.-AdiiLo-.

Original release date : February 12, 2015 Developer : M2 Editors : Dogenzaka Lab , PQube Platforms : Nintendo Switch, Microsoft Windows Yamato Nadeshiko; Do you know her? ‘She’ is the personification of everything beautiful in a woman. This is one of many things Tokyo School Life educates you on, as well as a proper reflection of the Japanese society, language, and the chance to romance one of three young girls. Tokyo School Life is a visual novel published by PQube Games and developed by M2. PQube Games needs no introduction, we all know by this point that they’re the Patron Saint of Oppai for us Westerners. M2 is a very niche company but has been around for a while now, 28 years to be exact. Developing games for over a dozen consoles, they’ve certainly made a name for themselves but they’re most known for the Sega Age titles; essentially, they are masters of emulating re-released classics. In Tokyo School Life the protagonist’s school awards the highest scoring student with an exchange student program to a sister school in Japan. It just so happens that our lucky protagonist studied harder than ever to achieve this prestigious goal! He couldn’t be more elated as he is a wholesome Japanophile who wholeheartedly wants to experience the Japanese culture. You’ll quickly come to realise that the protagonist’s sensei has rubbed off some of his idealisms onto him, construing the protagonist’s view of Japanese culture. His first goal upon reaching Japan is to experience a Yamato Nadeshiko, a perfect idealised Japanese girl, which is quickly shot down. You’ll meet Karin, Aoi, and Sakura, all of which you’ll not only befriend but live with as well. This is due to your dormitory being a shared residence with them, which also happens to be a shrine owned by a friend of your sensei’s. Through experiencing Japanese culture, learning the ways of life, cultivating friendship into love, you as the protagonist will get to experience Japan at it’s finest. Tokyo School Life is a romance visual novel, meaning all the routes and choices will have endings relating to love. Though there are only three females to romance, the game is still of good length and quality. • First up is Yayoi Karin, a kind and friendly girl to those that know her, and with tall aspirations to become an Idol. She’ll come across abrasive and hostile when first met due to circumstance, but you’ll learn she’s almost Tsundere-like. • The second girl is Hazuki Aoi, who you’ll immediately notice is rambunctious but caring, with her heart in all the right places. Though she enjoys company and is the ‘mother’ of the shrine, she’s a feisty girl who practices karate and has a great level of athleticism. • Lastly is Minatsugi Sakura, a closet otaku who suffers from an illness. She’s probably the kindest and most sincere girl of all three, and you’ll often find her reading or drawing. Instead of simply being a fictional novel of one’s imagination, with influences from the holy land of Japan, this game actually reflects upon Japan’s culture, teaches you of the country, the language, society and so much more! It helps that the developer is a Japanese resident themself. I wouldn’t blame you if you came out of Tokyo School Life with a hankering to visit japan or study the lovely country for all it’s worth. To extend the reflection above, Tokyo School Life has done what I’ve never seen before. If you know anything of Visual Novels, you’ll know that one of the marketing factoids is dialogue length, whether it be 10, 20, or 50 thousand words and that’s usually presented in the language the gamer chooses. This title not only has the option of Japanese, Hiragana, and Romaji, but it impressibly allows you to have dual subtitles, having them appear simultaneously alongside the English. So, for those wanting to study or have basic knowledge of these languages, it’s beautifully done. Speaking of studying, all the Kanji in-game has Furigana which will aid in your reading and learning. Since Tokyo School Life is fully voice acted as well, you’ll get to learn pronunciation on all the Japanese that’ll pair with the text. The way Tokyo School Life plays out is like your standard Visual Novel, you have the main route that’ll have some backend flags which branch you off into locked routes of different characters. Don’t let that deter you though, because as standard as it appears, it’s approached with an unorthodox style. Tokyo School Life, as stated earlier, is all about imbuing the reader with the knowledge of the Land of the Rising Sun! Think of it more like a Japanese Tour Simulator featuring a Romance Visual, if you will; you’ll learn of phrases, words, idioms, locations, foods, events, holidays, culture, everything the country will have to offer. That isn’t to say the main routes or character routes don’t hold their own weight, they very much do! It’s just I couldn’t be more engrossed with how they approached this game! As visual novels gain more po[CENSORED]rity; they tend to bring new ideas to the table. Some of them offer interactivity, puzzle mechanics, location choices, etc. What Tokyo School Life does is it stays with the tried and true route but did it without ‘static images’. All of the characters are dynamic, and not just stop motion or picture changes. They are fluently done in real-time with reactions, expressions, body language, and appearance, you even see the breathing mechanics – it’s probably my favourite Visual Novel in terms of dynamic models. The same level of detail goes into the background as well, it’s not dynamic but there’s just something so awe-inspiring about it. It’s like they took real pictures as every scene in the game lives right on the border between reality and animation – it’s just the right amount to call it ‘artwork’. The characters in Tokyo School Life are well fleshed out, just like everything else as you can see from my endless praise so far. Take Minatsugi Sakura for example – in the very beginning of the game she lies to you about a hospitalised sister just so she could purchase the last issue of a manga which is in stock as she’s a closet Otaku who hides her true self and lives in the idealisations of other people. However, once you’re on her ‘route’, she’ll accept who she is, draw manga in the classroom openly, live for herself, and you physically see the character transform over the course of the game – it’s more than just a few traits that are developed, or a slight personality change. When you finish a route and reflect on the character themselves, you actually feel like you’ve witnessed a journey. That’s the key thing here, Tokyo School Life’s characters all have a sense of progression that leaves you feeling like you actually got to know them. Tokyo School Life’s immersion is sometimes disrupted by the main character though. You name him and are supposed to immerse yourself in this Visual Novel like any other – the problem is that he can be awkward more often than not. In Visual Novels, it is commonplace for the main character to have inner monologues, or thoughts, that reflect upon situations – while these often reflect what the character thinks or how they feel, with maybe some added information, it’s not often the case with this particular protagonist. The Visual Novel is ripe with the clichés of bumping into girls and knocking them over, spilling things on them to make them wet, walking in on shower scenes, bumping into each other at the manga store, etc. The main protagonist also often finds it necessary to reiterate the scenarios you just witnessed, without adding any more information to the situation, which gets a little annoying and redundant at times. An example is right at the beginning when you learn that the dormitory is a shrine that houses the three main girls, a place you’ll be living for two months. The protagonist will then immediately sum it up with “In other words. I’m going to be staying under one roof with these cute Japanese girls… For two whole months! This is even more fantastic than I had imagined!” It would’ve sufficed in literally half the words and could’ve been a reflection before going to bed – that would’ve been that much more appreciated. Tokyo School Life’s choice-based routes are very accessible for gamers new to the Visual Novel genre. The overall game consists of eight choices, a final location, and then a final choice. It may not seem like a lot for those who are used to 50+ hour Visual Novels, and that’s due to the overall length of this game… Tokyo School Life, dependent on reading speed, is somewhere between five and eight hours, and as much as I did boast about the character progressions, they are rather fast-paced and sometimes felt too direct. Sometimes things can feel rushed and not connect properly, though it’s not frequent enough to notice and you’ll often be attracted to everything else this game has to offer. What I did like is that if you do pay attention, you’ll notice choices have different audible chimes that’ll reference different affection gains. All your choices will lead you to an ending for each girl or a bad ending, this means there is no harem-like ending though.

Software is only part of the solution, report claims Small businesses are still spending several hours each week dealing with payment issues, according to a new survey from WePay. The integrated payments business found that while small businesses have upped their technology spend in the last two years, 39% are losing five hours or more on morale-sapping payment admin. WePay’s State of Small Business Payments 2020 research looked at how small business owners in the US were tackling key challenges in relation to payments, noting that software-as-a-service (SAAS) providers can play a key role in speeding us access to much-needed cash. SAAS providers The report found that payment issues have been exacerbated because of Covid-19, with the pandemic adding to small business woes, especially when it comes to receiving cash on time. WePay surveyed 1,000 US small business owners with fewer than 100 employees in February 2020 across the retail, food and beverage, field services, professional services, and e-commerce industries. Many had a similar story to tell with business owners looking to find a trusted partner to help them with their payments technology. Other key findings from the survey revealed that 62% of small businesses surveyed would consider switching to a bank and software company solution, while 43% would switch solely to a software company. Meanwhile, 28% of small businesses said they were likely or very likely to make a change to their online payment system in the next 12 months. In addition, 77% of companies with more than $1 million of annual revenue said they would consider working with a solution from a bank and an ISV. 29% of Gen Z respondents trust the bank/software combination to handle financial activity, compared with 21% for Gen X and 20% for Baby Boomers. Ultimately, even small businesses that use the latest technology face ongoing financial challenges. Payment speed was cited by many as being the top concern and 39% have suffered from speed-related payment issues in the last 12 months. In addition, 25% of those surveyed had been affected by cash flow issues over the last year.

Just a hair away from the magical 5 GHz It's been quite some time since AMD released a CPU that can hit a 5 GHz clock speed. But that may change soon. A new report claims that Zen 3 (codename Vermeer) could bring another 5-GHz AMD desktop CPU to the market. Igor's Lab today reported the discovery of two new ordering part numbers (OPNs): 100-000000065-04_ 46/36 _Y and 100-000000061-06_ 49/37 _Y. They are reportedly for for models with 16 CPU cores and should be the descendant of the Ryzen 9 3950X. The highest clocked engineering sample seemingly has a 3.7 GHz base clock and 4.9 GHz boost clock. For reference, the Ryzen 9 3950X sports a 3.5 GHz base clock and 4.7 GHz boost clock. If Igor's Lab's report is correct, we're looking at 5.7% and 4.3% improvements on the base and boost clocks, respectively. We still don't know how AMD will market its forthcoming Zen 3 offerings. The chipmaker currently use the Ryzen 3000-series (Matisse) for its mainstream chips and the Ryzen 4000-series (Renoir) for APUs. Of course, this all lends confusion for the uninitiated. If AMD decides to unify both naming schemes, then the Ryzen 9 3950X's successor should be the Ryzen 9 4950X. But if AMD looks to avoid confusion with its APU lineup, a Ryzen 9 5950X is also possible. Regardless of the nomenclature, Zen 3 will leverage TSMC's 7nm FinFET manufacturing process. Although the processors are on a new microarchitecture, they slide into the existing AM4 CPU socket, so don't throw away your motherboard just yet. AMD has publicly confirmed that Zen 3-based processors will work seamlessly on B450, X470, B550 and X570 motherboards; although, certain compromises are made on the older 400-series motherboards. Rick Bergman, Executive Vice president of Computing and Graphics at AMD, stated a little over two weeks ago that Zen 3 is marching on schedule for a 2020 release. It seems the chipmaker is preparing something big for the consumer market, and we expect Zen 3 to make an even bigger splash than Zen 2.

Nickname : @.-AdiiLo-. Tag your opponent : @HiTLeR. Music genre : Rap Number of votes : 6 Tag one leader to post your songs LIST : @#Em i[N]O'

I really loved both songs, they are great. But I'll vote DH1 for the high rythm and bass.

Original release date : June 16, 2020 Publisher : United Games Entertainment GmbH Platforms : Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4 Developers : Taito , M2 Over the last few years, various companies have released retro compilations to feed on people’s nostalgia, satisfying those who recall playing the games included and those who always wanted to play them yet never had the console when they were younger. Capcom and SEGA are always re-releasing their classics via dedicated hardware and software collections, yet a number of more niche genres and publishers have also decided to join in with the fun this time around. Today I’m taking a look at the Darius Cozmic Collection: Console Edition from TAITO, six iconic shoot ’em ups from the past… TAITO was a well-known developer many years ago, creating masterpieces such as Space Invaders and the Bubble Bobble franchise, but they have had a rocky existence over the last decade and a half. The story behind what’s happened between them and Square Enix is quite confusing – I’m not going to pretend I fully understand what happened and who is who anymore. However, it does appear that TAITO is back, with help from publisher ININ Games, and are both creating new games, such as Bubble Bobble 4 Friends, as well as developing compilations of their old classics. Before laying my hands on this Darius collection, I’d never actually played a game in the franchise before. So, what did I think of these rather challenging and ‘retro’ shoot ’em ups? Let’s find out… There are two Darius collections which you can pick up today, they are Darius Cozmic Collection: Console and Darius Cozmic Collection: Arcade. For the purpose of this review, I’ve been playing the ‘Console’ collection, a selection of home-console ports from yesteryear. However, if you’re more interested in reliving the arcade-quality gameplay with virtual multi-screens and more advanced visuals, then the Arcade collection might be for you. This particular version has a total of six games which are presented via nine versions. They are: – DARIUS II (Mega Drive JP version) – SAGAIA [DARIUS II] (Genesis version) – SAGAIA [DARIUS II] (Master System EU version) – DARIUS TWIN (Super Famicom JP version) – DARIUS TWIN (Super NES US version) – DARIUS FORCE (Super Famicom JP version) – SUPER NOVA (Super NES US version) – DARIUS ALPHA (PC Engine JP version) – DARIUS PLUS (PC Engine JP version) The collection itself is very bare-bones, delivering a disappointing lack of bonus features or extra content considering the rather hefty price-point (which I’ll get to later). Other than a webpage which shows you the default controls, there’s nothing here other than the emulated games. However, the majority of people picking this up will be here for the games, not commemorative extras, so what are the games in layman’s terms? Darius II There are three versions of Darius II, the original Japanese Mega Drive edition, the North American renamed (Sagaia) Genesis edition, and the strange 8-bit European Master System edition. As you’d expect, the Japanese and American Mega Drive versions are pretty much identical (although some cheats were disabled within the American one for some reason) and the Master System port is interesting but you probably won’t play it due to the others being much more advanced and fun to play. Another interesting feature is that the Japanese edition has two modes. There’s the standard mode in which it plays like the original game did, and there’s a new ‘Special Mode’. This optional mode is a score-based version of the game, disabling cheats and quick load/save so you can try to earn the most points. Darius Twin You are once again presented with two games which are almost identical. The Japanese Super Famicom and the North American SNES versions. The biggest difference here is that the Japanese version launched just after the console released, resulting in a rushed development and gimped sound – running in Mono and a low bitrate. The NA SNES edition fixed this and had a full stereo soundtrack, meaning this version is the definitive edition and trumps even bothering with the Japanese version. Darius Force and Super Nova Officially, the collection counts these two as separate games. However, Darius Force was released in Japan on the Super Famicom and Super Nova was technically the Western version which launched on the SNES. There were some name changes with the bosses, but the gameplay itself is identical between both versions. Unlike Darius II though, it doesn’t appear than any cheats or content was removed from the Western release either in the past or within this collection. Similar to Darius II, the Japanese version of Darius Force contains a secondary mode which can be chosen before you start the game. This time it’s a ‘Boss Endurance’ mode, allowing you to face all of the bosses with both cheats and quicksave/loading disabled. I’m not sure why these additional modes have only been on the Japanese version so far. Darius Alpha This game is the most interesting in my opinion. This was never actually sold, it was only distributed to approx 800 people as a bonus for buying Darius Plus. There are four modes you can pick from before loading this game, the normal game, a score attack mode, time-attack against sixteen bosses, and a four-minute time-attack mode. Considering this game sells for over $2000 on eBay, picking up this collection may be the cheapest ‘legal’ way to own this elusive game. Darius Plus This is a downgraded version of Super Darius. Instead of containing 26 bosses like that title (which was released on the PC Engine CD-ROM2), Darius Plus ironically had ‘minus’ ten bosses, leaving it with a modest sixteen for you to take on. Visual modes As the games are all emulated, we all come to expect some form of emulation bonuses and visual options in order to customise the games to our liking. Thankfully, the Darius Cozmic Collection: Console offers a few options for us to fiddle with. Every game, despite whatever consoles they originally launched on, seems to have the same visual options available: • You can toggle between the original aspect ratio of the game, a pixel-perfect scale, the game keeps its ratio but is expanded to fit the screen, or you can stretch it out and make it into a 16:9 fatty. Although it’s sacrilege to stretch out and make a 4:3 game into 16:9, I actually didn’t mind having the games run at that ratio. I think it’s because they’re just side-scrollers and the stretched scaling doesn’t show many artefacts. • There’s a ‘Smoothing’ option which supposedly makes the sprites look smoother and less pixelated. However, I personally thought that it looked like someone had rubbed vaseline on the screen. I’d advise to leave this off. • You also have the customary ‘scanlines’ which makes the screen much darker whilst trying to imitate an old CRT. I’ve never been the biggest fan of these but I imagine some people out there will enjoy the extra visual option. • Finally, you can enable or disable a visual background (which is visible if you have any aspect ratio other than 16:9). So, although there’s not a lot of options or filters, at least there’s a few to experiment with. Personal opinion As a collection of games, you can’t really get much better than these if you’re looking to play some iconic classic shoot ’em ups. I personally thought that they were all quite challenging and difficult, requiring fast reflexes and a lot of patience – something I’m lacking if I’m being honest. There’s a decent amount of variety and each title in the franchise offered new mechanics or gameplay options which made each one unique. However, I would have prefered it if they only gave us one title from each iteration (so either the Japanese or NA version) and then added in a few of the arcade games. But, they clearly wanted to separate the games into two collections. It’s the same issue I had with the Disney Classic Games: Aladdin and The Lion King collection a few months back, we are provided with a few games which are identical in everything but the language and/or platform, rather than a collection of unique and varied games. I was very disappointed with the lack of any bonus content or extras which celebrated the games and told us about the history and development. I know that these aren’t exactly ‘anniversary collections’, but a bit more effort would have gone a long way in regards to making the package feel like it’s more value for money. Speaking of… Currently, on the eShop, this particular collection, the Darius Cozmic Collection: Console version, is a whopping £44.99! The Arcade edition is a little lower at £34.99 but that’s because that one only contains ‘four’ games with seven versions (technically it’s three games if you count Darius II and Sagaia as the same game). If we say that this collection has six games, that’s around £7.50 per game. It’s not a bad price if you’re a fan of the franchise and you have nostalgia for the series and the brutal gameplay, but as someone who doesn’t have fond memories of playing it when I was younger, I would say wait for a sale if you’re just a curious onlooker like me. I’ve just discovered, by looking at the PS4 trophy list, that there is a way to activate the bonus modes on the English versions of the games and not just the Japanese ones. – In Sagaia you simply press ‘A’ twelve times on the menu screen (Special Mode) – In Super Nova, you press the ‘R’ trigger eight times whilst the TAITO logo is on the screen (Boss Rush) – In Darius Alpha, you press the ‘L’ trigger on the menu screen (4-min time trial). These modes are the same as the ones you can pick in the Japanese versions but you can use cheats with them if you activate them this way! Final Conclusion: The Darius Cozmic Collection: Console edition is a collection of great games yet sadly lacks presentation and substance. If you’re a fan of the genre and/or the franchise then you’ll love the games on offer and the multiple bonus modes. However, if you’re not invested in the series though any form of nostalgia or fond memories, I don’t believe there’s enough here to justify the recommended retail price. I personally think they should have doubled up the Arcade and Console collections to create a single content-rich package, rather than two diluted experiences. Technically, the games are great, but I can’t really recommend the overall ‘collection’ to anyone but the biggest of Darius fans. If you’re a fan of physical games and you also like the Darius franchise, Strictly Limited have a few copies of both collections still available on the PS4 and Nintendo Switch.

Work the way you want from anywhere In addition to being able to collaborate in real-time on the web, one of the best things about Google's suite of productivity apps is that they're also available on mobile so you can work from anywhere. To make it easier for users to be productive from their smartphones, the company has announced a slew of updates for its Google Docs, Sheets and Slides mobile apps for G Suite users. As virtual meetings have become ubiquitous, teams are increasingly turning to presentations to keep everyone engaged and on the same page. To make it easier to quickly view content in Slides, Google has announced a new viewing experience with a vertically scrollable stream of slides that users can pinch-to-zoom. This new viewing experience will help users review slides faster and will roll out on Android over the next few weeks and on iOS in the coming months. To help prevent users from getting distracted from linked content in Google Docs, the search giant is bringing link previews from Docs on the web to its mobile app. Now when you click on a link in Docs, you'll see a card with dynamic information about the content including its owner, latest activity in Google Drive, titles and descriptions of public links and a visual thumbnail. This feature is already available for Docs on iOS and will be rolling out to Android in the coming weeks. Google also announced that Docs, Sheets and Slides now support dark mode on Android to make it easier for users to work in low-light environments while not draining their smartphone's battery. This feature is already available on Android but it will be coming to iOS in the coming months. Create and collaborate from anywhere Not having to wait until your back at your desk or on your computer to write a memo, edit a spreadsheet or assign an action item means that teams can get more done faster. To help speed up how users type in Google Docs, Google is bringing Smart Compose to mobile after launching the feature on the web earlier this year. Smart Compose in Docs will rollout to G Suite customers over the next few weeks on both Android and iOS. Last year the company introduced Office editing on the web to allow users to edit, comment and collaborate on Microsoft Office files using Docs, Sheets and Slides. Now this feature will also be available in the Google Docs, Sheets and Slides mobile apps on Android in the coming weeks with an iOS rollout later this year. Comments are an important tool for team collaboration which is why Google is improving the user interface for both comments and action items in Docs, Sheets and Slides on Mobile. The commenting interface will soon be larger, easier to scroll through and there will be a quick access button to reply and @mention others. This feature is available on Android now and will be coming to iOS in the coming months. Finally, Google is bringing dynamic email, which makes it easier to take actions like responding to comments, to the Gmail apps for Android and iOS. Now that remote work is quickly becoming the new norm, users need to be able to quickly get to work from wherever they may be and the updates Google has announced for Docs, Sheets and Slides on mobile will certainly help with this.

This small package packs a punch. As computers get smaller and smaller, the number of developers continues to grow. This new mini PC, known as the GMK NucBox, is another new contender to make its way to the miniature PC market. It follows on the heels of Chuwi's Larkbox. This new palm-sized PC has a seriously small footprint. It features 4K visual output, making it ideal as a media streaming platform. It also supports Wi-Fi, so it can connect to both wireless networks and a variety of wireless devices. It comes housed inside a dark gray, metal chassis, measuring in at 2.4" x 2.4" (62mm x 62mm). Despite the small size, there are several ports to take advantage of: 2 USB ports, an HDMI output, 1 USB-C and a 3.5mm audio jack. Storage-wise, there are SSD options ranging from 128 GB to 512 GB in size. You can expand on that using the microSD reader. It also comes with 8GB of LPDDR4. If you want to get your hands on this tiny platform, you can find the product listing on the GMK website. It's currently priced at $209 for the 128 GB model.

Original release date : May 2019 Publisher : Teyon Platforms : Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Microsoft Windows Developers : Teyon , Tomasz Dziobek (TomiGames) One small peek at Cubers: Arena, the new game published by Teyon Games, and you’ll quickly notice it’s not the most innovative or exciting of games. Yet another title with voxel-based graphics, clearly inspired by the likes of Minecraft. A sound department comprised of initially cute, but eventually annoying gibberish vocal clips inspired by Banjo-Kazooie and Animal Crossing. Not to mention a twin stick control scheme… but on a hack ‘n’ slash game? Well, at the very least this is something you don’t see every day. Needs more Russell Crowe killing Joaquin Phoenix. Despite featuring the control scheme you’d find on your run-of-the-mill twin stick shooter, Cubers: Arena is inspired by the likes of Diablo, not Hotline Miami. It’s a close combat melee game, in which you fight waves of enemies in a small gladiator arena, with only a melee weapon, an optional shield, and a handful of equippable special attacks at your disposal. Beat a level and you’ll get a small sum of cash, upgrade points for your weapons, and experience points that will unlock new equipment for you to purchase. Sure, it’s voxel-based and cutesy, but it doesn’t mean it isn’t bloody and ultraviolent. Me likey. There’s little else that can be said about Cubers: Arena because, honestly, what you see is what you get. Despite the sheer amount of unlockables at your disposal, every single level can be beaten with the same strategy: mindless button-mashing. You are constantly showered with health pickups, so the game barely punishes you for being reckless. The game would have been a lot more interesting if your character wasn’t so stupidly slow, even after collecting a temporary speed boosting pickup. There are some neat local co-op minigames, but they get stale after just a few rounds. You’ll basically just kill enemies over and over again, earning more resources to unlock new weapons to kill even stronger enemies, until you eventually get bored. Granted, it’s fun up until said point. Why am I fighting a robot in this Roman arena? Cubers: Arena is fun and functional, with some interesting ideas and an acceptable level of replayability, but at the end of the day, it’s an uneventful game. You’ve seen the same boring art style on countless games before, you’ve heard the game Banjo-inspired gibberish on countless games before, and you’ve played dozens of similar hack ‘n’ slash games before. Besides the slow pace, nothing else in it is inherently bad. I even decided to replay some levels just because I wanted to turn my little ball of murder into the most overpowered gladiator in the arena. However, I doubt I will remember Cubers: Arena in a week or two.

Even if you aren't on Facebook Facebook is making it easier for businesses to talk to their online customers using its Messenger platform. The online giant has revealed a major upgrade to its chat plugin tool that will allow companies to talk to customers through their own website using Messenger - even if the user is not on Facebook. Facebook originally launched an initial version of its chat tool back in November 2017, but until now, the service required the user to be logged into the social network to use. Messenger shopping Facebook says that the free service will help businesses reach more customers than ever, especially as companies large and small look to move into the ecommerce space during the global lockdown. "Due to COVID, businesses everywhere have needed to adapt, and for many, that means increasing their online presence," Jenny Li, Product Manager, Messenger wrote in a blog post announcing the upgrade. "As a result, people are contacting businesses online more than ever. Chat Plugin is an easy solution for businesses to talk to potential customers by bringing the Messenger experience directly on to their website. With minimal effort, businesses are able to kick off conversations, bring a personal touch to the online shopping experience, and build lasting relationships with customers." The company says that developers will be able to quickly and easily build the chat plugin into their websites, adding the upgraded tool with "just a few clicks" in its Facebook Page settings menu. The news is the latest in a series of Messenger updates as Facebook looks to distinguish the service from competitors. Reports last month suggest that Facebook may soon allow users of WhatsApp and Messenger to chat directly with one another, from within their respective apps.

Asus announced three HDMI 2.1 gaming monitors for the holiday season. Even the best graphics cards from Nvidia and AMD today don't support HDMI 2.1, but no worries: Ampere's release date is around the corner. It would come as a huge surprise if they Nvidia's next-gen GPUs, (which some assume will use the RTX 3080 moniker) don't include the new display connectivity standard. In the meantime, we already know the PS5 and Xbox Series X will include HDMI 2.1. In light of that, Asus just announced a trio of HDMI 2.1 enabled monitors, as shared by VideoCardz. However, Asus isn't being very specific about the announcement. In the press release, it mentioned that it is building 27-inch, 32-inch and 43-inch models, but didn't name them yet or reveal much besides the HDMI 2.1 spec. However, Asus did specify that the 43-incher will compete with the best 4K gaming monitors. With HDMI 2.1, however, it will have the advantage of 48 Gbps bandwidth. Asus also noted that monitor will use variable refresh rates (it didn't name Nvidia G-Sync or AMD FreeSync specifically) of up to 120 Hz. "ROG is the first partner to provide a HDMI 2.1 gaming monitor for certification. As a leading test lab in the world, it's our mission to assure products or services before they are launched. We are thrilled to be part of the success of ROG and this groundbreaking gaming monitor," Brian Shih, Vice President of Logo & HW Validation Consulting at Allion Labs, said in a statement. Asus expects its HDMI 2.1 monitors to be available for "the holiday season" but didn't share a specific release date. The two Eve Spectrum monitors with HDMI 2.1, which are crowdfunded, are supposed to start coming out in Q4. Why Does HDMI 2.1 Matter? The reason we want HDMI 2.1 is simple. It offers hugely increased bandwidth over HDMI 2.0 (18 Gbps), making it possible to run 4K games at a refresh rate of up to 144 Hz, instead of being limited to 60 Hz or having to resort to compression techniques, such as the Asus ROG Swift PG43UQ does with HDMI 2.0. Of course, you'll need a serious amount of GPU horsepower to get 4K running at 144 Hz or even 120 Hz. So if that's what you want, you better start filling up the piggy bank. The upcoming Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5 will also support HDMI 2.1 displays and 4K gaming. That means that on the off chance that Ampere somehow doesn't deliver on HDMI 2.1, there will be other options for Asus' new monitors.

Original release date : August 4, 2020 Publisher : Modus Games Platforms : PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, Xbox One, Microsoft Windows Developers : Finish Line Games , Finish Line Games Inc. A lot of indie games don’t necessarily earn the love they deserve. These are the passion projects that either small teams or individuals sink incredible hours into to overcome the trials of game development. Despite this, many indie games fall short by simply not executing and sticking to what they do best. And Finish Line Games’ Skully appears to be the latest victim of this ongoing war. Skully is a 3D physics-based puzzle platformer. It sees you play a washed-up skull that shares the game’s name, that has been reincarnated by one of the locals, Terry. Possibly a god of the land, Terry explains to Skully that he needs his help to once again bring his now broken family back together. Family reunion The main narrative has Skully visit each of Terry’s siblings in an attempt to negotiate peace. Unfortunately, Terry isn’t exactly a skilled diplomat and each encounter ends in either you running away or a huge fight. Usually the former because poor Terry has no backbone (get it?). Each of the siblings controls a respective element. His sisters Wanda and Fiona control water and fire respectively. As for his brother, Brent, he controls the element of wind. Meanwhile, Terry uses the power of the earth to give life to inanimate rocky objects. While the story flows well, widely thanks to how simple it is, I have to admit I find our protagonist’s partner rather annoying. Terry constantly puts forward this idea that he is the weakest of his siblings and that he never stood a chance against them. And yet our introduction to the game shows him creating a shapeshifting, intelligent life-form out of just clay and a human skull. It may not have been exactly what he intended to make, but it’s impressive nonetheless. You can argue he only just discovered his true powers at the start of the game, but this inferiority complex of his continues throughout the narrative. It’s also pretty apparent that his siblings may have better reasons to distrust him than he lets on. As we find out early on into the story, they actually reached out to him for help first. There’s a sense of hypocrisy that ol’ Terry is now acting like the good guy. Regardless, I did enjoy the portrayal of all three of his siblings and there’s no doubt they too are equally guilty. I kind of get a Lord of the Flies vibe from Skully, albeit with 100% less child murder. And that’s always a good thing. Super Skully Ball On the gameplay side of things, there are comparisons that are hard to ignore. The majority of platforming in Skully has you control the little guy in his regular skull form. This movement is rolling based and very comparable to the likes of Super Monkey Ball but with Samus’ morph ball-inspired controls (including the spider-ball for occasional wall climbing). Skully’s weakness is water. Contact with any water won’t instantly kill you but will rather drain your health rapidly. I did figure out though that if you spam the jump button you can effectively skim any body of water in the game. There were a couple of points where I managed to skip the intended puzzle by doing this. It’s a similar story with one of the form upgrades you unlock later in the game. It basically lets you yeet Skully across the map and there are several spots where puzzles become more of a suggestion than a necessity thanks to this. To be fair, this freedom of solving puzzles how you like is fun, but it can result in you skipping intended gameplay mechanics. You see the core of Skully‘s puzzles is that he can morph into three different forms, each offering powers of strength, speed, and verticality. Shapeshifting As you proceed through the story these forms receive secondary powers. The speed form has the ability to move certain platforms on the horizontal plane. Somehow I managed to completely miss the tutorial telling me he could do this which led to a very confusing puzzle segment shortly after unlocking the double jump form. The idea was to use multiple forms at once. The verticality form could shift one of two platforms up and down while the speed form was used to put them in place. Without knowledge of the latter, I ended up struggling as the platforms weren’t aligned properly to be climbed by default. When Skully focuses on its fast-paced platforming, it’s a fantastic game. However, this isn’t what it does most of the time. Likely to vary up the gameplay a little, there are several segments that feature a classic Crash Bandicoot–like fixed camera. These stages are a little too difficult to judge depth perception for a game this precise. The worst of these has you moving towards the screen without the ability to control where you’re looking. It may have been a throwback to some of the early 2000s 3D platformers, but that doesn’t make it a good idea. We’ve moved on and frankly, I want to be able to control my camera at all times. Especially because Skully‘s regular camera controls are very well done and rarely get obscured by the level design. I would say easily over half my deaths were tallied up in these relatively short but frustrating platforming segments. The different forms’ abilities are well implemented, but it did get to a point where I was audibly sighing at most puzzles. It’s not that the puzzles are bad, but rather that they take away from what Skully does better. It’s jarring how the gameplay can transition from fast-paced technical platforming to extremely slow methodical puzzling in a matter of seconds. I think this approach works better for games like Limbo and Braid where the gameplay is already tied into methodical puzzle solving. Run, Skully, run If there’s one thing I can’t criticize, it’s how well Skully runs. Given its ambitious art style and general aesthetic, I did have some concerns that the more demanding areas could struggle. But in my playthrough, I didn’t experience any frame drop or skips even once. It is hard-capped at 60 FPS with no clear workaround, but I’m uncharacteristically okay with that because of how consistent its frame rate is. The whole point of capping a game’s FPS is to provide a more consistent gameplay experience. Most games cap this and then still end up having issues with stuttering. If you can manage to actually produce that flawless capped frame rate at all times, I’m perfectly okay with this approach. It’s even more forgivable when you see how good Skully looks for an indie romp. It’s almost becoming the norm now for indie games to be the ones that seriously impress me, and Skully is no exception. I’m a sucker for beautiful water and lighting and Skully is brimming full with both examples. Sink or swim While not extraordinary, Skully is fun enough when you get to roll around and explore its beautiful levels. The narrative is easy to follow and delivers more on the story front than a game of this nature probably has any right to. However, the constant switching between its fast and slow gameplay as well as the frustrating fixed camera segments drags down a lot of its positives. Honestly speaking, when Skully tries to be a 3D platformer I’d argue it could be one of my favorite games of 2020 so far. Unfortunately, when it tries to be just about anything else, Skully sinks. REQUIRED CONFIGURATION MINIMUM: Operating system : Windows 10 - 64bit Processor : Dual-core Intel or AMD, 2.5 GHz or faster RAM: 8 GB of memory Graphics: Nvidia GeForce GTX 470 or AMD Radeon HD 7770 series or higher Disk space : 14 GB of available hard disk space RECOMMENDED: Operating system : Windows 10 - 64bit Processor : Quad-core Intel or AMD, 3.0 GHz or faster RAM: 8 GB of memory Graphics: Nvidia GeForce GTX 970 or AMD RX 560 series or higher Disk space : 14 GB of available hard disk space Additional Notes: Controller recommended for best experience

Learn all about Windows Credential Manager and how to better manage your passwords If you’re a Windows user, Windows Credentials Manager is the place where your usernames and passwords, as well as other login details, are stored for later use in a digital library. This includes information for websites and apps, as well as network credentials. In this article, we explain the key steps to managing your passwords and other sensitive information to ensure you are able to add, change, delete, and back up your data. While Windows Credential Manager has been around since Windows 7, this article focuses primarily on the Windows 10 version. However, many of the steps discussed will be similar for previous Windows versions. What does Windows Credential Manager do? As the free password manager native to Windows, Credential Manager will store login credentials, including usernames, passwords, and addresses, for use on a local computer or on other computers in the same network or server. What credentials are saved by Windows Credential Manager? Saved passwords and other stored information are divided into two categories in the Windows 10 version of Windows Credential Manager: Web Credentials, such as website logins, and Windows Credentials, such as information used only by Windows services and apps. This is a simplification of earlier Windows versions, introduced in Windows 8.1. Previously, there were four categories of stored information. Windows Credentials includes several types of data, among them Certificate-Based Credentials, which are used mostly in a complex business network environment. Most users will not require these. However, you can learn more about enabling more complex certificate-based credentials using third-party certification authorities via the Microsoft support pages. The Windows Credentials category also includes installed app information that gives your computer or others on the network the authorization to use the relevant programs. This makes Windows Credential Manager a straightforward way to manage the sensitive information you may require across daily tasks and within shared networks. Programs accessing such data might include Microsoft Office, Skype, or OneDrive. Meanwhile, Web Credentials includes your general website information, such as usernames, passwords, email addresses, and other login data for use on the web. How do I access Windows Credential Manager? Open the Control Panel, go to User Accounts, then select Credential Manager. Alternatively, use the search box on the taskbar to search for ‘credential manager.’ You will see your two vaults: Web Credentials and Windows Credentials. This is where you will find all your saved information listed below these headings. If you are having trouble, you can find up-to-date information and support for Windows Credential Manager via Microsoft. How do I manage saved passwords? Managing stored credentials is relatively straightforward. Navigate to Credential Manager as above. To add credentials, select Add a Windows credential or Add a certificate-based credential, which will prompt you to add additional information. If you choose Add a Windows credential, for example, you will be presented with the option to add the IP address, username, and password required for that credential. Once you enter this information and save, it will be added to your Windows Credential Manager library. In this area, you can also edit and remove stored information by selecting either the Edit or Remove buttons respectively. Be careful when updating saved information, and avoid updating encrypted passwords used by specialized apps (like virtualization software) through the Windows Credential Manager. Instead, update these passwords directly in the app to avoid the risk of damaging future access to them. If this were to happen, you would have to reinstall and reconfigure the apps in question. Whenever you remove a credential from your list, you will be prompted to re-enter that information the next time you log in to the app or website. It is easy to back up stored passwords by selecting the Back up Credentials option in Credential Manager. Once you do this, click Browse to select a destination for your backup. You will be asked to specify a password to protect the Credential Manager file that will be created. Equally, you can restore saved passwords on a new computer by selecting Restore Credentials and then selecting a previously created backup file. Security concerns Windows Credential Manager is a user-friendly password manager, allowing you to easily administer sensitive information. However, there have been concerns about potential hacker access to saved passwords. Passwords are stored in clear text in the Credentials Manager file format, so if a hacker has found their way into your system using elevated access (Local Administrator or System level access on your device), the clear text passwords are easy to exploit. Additional encryption measures may help put your mind at ease. However, you would need to have the requisite technical knowledge to create a more complex data protection method, detracting from the user-friendly experience of Windows Credential Manager. Built right into Windows The Windows Credential Manager feature in Windows 10 will help users to better manage their passwords and other sensitive information across both web and Windows login credential types. It’s easy to add, remove, change, back up, and restore information. Security might be a concern for some users, and Windows 10 has already been a strong target for hackers. While Microsoft works to make its systems more secure, users may feel more peace of mind with additional password encryption. More secure options are certainly available when it comes to storing password information. However, for the standard user, the Credential Manager is easy to access and very user-friendly. It’s a good place to start administering your sensitive data more carefully.

Kingston’s KC2500 is a capable Self-Encrypting Drive (SED) built for high performance. Kingston new KC2500 leverages the same components as its predecessor, the KC2000 from 2019.But this time around the firmware has things cranked up a notch. With Silicon Motion’s SM2262EN and Kioxia’s latest BiCS4 96L TLC NAND flash, it can hit read/write speeds upwards of 3.5/2.9 GBps. And with XTS-AES 256-bit hardware-based encryption on top, it’s an ideal business-class storage device for your laptop when on the go, or for a high-performance workstation at the office. Its only fault is its high price when purchased in low volume. Kingston’s KC2000 was a rather good performer when it went through our benchmarks the last go-round, although, it wasn’t one of the best SSDs. The reasoning? While Kingston was using a pretty potent component combo, there were some limitations to its design. Mainly, the NAND’s operation speeds were set to slower frequencies than what competitors were operating at, and the fact that the Kioxia NAND was of a 2-plane design, rather than 4-plane like Micron’s and Samsung’s, potentially losing out on some performance under mixed workloads. Kingston, the big OEM supplier that it is, had no issue with making the tradeoff of slower NAND speeds for better long-term reliability with early production BiCS4 96L TLC, but while the company optimized the KC2000 from a reliability standpoint, it failed to keep up with some of the more responsive competitors in testing. Both Adata’s XPG SX8200 Pro and the HP SSD EX950 gave the KC2000 a spanking with their faster operating 4-plane Micron 64L TLC NAND flash. Kingston’s KC2500 is the company’s 2020 refresh of the KC series and like WD did in the past with the Black SN750, Kingston’s KC2500 continues to leverage the same hardware as its predecessor. However, Kingston’s KC2500 comes with mature 96L TLC that can operate at the higher speed needed to be competitive, without sacrificing long-term reliability. With this boost, Kingston’s KC2500 is capable of delivering much faster sequential performance across the capacity range. Features Kingston’s KC2500 M.2 NVMe SSDs are available in capacities of 250GB up to 2TB. And when purchased as single units, their prices can be quite high. At the time of writing, Amazon has them listed around $0.22-$0.30 per GB, almost double the cost of some SSDs, even exceeding Samsung’s 970 EVO Plus. With a PCIe 3.0 x4 link, the company rates them to deliver sequential performance of up to 3.5/2.9 GBps read/write and hit upwards of 375,000/300,000 random read/write IOPS, a significant boost over the previous model. That equates to a 500 MBps bump in read/write performance at the 500GB capacity and 300/700 MBps read/write improvement at the 1TB and 2TB capacities. Furthermore, in order to deliver such high write speeds, Kingston has implemented a decently sized dynamic SLC write cache to absorb inbound requests. But once it fills, write speed will degrade until ample idle time allows it to recover. We were able to secure erase the Kingston drive via our Test Bench’s UEFI tool, and the SSD also supports the Trim command and S.M.A.R.T. data reporting. The KC2500 features end-to-end data protection and utilizes NANDXtend ECC Technology, Silicon Motion’s low-density parity-check code, to ensure the data integrity and reliability, too. Kingston backs the KC2500 with a five-year warranty or to endure 150 TB of writes per 250GB in capacity, whichever comes first. Software and Accessories To clone over your existing data to your new Kingston SSD, the company provides a key for Acronis True Image HD. Not only can you use it for cloning, but you can also use it for simple system image backups. Kingston also provides Kingston SSD Manager, an SSD toolbox that allows you to monitor drive health, update firmware, manage the TCG Opal and IEEE1667 security features, as well as secure erase and overprovision the SSD. But to be clear, it does all this on Intel-based systems. At the time of publishing, the tool would not scan and detect the KC2500 correctly on our X570 test bench in the top M.2 slot. A Closer Look Kingston’s KC2500 comes in an M.2 2280 double-sided form factor with a black PCB, so while the company continues to offer a nicer-looking PCB than others, the label on top of the SSD is quite distracting and takes away from the overall aesthetic. We can’t hold it against Kingston too much, though, this isn’t marketed towards your gaming build as much as it is towards high-end workstation and HPC systems. For those working with more sensitive data, Kingston’s KC2500 is a self-encrypting drive (SED) that features XTS-AES 256-bit hardware-based acceleration that is TCG Opal 2.0 compliant and meets IEEE-1667 specs (and Microsoft's eDrive, too). The XTS bit is important to note because utilizing XTS block cipher mode provides stronger data protection over other modes --it uses two AES keys. Kingston’s KC2500 leverages Silicon Motion’s SM2262EN NVMe 1.3 SSD controller. With a dual ARM Cortex R5 CPU with cores operating at 625 MHz each, they operate at the same speed as before on the KC2000. However, this is still a little bit slower than Adata’s XPG SX8200 Pro’s SM2262EN, which at 1TB, clocks in at 650MHz. The Silicon Motion SSD controller is of a DRAM-based architecture that leverages a pair of Kingston’s 512MB DDR3L DRAM packages (1GB total) operating at 1,600 MHz as buffer space for FTL mapping. Interfacing with the controller over 8-NAND channels are thirty-two dies of Kioxia’s BiCS4 96L TLC NAND flash. There are eight NAND packages (four on each side of the PCB) in total, assembled as four dies per package. While this is the same part as before, newer yields have proven more reliable than early ones and thus the new KC2500 sees a nice uplift in speed. Kingston has increased the interface speed from 525 MT/s up to 650 MT/s, a 21 percent speed increase along with other firmware optimizations, helping improve sequential performance by up to 28 percent. However, while faster sequential speeds are always nice to see, random performance matters more for our daily interaction.

Original release date : April 23, 2015 Series : Hyperdimension Neptunia Genre : Role-playing video game Engine : PhyreEngine Platforms : Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Microsoft Windows Developers : Compile Heart , Idea Factory , Compile Megadimension Neptunia VII represents the series’ first foray into the latest console generation. I had mentioned during my Omega Quintet review last year that Compile Heart had figured out a way to make the hardware work for them. Whereas in the last console cycle, their games used to feature plenty of frame hitching and muddy textures, Omega Quintet saw a consistently high framerate, instant loading, and higher quality visuals. Sure, these are still budget titles, but it’s fascinating being able to see the game grow from a technical perspective. Now it is important to keep in mind that this is a sequel. The title is read as “Megadimension Neptunia V 2”, otherwise known as Hyperdimension Neptunia Victory 2. While it takes place following the events of the original Victory, there’s honestly little in terms of cohesiveness with the earlier game's plot. Characters featured in that title such as Yellow Heart and Plutia are nowhere to be found. In fact, aside from the title, this could be considered a great entry to the series, though newcomers would benefit from playing prior entries just to get to know the characters. Our two heroines meet Uzume, a newcomer that folds in well with the crew. The story in Megadimension is broken up into three chapters, or alternate dimensions of Gameindustri. They each have their own story to tell embedded inside an overarching narrative. In the first, Zero Dimension, Neptune and Nepgear come across a mysterious console with a swirl logo on its lid (you can imagine what it looks like in your head). After turning the console on, they are warped into a world that has been torn apart by the presence of a Dark CPU, a gigantic evil entity. There, they meet a young CPU named Uzume who has suffered from a bout of amnesia. Worse yet, she is the last living being trying to hold the Dark CPU off from destroying the rest of the land and the friendly monsters she has aligned herself with. The second and third dimensions focus more on introducing other important characters before things come back around to Zero Dimension’s fate in the closing chapter. During those dimensions, three characters are introduced, each representing a respective company, much like the CPUs are with consoles. K-Sha is Konami, C-Sha is Capcom, B-Sha is Bandai Namco (complete with awesome SD Gundam partner), and S-Sha is Square Enix. They are all have their interesting quirks that fit in very well with the rest of the cast. Aside from the story hooks, there have been important changes made to the way a lot of the mechanics of the game works. First, let’s talk about combat. The game is still as combo-heavy as it ever was, but there have been changes made to the way players can customize their attacks to make the experience more tactical. You will still level up to unlock new moves and learn new skills to use. Some of the special skills are awesome and/or downright hilarious. However, players will no longer have to micromanage combo points. Now each weapon has a set number of slots that allow one to fit unlocked moves. There are three different types of attacks to customize: Standard, Rush, and Power. Gone is the Guard Meter and Break Attacks. Instead, certain enemies, mostly boss characters, have certain pieces of equipment, a cape for instance, that protects them. These parts can be broken to uncover weak points. Aside from being able to deal higher damage, this also rewards more XP, items, and credits, the game’s currency. Other than that, Rush still quickly increases a character’s EXE Drive which helps utilize special skills, while Power moves dish out the most damage. Some attacks can deal elemental damage, so the way you arrange your combo can be important as it always has been. EXE Drives are now treated more as a consumable resource and no longer carry over from one battle to the next. Whenever a CPU transforms into their HDD form, one EXE bar and some shares are spent instead of SP in previous entries. Meanwhile, shares are the lifeblood of a CPU and is important to keep an eye on for achieving the True Ending. Early on, the game felt more punishing as party members no longer fully recovered after leveling up, forcing you to return back to town to do so. The worst part is that being KOed costs a significant amount of shares. While this doesn’t matter that much towards the end (after reading up the ending guide), it can be a real pain if you were already struggling in that department. Each CPU Goddess can obtain a new power called the "Next Form." While this can prove challenging in the first half, the game soon becomes a cakewalk towards the end. This is especially true after reaching Level 30 where the EXE Drive bar can fill up almost per battle. There is also a hard cap on the quantity of each item you can carry, but even then it's more than enough as the game reaches its climax. Completing challenges such as being a part of the active party for X number of battles, can increase a character's stats to a large degree. There’s also not much grinding to speak of. As long as you’re willing to defeat every enemy you come across when trying to get from point A to point B in a dungeon, things should go smoothly once you reach the boss. You are also finally able to use Heal and Revive from the menu outside of battle. Although there is a risk of losing shares as I mentioned earlier, it doesn’t take much to regain them by doing a few guild quests. There are ways to keep the challenge going as players are able to visit the Colosseum or explore high level dungeons. Megadimension Neptunia VII does has reformed the Scout system and has done away with Stella’s Dungeon (which kind of bums me out, but c’est la vie). Here, the player can send scouts out into different dungeons and work on a timer. This is a great way to gather new items, money, dungeons, and even other scouts, as they cost nothing to use. They can also discover the means to unlock a Hidden Treasure inside their assigned dungeon or a new dungeon boss. After they return, you will have to manually check them at one of Gameindustri’s towns, but they automatically head back to the dungeon they were previously assigned to. The writing is still on point. New Game Plus is where things get really exciting. First off, you will be able to completely turn off random encounters on the overworld map. Likewise, you crank them up if you’re trying to complete a objective or level up the Lily Ranks. You can also increase player movement speed and jump height. Plus, being able to keep all of your progress and equipment means getting back to the ending only takes a couple hours. This is perfect for those looking to experience the other endings. The audio can be a little bit of a mixed bag. There is still an uneven amount of English voice acting in the game (around 50% of what the Japanese audio has), what’s there is very good - especially Uzume. This continues to be the only series from Japan that I stick with the English voice track despite the dual audio option. It also has an amazing soundtrack mostly filled with original tracks highlighted by a few that stand up to even what Falcom can manage. It is clear that Compile Heart has put a lot of work into creating the best Neptunia game yet. While it is still disappointing that there is such a heavy amount of dungeon recycling going on, there is plenty of new content for fans to enjoy. The story is enjoyable, the characters are likeable, and the new mechanics that have been introduced work together to create a far more engaging experience from a gameplay perspective. While it may not go far enough to appease those on the other side, people sitting on the fence may do well to give it a purchase. System Requirements (Minimum) CPU: Intel i5 2.3 GHz or comparable RAM: 6 GB OS: Windows 7 VIDEO CARD: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 650 or comparable FREE DISK SPACE: 17 GB DEDICATED VIDEO RAM: 1024 MB System Requirements (Recommended) CPU: Intel i5 3.3 GHz or comparable RAM: 8 GB OS: Windows 10 VIDEO CARD: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960 or comparable FREE DISK SPACE: 17 GB DEDICATED VIDEO RAM: 2048 MB

Is the meeting on Zoom or Google Meet? With more people working from home than ever before, video conferencing software has become an essential tool for remote workers to stay in touch with their teams and conduct meetings online. This has led Microsoft, Google and other software companies to push their video conferencing solutions much more aggressively than they did before the pandemic in order to catch up with Zoom which has seen tremendous adoption and success this year. According to a recent survey from Gartner, the video conferencing market shows no signs of slowing down with end-user spending projected to grow by 24.3 percent to reach $4.1bn this year. Meet links in Zoom invites Google recently started sending links to its Google Meet service to users that try to send out a Zoom invite using Gmail, according to a new report from MSPoweruser. A user tried to send out a Zoom invitation over Gmail using the Windows 10 Mail client when they realized that Google had modified their email in transit to add a Google Meet link to the invitation. To make things even more confusing, only recipients of the Zoom invite will see the added Meet link in their email. In the email itself, the correct Zoom link is under the 'where' section while the message “Join with Google Meet” and a Meet link are found in the 'joining info' section. While this may have been caused by an accident on Google's end, if it was intentional, it could give regulators yet another reason to proceed with antitrust regulation against the search giant.

A win for 10nm++ A newly-posted series of PassMark Software results (via @TUM_APISAK) show that Intel's 11th Generation Tiger Lake chips can't hang with AMD's Ryzen 4000-series (codename Renoir) APUs in multi-threaded workloads. However, Team Blue is reportedly still the reigning champ in single-threaded performance. The Core i7-1165G7 and the Ryzen 7 4800U are the two processors caught in today's brawl. The former is a 10nm++ processor that wields four Willow Cove cores clocked at 2.8 GHz, while the latter is a 7nm chip that flexes eight Zen 2 cores with a 1.8 GHz base clock. Regardless of what each chipmaker calls the technology, both chips come with threaded cores. The difference in core counts and base clock speeds between the quad-core Core i7-1165G7 and octo-core Ryzen 7 4800U is abundantly clear. Before even looking at the benchmark results, it's safe to speculate that the AMD chip will excel in multi-threaded workloads. PassMark essentially averages all the results from the software's PerformanceTest submissions to calculate the final score. The Ryzen 7 4800U has been out for some time now, so PassMark is working with a sample size of 55. There's only one sample for the Core i7-1165G7, so the margin for error is very high. That means we should take the benchmark results with a grain of salt. According to PassMark, the Core i7-1165G7's 1 GHz higher base clock propelled the chip to a single-thread score of 3,273 points. The Ryzen 7 4800U scored 2,631 points in the same test. Therefore, the Core i7-1165G7 delivered up to 24.4% higher single-core performance than the Ryzen 7 4800U. Core i7-1165G7 vs. Ryzen 7 4800U At the end of the day, the Ryzen 7 4800U is still the superior chip of the two. For what it's worth, PassMark rates the Ryzen 7 4800U with an overall score of 17,552 points and the Core i7-1165G7 with 13,372 points. As you can tell, the octa-core processor is generally up to 31.3% better than the Core i7-1165G7, at least according to PassMark's metrics. It is normal that benchmark submissions and other leaks start to surface as we get closer to a processor launch. Like the saying goes, a win is a win, and Tiger Lake appears to have beaten Renoir in single-core performance. Intel will hold a big virtual event on September 2. The chipmaker hasn't explicitly confirmed that it will announce Tiger Lake at the event, but the general expectation is that Intel will ultimately unleash the 10nm++ processors at the event.

Original release date : June 17, 2020 Publisher : Ratalaika Games Platforms : Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Xbox One Developers : Ratalaika Games , Pixelteriyaki Have you ever wondered what it’s like to be a cursed squid that can shoot enemies to the beat of a siren song? Me neither, but you can do just that in Radio Squid! Developed by Pixel Teriyaki and published by Ratalaika Games, Radio Squid is an arcade retro-style shmup with a couple of unique twists. Shmups have to be one of the most commonly made genres around for indie developers, making it hard to stand out from the crowd. So, does Radio Squid sink or swim? So as with any shmup, you control a character who is surrounded by enemies that attack whilst trying to dodge all of the projectiles and dish out your own carnage. It would be unfair to not talk about what makes this Squid stand out in the ocean of this very po[CENSORED]ted genre. Firstly, you can’t attack at any time. Your goal in the game is to rebuild the Siren’s song, collecting musical notes that give you the power to attack the enemies. However, this mechanic is actually quite interesting as it adds a tactical edge to the game that differs from others in the genre. You see, you can’t attack until you pick up a note, yet the enemies are all trying to take you out as you frantically dodge all the projectiles with no way to defend yourself. It means you have to try and plan your approach and prepare yourself for when you pick it up as once you grab it, that’s when the chaos begins. If you haven’t planned properly, you can get yourself into a real muddle because of the other reason this game is rather unique: you can damage yourself with your own projectiles! The projectiles you fire actually rebound off walls and can come back and hurt you, which is incredibly challenging to handle when you’re also being fired at from multiple directions. I like that they’ve tried something different in Radio Squid but the execution adds too much frustration instead of fun. The arenas are so narrow that if your execution isn’t perfect from the get-go, you’re likely to be damaging yourself a lot more than you would think and your health quickly declines. However, as there’s not much room to move around, it’s pretty much inevitable you’re going to get damaged I personally don’t think that shmups should feel like this as it slows down the flow as you cautiously attack. I prefer shmups which are skilful, leaving you fully in control, with deaths being your mistake or the result of an attack you can remember and learn how to avoid next time. Unfortunately, most deaths in Radio Squid are unavoidable and due to bad luck or friendly fire. To tackle this problem, you either need to try and plan the fight properly or learn to use the wall wraps effectively. It’s almost impossible to plan each fight properly though because you’re constantly coming up against new enemy types that you don’t yet understand. Some enemies, for example, only attack when you’re right in front of them – so you’ll most likely die figuring out their strategy. It’s like the game is at odds with itself sometimes and that’s why it’s so frustrating. The wall wraps can help a great deal but again, they can also do more harm than good. You can fire through them so, for example, you can shoot through the wall on the right side of the screen so the projectile appears in the left side and hits something, but it hinders you just as much in the same way – you can think you’re safe until a random projectile you fired accidentally at an enemy rebounds off the wall behind it and finishes you off. It’s made even more frustrating by the fact you can’t stop firing, only change the direction of your attacks to up, down, left or right. You’re forced to fire to the beat of the song that’s playing, so you can be firing super slow one second then spray lots of projectiles the next, making it even harder to dodge your own shots. There’s no real way to get around it, once you’ve hit the siren’s note, it’s go time! You must finish the fight or you’ll die, having to spend your hard-earned coins to continue. Thankfully, there are ample chances to retrieve coins if you use your head a little as you play. Coins are dropped from every enemy that you defeat but the easier way to retrieve coins is with your bomb ability. The bomb you have removes all projectiles on the screen (even your own) and converts them all into coins. Of course, you only have a few uses of this in each world so you have to use them smartly. This is my favourite mechanic in the game, as it’s the only mechanic that actually feels fair. The self-damage and the wall-wraps just feel at odds with each other so the bomb is a very welcome addition. However, you lose approx 80% of your coins upon each death, which is a huge amount. Between each world, you can spend your coins on upgrades and items to prepare you for the next world. That’s all well and good but again, it’s at odds with itself. Why? Because at the end of each world you face a formidable boss, with some attacks that you will literally not be able to dodge meaning you die, a lot. Obviously the more you die the more coins you lose, and it’s not exactly easy to recoup those coins against a boss as they don’t fire projectiles everywhere, mostly they just charge at you. Thanks to dying a lot, every time I moved on to a new world I didn’t have enough coins to buy any items, which made it feel pointless to even have them. Maybe I’m just not great at the game or it’s meant for multiple playthroughs, but it’s just not a game that grips me to want to play through it again and get better. I should be having fun while I’m learning, and I wasn’t. The game holds a nice monochrome pixel art-style aesthetic that looks pretty if a little bit lacking in detail. It reminds of games I played back on my original Game Boy, which shows how retro it looks but it’s not necessarily a bad thing, it’s just a little basic with some very simple animation that makes reading enemies’ attacks quite difficult. There’s a decent variety of enemy types as you get further into the game, making them stand out from each other in terms of appearance, but they’re still very simple 2D designs. The bosses are all unique looking if again a bit simple but it doesn’t detract from the experience in any way. Although, Radio Squid rightfully has a really funky soundtrack, one of my favourites in the genre even. It’s very catchy and retro and I found myself humming along without even realising. This squid knows a good siren’s song when it hears one. It’s almost like electro-jazz, it’s bizarre but fun and unfortunately probably my favourite aspect of the game. Final Conclusion: Radio Squid is a game with conflicting ideas that makes it partially enjoyable but equally just as frustrating. The bomb power is useful and a feature that feels fair and challenging whereas the ability to hurt yourself just feels the opposite. The claustrophobic arenas make the trek to reach the note to start your attack all the more pointlessly dangerous, meaning you will likely take cheap hits before you even start attacking yourself. Then, the wall wraps mean you have way too many things to keep track of, including your own projectiles. It all adds up to an experience that feels unfair and a bit bland. You’ll find yourself hoarding coins because of how many stupid ways you can get hit, making the process of even having coins feel pointless. The boss fights are basically a penny pusher machine that eats your spare change and makes you wish you never went to the arcade and played Radio Squid anyway. It has a couple of nice ideas but ultimately, they don’t make up for its downfalls. Buy it if you want an easy platinum trophy, but don’t expect to find yourself wanting to play more once you’ve unlocked it. I’m not gaga for this Radio Squid.

Just as Azure has overtaken Microsoft's Windows Server platform, the new Chromium-based Edge Browser has taken center stage from Windows. In the new Microsoft, Azure has – to a certain extent – taken over the center stage from the company's Windows Server platform, and the new Chromium Edge Browser has taken center stage from Windows. The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated this result as the market rapidly turns from focusing on local hardware to using the Cloud as its primary place to do computing. As a result, each new browser update now feels a bit like what the old Windows refresh cycles used to feel like – but without the old compatibility drama. Microsoft Inspire took place this week, so let’s talk about the browser's new features, mostly focused on business users (now mostly working from home) that look compelling. Phishing and malware protection During the event, Microsoft shared that two independent studies by NSS Labs ranked the browser No. 1 in terms of defending against Phishing and malware. Phishing, in particular, has become an enormous problem during the pandemic. This exposure is because the usual protections – telling a coworker who used to sit across from you that you got an unusual mail from an executive – or just being able to tell whether something came from inside or outside the company, doesn’t work so well when you are working from home. Phishing attacks have gone up astronomically, estimated at a whopping 667%, and it's thought the recent devastating Twitter breach was due to phishing. Given the level of exposure and the realization that employees, particularly executives, are exposed at home, this is both a timely and critical feature. Collections bridging mobile and PC I’ve started using the Edge browser on my smartphone as well, and collections, while handy on the PC, weren’t initially available on the mobile version. Collections help you organize things so you can find them again; I have several projects that this feature has helped me with, but that meant using my PC to get the benefit. One of the new updates allows you to have those collections on your mobile device, and since the browsers sync, I can now access those collections from home. Another addition: being able to add a note in collections, which saves you time if you forget why you put the element in the collection. Work-life switching I don’t have this problem because I not only work from home, I think I work for myself (yes, I’m pretty sure I’m delusional on that last). But for most people, mainly while they are working from home, they need to flip between work and home modes. That means very different credentials and profiles. That fun profile you use when you're browsing the web and playing Xbox games isn’t going to play as well if you are working in Sharepoint. With that in mind, Edge allows you to maintain a work and a play profile – and it will automatically prompt you to switch profiles when it sees you are moving between modes. This feature could also help with phishing because the profile people see on the web isn’t the profile you use for work. So even if they copy it and attempt to use it to fool co-workers via a phishing attack, it shouldn’t work. That said, if you are also playing games with co-workers, all bets are off. But, really, who does that? (I do recall a co-worker causing some trouble playing Star Trek on a mainframe years ago, so some things don’t change that much.) Endpoint Data Loss Protection (DLP) DLP is being released as a public preview, and it removes the need to load additional data loss protection software. I expect this was a feature that financial and government users wanted, but, given how aggressively some hostile states are looking for data illicitly, most companies should appreciate. Focused on complying with regulations and privacy, IT shops can extend their control over sensitive data when users access that data with this browser. That feature became available July 21. Wrapping up The Chromium-based Edge browser has become my default browser. And while I still load Google Chrome as a backup, I find I only still use it to access Google services on occasion. Edge has become my default, and with these improvements, it should be on track to become the new corporate/government standard. Since this browser is still young and early in its development, I do wonder what is coming next. Of course, the big thing for me about this browser is that its foundation came from Google, making it a fascinating showcase of how much Microsoft itself has changed.

Bring the ambiance outside your screen If you're a movie buff, designing the perfect home theater is a must! This project, created by MCPCapitalLLC, uses a Raspberry Pi to create ambient lighting that matches whatever you're watching on TV. The setup is known as Harmonize Project. It interprets HDMI input from your TV with the Pi to determine what color to send to the Phillips Hue bridge. A demo of the project was released in December, but this week the source code was officially made available for anyone interested in recreating the project at home. Harmonize Project was tested with a Raspberry Pi 4B and uses Python to control the Phillips Hue Lights. There are multiple lights that change depending on the average pixel color relative to their physical location to the TV. If you want to recreate this project at home, you'll need a Raspberry Pi, Philips Hue lights, an HDMI splitter, an HDMI capture card and at least 512 MB of RAM. Check out the full source code on Github to see how it works and get started. Be sure to follow the Harmonize Project channel on YouTube for future updates.

Hello, and thanks for your reply. This is a wide question, but I will try to explain my way of handling challenges. The first thing to do is to keep calm, control my self. This is the key for every stressful situation. Self confidence plays a big role in it. After that, I try to understand the challenge clearly, to not rush and make wrong decisions. Then I would break down that challenge into small parts to manage it easily to finally start my work. If needed, I would seek for some advices from other workers/superior with me. Finally, after I solved it, I would try to learn something from the challenge I handled, if I made any mistake I will do anything I can to not repeat it. Challenges are always useful, it makes us stronger.

I really love both songs, but I'll vote DH1 for the vocal and the deep instrumental.

Original release date : July 23, 2020 Developer : Polygon Treehouse Genre : Adventure game Platforms : Nintendo Switch, Microsoft Windows, Mac OS Publishers : United Label , CI Games There's magic in the air. As kids, we value folk tales for their ability to stoke the flames of our imagination. As adults, we recognize folk tales as teaching tools that explore and celebrate of the human condition. Each one tackles a tricky topic, with a fantastical spin that amplifies both the beauties and horrors of life. In this way, Röki is similar to the Scandinavian folk tales from which it borrows its setting. Behind the wondrous world of Polygon Treehouse’s point-and-click adventure is the heartfelt story of a family divided, and a lesson about trust, family, and strength. Clocking in at around 12 hours, Röki is a beast of an adventure as far as narrative-driven indie games are concerned. You’ll spend the bulk of that time scouring the snow-laden hills of our world and beyond. Attentiveness and vigilance are heavily rewarded — anything could be the key to unlocking new sights and stories. Any less than an eagle eye for detail and you’ll be guaranteeing a few more hours of journal flipping, recalling past dialogue, and trialing item combinations. Fortunately, the beautiful world of Röki makes it easy to keep focus. Has to be a magic toad. A walk through the woods Deep in the woods resides a family of three: Tove, the elder sister; Lars, the younger brother; and their father, Henrik. Tove, whom you control, has stepped up to fill her mother’s shoes, having lost her some years prior. All is normal until the arrival of a giant monster rips their family, and their house, apart. As Tove, you pursue the monster into another dimension, where an array of mystical creatures stands between you and your family. Armed with pen, paper, and a backpack that would make Dora the Explorer jealous, you set off to rescue your brother. In classic point and click fashion, each area features a plethora of interactables that you can collect or examine. The more you click, the more your item pool and knowledge base grows. Tove herself can’t be moved with the mouse alone, however, relying on traditional WASD instead. This combination would undoubtedly be frustratingly if Röki didn’t also include a keyboard-friendly means to interact. In fact, I found it more comfortable to continue my point-and-click adventure without any pointing or clicking. For the exceptionally tough obstacles, you can also drag to combine items in your inventory to craft new tools. Again, everything can be done without the mouse, though without any way to quickly sift through your item trove. Tove’s journal, which logs your discoveries and clues, is equally conducive to your success. With the never-ending deluge of locations, tasks, and dialogue, the journal is an absolute lifesaver. Both inventory and journal are essential, but become ever more difficult to navigate as they become more bloated with items and information. What do trolls eat? Of trolls and tomtes Bookmarked in the journal is a map that outlines most locations in Röki’s magical themepark. Setting the game apart from its contemporaries is its non-linear puzzle solving and storytelling. The order of its primary narrative beats remain unaffected, but any supplementary events can be tackled in a few different orders. Naturally, this bleeds over into the exploration — certain locations will be visited earlier or later in the game. Each location is a sight to behold. Röki’s art direction is its greatest asset; the prospect of seeing new sights is the ultimate motivation to press onward. However, in its quest for aesthetic cohesion, visual signifiers for the game’s myriad interactables are sorely lacking. Pressing the F key causes all interactables in the environment to flash, and the second half of Röki is defined its overuse. In many instances, key items are hidden in the most unassuming of places. By the time I had reached the game’s third act, I was spamming the key in every location I entered. Whether through diligent searching or ardent spamming, your inventory will be packed with items. One at a time, each one is sacrificed to the puzzle gods on your quest for more story bits. Puzzles themselves are relatively simple, but the items required for their solutions may not be so easy to come across. Paying attention to dialogue and extra close attention to the environment is crucial. Clues come in many shapes and forms, but Röki’s charming characters and stunning environments are more than encouraging. Though, the aforementioned reliance on the highlight feature is omnipresent. The world is your oyster. Balancing act Puzzles, for the most part, still give you plenty of room to breathe. You’re free to explore and tackle other locations as you see fit, save for a few story-heavy moments. Rarely are you locked into a puzzle, forced to contend with it until it’s solved. This remains true until Röki’s third act — a rough puzzle gauntlet that’s sure to sap every ounce of your puzzle-solving power. Beyond this, the complexity of these later puzzles expose the awkwardness of Röki’s interface. Dragging and dropping items, mani[CENSORED]ting them in your inventory, and other actions take up an absurd amount of time. The constant opening and close and maneuvering of my inventory and its contents halved my progress speed. And with so many puzzles, it’s hard not to feel like the slow rate of progression is no longer worth the reward. The second act, home to Röki’s signature non-linear puzzle solving and exploration, remains the perfect blend of challenges and rewards. That is not to say that Röki’s more linear segments are bad. The game uses these moments to focus in on its story, to great effect. The tale of Tove and her family is wholly relatable, and beautiful in its representation. Röki’s visual storytelling and solid writing kept me immersed in the world and invested in its characters. But nothing is as captivating as the feeling of discovering new areas and creatures. Freely exploring the world of Röki, piecing together the story of the forest — this emergent storytelling is best suited for the adventure. One step at a time. Through the looking glass Röki preserves the magic and message of the folk tales it draws inspiration from. Expect a moving story, gorgeous environments, and classic, point-and-click puzzling to tie it all together. It’s a fairly lengthy adventure that chooses to spend its time building up its detailed world, and less time trying to reinvent the wheel. Its gameplay is quite uninspired, but doesn’t do much to dull the story’s shine. REQUIRED CONFIGURATION MINIMUM: Operating system : Windows 7 / 8.1 / 10 64-bit Processor : Intel Core i5 2500 or AMD FX 6350 RAM: 4 GB of memory Graphics: Intel HD Graphics 530 or Radeon RX Vega 8 DirectX: Version 11 Disk space : 5 GB of available disk space RECOMMENDED: Operating system : Windows 10 64-bit Processor : Intel Core i5 4690k or AMD Ryzen 5 1600 RAM: 8 GB of memory Graphics: Geforce GTX 970 or AMD Radeon RX 480 DirectX: Version 11 Disk space : 5 GB of available disk space