’ll never be for too long, and there are no consequences for trying to use an item in the wrong place. It’s a very relaxed experience, and that’s part of its charm. D-EVIL-ISHLY FUN As a huge fan of the genre, I can easily be too harsh on point-and-click games, but Darkestville Castle had me smiling from the start. A perfect balance of amusing characters, fun sound and graphic design, and well-built mechanics is necessary to make a worthy point-and-click adventure, especially in the current times where the market is saturated with deep, expansive games. I don’t know if it was intentional, but Darkestville Castle really does feel like an interactive cartoon, and it made a wonderfully refreshing change from what I’ve become accustomed to. The Switch is the perfect home for this comparatively bite-sized beauty, and while it may be a little expensive considering the length and lack of replayability, it’s definitely worth picking up.

Feel the power of Willow Cove. Hardware detective @TUM_APISAK has found another Tiger Lake processor hiding in the SiSoftware database. The Intel Core i3-1115G4 appears to be the entry-level chip of the upcoming 11th Generation Tiger Lake family. The Core i3-1115G4 sports a dual-core design with Hyper-Threading, just like any other mobile Core i3 chip. Notwithstanding, the Tiger Lake chip should outperform its Ice Lake predecessor with relative ease. For starters, the Core i3-1115G4 has the new Willow Cove microarchitecture, allowing the Tiger Lake part to carry up to a 50% larger L3 cache. Intel produces the Tiger Lake lineup on its 10nm++ manufacturing process, meaning the clock speeds should be improved over Ice Lake's 10nm+ node. Tiger Lake won't just bring improved processing power, the new 10nm++ chips should also provide substantial improvements in graphics. The top Ice Lake processors had Gen12 units topping out at 64 Execution Units (EUs). Gen12 Xe graphics will boost the number of EUs up to 96, which represents a whopping 50% improvement. Intel Core i3-1115G4 The Willow Cove microarchitecture and the improved 10nm++ process could be the main contributors to Tiger Lake's impressive clock speeds. According to the SiSoftware submission, the Core i3-1115G4 reportedly has a 3 GHz base clock, which is a 1.5X increase over the Core i3-1005G1. It remains to be seen whether the boost clock will enjoy the same type of improvement. Assuming this is an engineering sample, there is still room for some improvements. After a bit of a tease, Intel has confirmed that it will formally announce Tiger Lake on September 2 via a virtual event. If you're an Intel aficionado, you should definitely mark the day on your calendar as the leaks suggest that Tiger Lake will generate quite some noise.

Dropbox's password manager, secure file vault and cloud backup solution are now generally available Decluttering and securing your digital life is about to get a whole lot easier for Dropbox Plus users as the cloud storage company has announced that Dropbox Passwords, Dropbox Vault and computer backup are now generally available. Dropbox Passwords is the company's new password manager that saves your passwords and autofills them so you can instantly sign in to the websites and apps you use every day. With Passwords, users can sign in from anywhere as there are apps available for Windows, Mac, iOS and Android and passwords from their desktop will automatically sync to their mobile device. Dropbox's password manager also secures credentials with zero-knowledge encryption. Dropbox Vault on the other hand helps users secure and organize their most sensitive documents in one place for easy access. The files stored inside your vault are protected by a PIN though you can also designate trusted friends of family members who can access your files from any device in an emergency. Computer backup is Dropbox's cloud backup solution that is capable of automatically backing up folders on your PC or Mac, including your Desktop, Downloads and Documents, directly into your Dropbox folder. Your files and folders are continuously synced between the cloud and your hard drive so that they are accessible from anywhere regardless of what happens to your computer. You can also use computer backup to backup multiple PCs and Macs in one place. The new feature is also available on Dropbox Professional and Dropbox Basic. Link sharing upgrades In addition to its new features for Dropbox Plus users, Dropbox also announced two new Dropbox Professional features that make it easier for users to share links. The first of these is branded sharing which gives users the ability to customize shared links with their logo, company name and a background image so that others easily know who they are when a file is shared. This feature can be quite useful for those trying to make a name for themselves online or for reminding clients who you are whenever they receive files you've sent. Dropbox is also bringing delivery confirmation to its service with its new traffic and insights feature for shared links. Once this feature is enabled, users can easily track interactions with their shared links and see who visited the link, what kind of device they viewed it on, when it was accessed and whether they viewed or downloaded a shared file. Dropbox Professional users can begin using branded sharing and traffic and insights today, though the company plans to roll out these features to Dropbox Business teams soon.