XZoro

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DH2, rhythm + melody .

Game Informations. Developers : Ovid Works. Publisher : All in! Games. Released : Aug 12, 2020. Genre : Adventure, Action. Mode : Single-player. Platforms : Microsoft Windows - PlayStation 4 - Xbox One - Nintendo Switch. One morning, when Gregor Samsa woke from troubled dreams, he found himself transposed into a video game adaptation of Franz Kafka’s oft-referenced The Metamorphosis. While the game has very little to do with its source material, it certainly has a great many charms. The visuals are excellent, the sense of scale is wonderfully executed, and the events on display are typically amusing. Still, the game can feel a bit rote, plus it’s rather short and the narrative fizzles out unsatisfactorily. Regardless, there’s plenty to enjoy about Metamorphosis, provided you know what you’re getting into. Out of the bed and into the drawers Although Metamorphosis is very upfront about where it draws inspiration from, it hardly resembles the famous story from where its name is taken. While Kafka’s story begins with Gregor Samsa waking up in his bed to find that he has transformed into a gigantic insect, this doesn’t happen in the game. Instead, Gregor gets out of bed as I’d imagine he does every day. In the first couple of minutes, everything appears to be perfectly standard. But it doesn’t take long for him to shrink into a tiny insect. The narrative of Metamorphosis focuses on Gregor being led to the headquarters of an organization called Tower. He’s told it’s the only way to become human again. The early part of the game takes place in the home of his friend Josef and Gregor even tries to get his attention. Josef is being hounded by two police officers for unspecified reasons, but Gregor has to focus on getting to Tower. The majority of the story sees him figuring out the way there and acquiring the documentation that will allow him inside. The dialogue is well-written and the story itself is fairly engaging, even if many of the tasks you’re meant to accomplish for progress’ sake can seem a tad bit perfunctory. Metamorphosis takes you to some very interesting places, including the law office of an elderly lawyer, a large bug city, and Tower itself. But the story ends anticlimactically, unfortunately. There are two endings that you can select via an enduringly po[CENSORED]r binary choice mechanic. But both endings are too brief and don’t do much to hammer home the game’s themes or put a satisfying conclusion on Gregor’s tale. The game honestly just feels fairly rushed, with a major late-game event being treated as a “That’s it?” punchline more than anything else. Crawling on all fours I’m reluctant to refer to Metamorphosis as a walking simulator, but that’s basically what it is. However, that label alone doesn’t give it enough credit. You could get away with referring to it as a guided puzzle-platformer as well. The game is played from a first-person perspective and you can typically see your front legs. Since you’re a bug, you move like one too. Gregor can jump fairly high and walk up steep inclines. The controls are mostly tight and the game does a very good job of making you feel like a bug. You’ll also be able to walk in various pools of liquid that grant you the ability to walk up walls or objects by holding down a button. You can’t walk upside down, though. There are some puzzles to be found in Metamorphosis but they’re typically very simple. For the most part, you’ll be using your legs to move contraptions backwards and forwards. There are a few more literal puzzles, but they’re extremely infrequent. The platforming is quite solid, though. The game’s most frequent challenge is that you’ll need to navigate the environment by carefully jumping on things to get around. These sections are certainly enjoyable, despite the game being in first-person. Most of the time, however, you’re going to simply be heading from Point A to Point B.You can press the tab key at any time, which will zoom out and show you the entire area you’re in. The place you’re meant to go is then highlighted for you and you just need to figure out how to get there. Because of the way the camera zooms out, it can be a bit difficult to tell which direction to head in. In larger areas, navigating can be obnoxious due to this. Do all the things! It doesn’t help matters that most of the game feels like a series of fetch quests. You need to get a thing in order to progress. Naturally, this means you have to talk to other bugs, find one that needs a favor, do a separate task for them, and then you’ll get to move on. A solid two-thirds of Metamorphosis focuses on these sorts of jobs. But at least many of the situations and locations are unique and interesting enough to keep the game palatable. For instance, at one point you need to get a certificate. You go to a lawyer’s office to acquire it, only to have to take a detour into a bug night club on your way. Afterward, you then have to go deep into the lawyer’s desk. All of the game’s locations are po[CENSORED]ted with other bugs, many of whom you can talk to. They’ve frequently got amusing things to say too, so they’re well worth interacting with. The world of Metamorphosis are what steals the show in the end, though. While the game is far from a state-of-the-art marvel, the environments all look excellent. Everything is suitably cartoony, yet twisted and Burton-eque. Everything has a real sense of place and a praiseworthy attention to detail that makes the world a joy to inhabit. And the game really makes you feel tiny as you walk by huge books and pieces of machinery. One area has papers flying through the air. If you fall, you’ll land on one and it’ll drop you right where you were before. Change (in the house of flies) Metamorphosis is an entertaining experience. It controls well, looks great, and has a story that’ll hold your attention. However, the plot that doesn’t really go anywhere and the overall lazy conclusion dulls the experience. Plus, it’s extremely short. It’s easy to complete the game in two-and-a-half hours or so, of which I couldn’t help but be disappointed. I think the game is worth a look due to the zany world and dreamlike visuals, but don’t expect it to keep you busy for long. System Requirements: OS : Windows 7 Processor : Intel Core i5 (2nd gen) or AMD FX 6350 Memory : 8 GB RAM Graphics : NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960 or AMD R9 270X Storage : 12 GB available space ----------------------- RECOMMENDED: OS : Windows 10 Processor : Intel Core i5 (4th gen) or AMD Ryzen 5 Memory : 8 GB RAM Graphics : NVIDIA GeForce 970 or AMD RX 570 Storage : 12 GB available space

A dealer source tells us that the Land Cruiser will be gone next year, but it's likely to make a triumphant return sometime soon. The Toyota Land Cruiser won't return to the U.S. market for the 2022 model year, according to a dealer source. It may return later on in redesigned form, but we don't know how long of a hiatus it will take. The 2021 model year will be the last for the current 200-series model. Earlier this year, a rumor surfaced that the Toyota Land Cruiser, beloved behemoth and longtime owner of the Fanciest Toyota title, was getting axed after the 2021 model year. Since we prefer not to fan unverified Internet rumors, we refrained from jumping into the fracas on that one until we could get some confirmation—which, of course, was unforthcoming from Toyota. But now we've spoken with a partner in a large dealer franchise who confirmed that 2021 is the end of the trail for Toyota's iconic SUV. But, thankfully, maybe not for long. "It's gone for 2022, but I think it'll be back soon, and way more modern and luxurious," he told us. The current Land Cruiser—the 200-series, in Cruiser parlance—dates to the 2008 model year and is (over)due for major improvements, especially on the fuel-economy front, where its 14 mpg EPA combined rating is doing Toyota's fleet average no favors. Toyota also has a habit of dropping nameplates and reviving them later on, and not always at multi-decade intervals like the Supra. The Venza went on a walkabout in 2015 and returned for 2021, and we'd suspect that the Land Cruiser won't be gone for six years. One reason for the decision would appear to stem from sales, or lack thereof. In 2019, Toyota sold 3536 Land Cruisers, which represents a 9.7-percent sales increase over 2018 but still amounts to a rounding error for a company that sold about 2.4 million vehicles in each of the prior two years. Still, if we modestly estimate that Toyota makes $10,000 per Land Cruiser—and, given the age of the platform and the shared Tundra engine, we'd suspect it's much more than that—$35 million a year isn't a bad take for a niche vehicle. But if the Land Cruiser is to become more than a niche player, it needs a wholesale overhaul. Do we see an 300-series with a hybrid powertrain ambling over a pass out there on the horizon? Let's hope so. And let's hope the Land Cruiser isn't gone for as long as the Supra (or the Bronco, for that matter). A redesign can be exciting, but everybody loves a comeback.

US President Donald Trump has pardoned former campaign manager Paul Manafort, ex-adviser Roger Stone and the father of Trump's son-in-law. Manafort was convicted in 2018 in an investigation into alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 US election. Trump has previously commuted the prison sentence of Stone, who was convicted of lying to Congress. They are among 29 people to benefit from Mr Trump's latest clemency spree before he leaves office next month. Twenty-six of them received full pardons while another three received commutations. A commutation usually takes the form of a reduced prison term, but does not erase the conviction or imply innocence. A pardon is an expression of the president's forgiveness that confers extra privileges such as restoring the convict's right to vote or serve on juries. His pardon for Manafort spared his former campaign chairman from serving most of his seven-and-a-half year prison term for financial fraud and conspiring to obstruct the investigation into him. He had been serving his term under home confinement since being released from federal prison in May over fears of coronavirus, but is now a free man. The grateful political operative responded by tweeting: "Mr President, my family & I humbly thank you for the Presidential Pardon you bestowed on me. Words cannot fully convey how grateful we are." Another pardon went to Charles Kushner, a real estate magnate who is the father of Ivanka Trump's husband, Jared Kushner, a White House adviser. Kushner Snr - whose family boasts a portfolio of 20,000 properties from New York to Virginia - was sentenced to two years in prison in 2004 for charges including tax evasion, campaign finance offences and witness tampering. The witness tampering charge arose from Kushner Snr's retaliation against his brother-in-law, who was co-operating with authorities against him. Kushner Snr hired a prostitute to seduce his brother-in-law, recorded their encounter and sent it to his own sister. Former Trump adviser Chris Christie, who as a New Jersey prosecutor jailed Kushner Snr, told CNN it was "one of the most loathsome, disgusting crimes" he had come across. It was the president's second wave of clemency orders in as many days. On Tuesday night he pardoned 15 people and gave commutations to five others. They included two other figures who were convicted in the US special counsel inquiry into alleged Russian election interference, three ex-Republican members of Congress, and four Blackwater military contractors who were involved in a 2007 massacre in Iraq. In November, Mr Trump pardoned former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, who was also convicted in the special counsel's Russia inquiry. Mr Flynn had admitted lying to the FBI before attempting to retract his guilty plea. Special counsel Robert Mueller's 22-month inquiry concluded in May last year that it could not determine Mr Trump or any of his aides had conspired with the Kremlin to sway the 2016 election in his favour. The president regularly condemned the investigation as a witch hunt and he has now pardoned five figures convicted as a result of that probe.

The one-off Supra Sport Top is based on the big-winged Heritage Edition from last year's show and has two removable roof panels that are stored in the trunk. Toyota built a one-off 2021 Supra Sport Top for the virtual SEMA show this year, based on the Heritage Edition from last year's show. A shop in Fort Worth, Texas, cut off the roof, and Toyota's North America R&D center in Michigan provided 3D-printed roof panels. The Supra Sport Top is powered by a 3.0-liter inline six with a modified factory turbo. Toyota built a one-off 2021 Supra Sport Top, which is essentially a targa-top variant, for the virtual SEMA aftermarket trade show this year. The car pays homage to the open-roof A80 Supras of the 1990s. When asked if the build should get our hopes up for a coming open-top variant for the current-gen Supra, which is a 2021 10Best winner, Toyota told Car and Driver that it's "just an awesome one-off concept. Nothing forward-looking to announce." The Supra Sport Top is based on the Heritage Edition that was shown at SEMA last year, huge wing and all, but KC's Paint Shop in Fort Worth, Texas, chopped off the roof, while the two contoured roof panels, which can be stored in the trunk, were 3D printed at Toyota Motor North America R&D headquarters in Ann Arbor, Michigan. The team in Plano, Texas, added the latches and clamps and also reinforced the body to account for the roof loss. Additionally, the paint shop finished off the custom bodywork and coated the Supra in a paint mix to match the factory option Absolute Zero white. It's equipped with round taillights, 19-inch HRE wheels wrapped in Toyo Proxes rubber, and Brembo brakes. A turbocharged 3.0-liter inline-six sourced from BMW powers the Supra, and for the 2021 model year it produces 382 horsepower and 368 pound-feet of torque, up 47 horsepower and 3 pound-feet from the 2020 model. The more powerful Supra 3.0 launched to 60 mph in 3.8 seconds in our testing and raced through the quarter-mile in 12.1 seconds at 117 mph. A Toyota spokesperson explained that the Sport Top “doesn’t go as extreme as the Heritage Edition,” for “the kind of customer that simply wants to bolt things on, in this case, a downpipe and a full exhaust.” It doesn't have the Heritage Edition's modified factory turbo, though it has a dual center-exit exhaust and a more efficient rear diffuser. We hope that Toyota eventually adds a removable-roof option to the fifth-generation Supra, mostly because we want to amplify the cracks and pops of the exhaust without suffering from its buffeting with the windows down. That's only one of our few gripes with the new Supra, though. This content is imported from {embed-name}. You may be able to find the same content in another format, or you may be able to find more information, at their web site.

The body of Karima Baloch, a Pakistani human rights activist, has been found in Toronto, Canada, where she had been living for five years in exile. Ms Baloch, 37, a campaigner from the restive region of Balochistan in western Pakistan, was a vocal critic of the Pakistani military and state. Toronto police issued an appeal after she went missing on Sunday and later confirmed that her body had been found. Police said there were "not believed to be any suspicious circumstances". In 2016, Ms Baloch was named in the BBC's annual list of 100 inspirational and influential women for her work as a campaigner. She left Pakistan in 2015, after terrorism charges were levelled against her. She continued to campaign in exile for the rights of people in Balochistan, both on social media and in person. And the threats followed her, according to Lateef Johar Baloch, a close friend and fellow activist who also lives in Toronto. He told the BBC that Ms Baloch had recently received anonymous threats warning someone would send her a "Christmas gift" and "teach her a lesson". Ms Baloch's sister told the BBC Urdu service on Tuesday that her death was "not only a tragedy for the family, but also for the Baloch national movement". "She didn't go abroad because she wanted to, but because... open activism in Pakistan had become impossible," Mahganj Baloch said. Balochistan province has been host to a long-running separatist insurgency. Ms Baloch was a well-known activist in the region; she was the first female head of the Baloch Students' Organisation (BSO) - a banned activist group. Her first public exposure as an activist was in 2005, in Balochistan's Turbat area, where she attended a protest over missing persons carrying the picture of one of her missing relatives. Activists in Balochistan say thousands of campaigners have gone missing in recent years. The Pakistani military denies accusations that it's brutally suppressing the region's aspirations for autonomy. Several members of Baloch's extended family had been linked to the Baloch resistance movement over the years, and two of her uncles - a brother of her mother and a brother of her father - had gone missing. Their dead bodies were later found. She rose to the head of the BSO in 2006, but many of the group's activists were either "disappeared" or went into hiding in the following years, and in 2013 the government banned the group. Baloch went into exile in 2015 after terrorism charges were filed against her. After relocating to Toronto she married a fellow activist, Hamal Baloch. She remained active in exile both on social media and in human rights activities in Canada and Europe. Reacting to the news of Baloch's death, the Balochistan National Movement (BNM) announced a 40-day mourning period.

Game Informations. Developers : Kyle Thompson. Publisher : Kyle Thompson. Released : Aug 26, 2020. Genre : Action, Platformer, 2D. Mode : Single-player. Platforms : Microsoft Windows. Sometimes less is more. Sure, it’s plenty of fun to farm enemies for rare drops and hit walls while hoping for secrets, but there’s a lot to love about a game that has no issue with cutting all the fat. Sheepo only takes a few hours to complete, but its difficulty is so finely-balanced and its pacing is so tight and focused that I wouldn’t want it longer. I even liked the complete absence of combat. If you’re in the market for an extremely lean, yet enjoyable, Metroid-like then look no further. Sheepo‘s premise is simple. You’re a sheep of some sort and you’re also an astronaut! You’ve been sent out on an assignment to touch down on a planet and collect six eggs containing the future offspring of some native creatures. You’re instructed by someone on a walkie-talkie. Where the sheep is keeping the walkie-talkie and how the walkie-talkie even works over such a long distance is beyond me. Must be a sheep thing. You’ll come across occasional NPCs, too. There are a shop and an art gallery, plus inhabitants out in the field. Most of them are birds and a couple of them muse that you’re certainly the strangest bird they’ve laid eyes upon. They’re definitely not wrong. The dialogue is silly and entertaining. There isn’t a ton of it, but what’s here is well written and charming. Sheepo‘s visuals are much the same. The game is simple but colorful with a very chill aesthetic. Safe in my skin When I said that Sheepo had no combat, I meant it. Well, mostly. You have no attacks whatsoever. Which is all well and good, as there are typically no enemies. Most of the challenge is based around platforming and boss battles. What? I said “mostly.” The platforming is rather good and very responsive. You’ll typically be jumping from spot to spot, wall-jumping up steep areas, and dodging dangerous spiked traps and the like. Many individual sections remind me of Super Meat Boy, and, while getting through them without getting hit can be challenging, you can take a few hits and the invulnerability time afterward is quite generous, meaning that you can brute force your way through the tougher parts if you’re not up to them. There’s a good variety to the platforming as well. There are two kinds of objects that you can interact with in mid-air. One is just a white orb that allows you to stop upon making contact before picking a direction and launching yourself in it. The other is a blue square whose trajectory is based on which direction you reach it from. One of the biggest hooks in Sheepo is the shapeshifting mechanic, though. Beating a boss will net you one of its eggs. The sheep has an ability where touching an egg just once gives him the ability to briefly transform into that creature whenever he makes contact with one. You’ll see birds around that you can change into in order to briefly fly around. Burrowing worms similarly allow you to tunnel underground. There are four of these and they flow together very well. They also lead to some enjoyable and memorable gameplay sections. Don’t make me hurt you Since you have no offensive abilities in Sheepo, you’ll naturally have to deal with bosses without directly attacking them. For the most part, you simply dodge them. Their attacks are often of the bullet-hell variety and they have unique gimmicks. One boss destroys the ground and leaves a rancid pool of harmful liquid in its place and you have to force it to break every bit of the floor. Another rolls on walls while creating slime before getting closer and closer to you with each additional pass. You do usually kill these bosses, but you do so using their own attacks or by making them harm themselves on the environment. A couple of bosses make use of a homing attack that lodges itself into the walls or floors when it misses you. Just jump above it and aim it at the boss and you’ll send the sucker back where it came from. The boss battles have roughly the same kind of difficulty as the platforming sections do. They can seem tough at first, but it won’t take more than a few tries before you know exactly what to do and get past them without issue. Truthfully, Sheepo nails its difficulty curve in a way that I don’t see all that often. It really does feel just right, challenging enough to keep you paying attention but never so much that sections get old. Everything moves at a steady clip. It’s very much designed to keep you moving as opposed to wasting your time, which I very much appreciated. Save me Saving is handled much like most other Metroid-likes. There are statues all over the place that heal you. At first, you can only take a few hits but there are six heart containers you can find to take two more. Three containers net you a new heart, but I found that having just the one extra hit was the sweet spot. Aside from those few containers, there are feathers you can find all over the game world. These aren’t typically hard to locate but getting them while staying in one piece can be a challenge. Towards the end of the game, they’re all marked on your map. Speaking of which, the map is a simple, grid-based affair that gets the job done. It marks the locations of save points and teleport statues as well. It also designates the different areas with colors. As long as you’re paying attention, it’s hard to get stuck, as you’ll just go back to a square that has an exit you haven’t found. If I have any real complaint about Sheepo, it’s that the level design is actually rather flat and unmemorable. All the locations feel the same, even if they do look different. The platforming and shapeshifting sections stick out, but you’ll be hard-pressed to remember most rooms just by looking at them. For something so hand-crafted, it’s easy to expect landmarks and some more varied areas, but what you see is what you get. Short but sweet There’s a door that’s locked unless you get 100% completion, but even that likely won’t take more than an extra half hour of your time. I beat Sheepo at nearly three hours on the dot, give or take a minute. Its length works well with it, though. There’s practically no padding to be found, just an enjoyable, well-crafted Metroid-like that only wants to entertain you for a little while. The level design may be pedestrian, but everything else is of very high quality. I can certainly see myself playing through this one again. Who wouldn’t like a shapeshifting sheep, anyway? System Requirements: MINIMUM: OS : Windows 7 or Newer Processor : Intel Core i3 M380 Memory : 2 GB RAM DirectX : Version 5.2 Storage : 500 MB available space

Australian states and territories have begun enforcing entry bans on Sydney residents amid a growing coronavirus outbreak in the nation's largest city. The border closures outside New South Wales (NSW) have dashed Christmas plans and family reunions for many people. Airlines cancelled several flights leaving Sydney Airport on Monday, following a midnight deadline. The city has recorded 83 cases so far in this outbreak, all linked to Sydney's Northern Beaches region. Speaking from Canberra on Monday, Prime Minister Scott Morrison said: "2020 is not done with us yet." "The events of the past few days... are incredibly frustrating and disappointing for people all around the country who had plans in place to get together and move in between states." However, he and others welcomed the dip in new case numbers reported on Monday. NSW state authorities recorded 15 new infections - half the previous day's numbers - out of a record 38,000 tests conducted in 24 hours. Many viewed the numbers as encouraging that the virus had not spread further beyond the Northern Beaches, which is subject to a local lockdown. But authorities warned that one day's results were not enough to determine a trend. "Obviously, we have halved the number of cases overnight, but in a pandemic, there is a level of volatility, so we'll closely monitor what happens," said NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian. he said it was too early to tell whether wider restrictions for the city's five million residents would ease in time for Christmas. Australia - currently seeing all but no cases outside Sydney - has become known for its swift and aggressive response to outbreaks this year. In Sydney, indoor gatherings have been limited to 10 guests, and all residents have been told to minimise their social activity and to wear a mask in public spaces. Those living in the Northern Beaches will remain in lockdown until at least Wednesday. On Sunday, Queensland, Victoria, South Australia and the Australian Capital Territory announced bans on Sydney residents entering their state, adding to bans in other places. Those states' residents were told to return within a 12-hour window or face 14 days in quarantine upon arriving home. Anticipation of these orders prompted an exodus from Sydney on the weekend, with many residents leaving the city before the border shutdowns. Australia so far has recorded 908 deaths and 28,200 cases in the pandemic - a level far lower than seen in many other nations. The country took early decisions to close the nation's borders and mandate hotel quarantine for returning travellers from overseas. But experts have also credited its success on states acting quickly to lock down hotspot areas and conduct rapid contact tracing and testing processes.

Game Informations. Developers : Playful Studios. Publisher : Microsoft Studios. Released : Aug 21, 2020. Genre : Adventure. Mode : Single-player. Platforms : Microsoft Windows - PlayStation 4 - Xbox One - Nintendo Switch. New Super Lucky’s Tale is an improved version of the game that came out a few years ago. More specifically, it’s a port of the improved Switch version that re-did the visuals, changed levels and added new ones, and made a host of other similar changes. I love 3D platformers, and while this game may not break any new ground, it’s a ton of fun and bolsters a surprising amount of variety within its brisk, yet satisfactory length. The game opens with a story explaining how a group of guardians were attacked by a bunch of cats and ended up opening a portal to banish them. The eponymous hero is a relative of some of the guardians, and he alone gets pulled into said portal. It’s up to him to hunt down pages to restore a book to stop the bad guys from doing bad things. The story presentation is cute and innocuous enough. Lucky himself doesn’t talk or have anything approximating a personality, but he interacts with the bosses of each world at regular intervals and they help make up for that. The writing is often rather amusing too, which gives New Super Lucky’s Tale a lot more flavor. The game’s visuals are fairly dated, however, with a lot of low-resolution textures on display. It runs very well on PC, though. The only real issue I ever had was that I got hit with massive slowdown whenever I took damage. This was at its worst when I had to restart a boss battle because I kept getting hit. The framerate chugged so much I couldn’t even move, resulting in a rare death. You know the drill New Super Lucky’s Tale is very much in the vein of most of the successful games in the genre. It’s more Super Mario Galaxy than Super Mario 64, however, as the individual levels are small and based around unique goals and mechanics. In case I didn’t make it clear enough earlier, your goal is to collect pages, just like in Yooka-Laylee. The game is made up of six worlds that typically have between three and five levels. Each level has four pages to collect and every world has a certain number of extra pages as well. You collect the extra pages via glowing hatches you find scattered around. In most worlds, these hatches lead to statue puzzles. There are also mini-game stages where you have to control Lucky in a ball a la Super Monkey Ball and collect coins. These are both enjoyable, even if the puzzles are sometimes the only challenging things in the game. New Super Lucky’s Tale is mostly very easy, but these puzzles can feel 50 times harder than the rest of the game, which is a bit jarring. Outside of those, though, the game is an absolute breeze. Death will be a truly rare occurrence for most adults, as the difficulty is more geared to kids. Although I don’t see how they’ll be able to do some of the puzzles. Lucky can’t learn new moves and doesn’t have many abilities, but the controls are wonderfully precise and the general gameplay simplicity works in the game’s favor. Lucky can jump, double jump, attack with his tail, stomp, and burrow underground. Burrowing protects you from enemy attacks, too. Turn the page There’s a good amount of variety to New Super Lucky’s Tale‘s worlds. They’re mostly the usual suspects. Green world, beach world, haunted world, etc, etc. But they’re all as visually distinct as that implies. The levels themselves come in several different forms. My favorite is the standard 3D platformer stage where you explore levels and often have to complete a task for an NPC. There are also really solid 2D side-scroller levels which are exactly what they sound like, plus an auto-runner variation of these where Lucky is constantly pressed forward. Then there are the top-down maze levels, which are my least favorite. Navigating them can be a bit confusing due to the camera’s position. I would often get my sense of direction messed up during these, but there are very few of them. Finally, each world culminates in a boss battle that often requires very little combat on your part. These are simple and based around dodging enemy attacks and occasionally hitting an object back at the boss or directly attacking them yourself. New Super Lucky’s Tale is a short romp when all is said and done. The number of pages needed to unlock the boss levels is surprisingly low. As I said, there are four pages in each non-boss level. One for simply reaching the end, one for collecting at least 300 coins, another for finding the letters that spell the main character’s name, and a hidden page. The hidden page is almost always found via the same kind of hatches that contain the extra pages in each world. Those typically require you to interact with a clock and collect colored coins before you run out of time. No reason not to be a completionist Collecting all of the pages in each world doesn’t do anything big, but it does unlock a new costume for Lucky at the shop. The only thing you can do with the thousands and thousands of coins you collect is purchasing clothing items, which are separated by head and body. You can naturally mix and match the hats and garments from two different outfits if you’d like. I personally didn’t care much for the outfits. But I also don’t care much for playing as personality-deprived cartoon foxes either, so that’s neither here nor there. There isn’t much of an incentive to 100% the game. However, I still found it enjoyable to collect everything and aim to complete all of the objectives. Although, New Super Lucky’s Tale is a fun time, so I didn’t want it to end too soon either. The only big negatives that drag the game down a bit are its short length and, more importantly, how generic it is. It definitely feels like a standard mascot platformer in every way. Regardless, the game is enjoyable and well worth playing for fans of platformers. That goes double for anyone who didn’t play the previous iteration. There’s nothing here that you haven’t seen before, but these kinds of games aren’t very common nowadays. It’s always a pleasant surprise when we not only get a new one but one that’s as good as New Super Lucky’s Tale. System Requirements: MINIMUM: Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system OS : Windows 7 Processor : Intel Core i5 3550 @ 3.3 GHz or AMD FX-6300 Memory : 8 MB RAM Graphics : AMD Radeon R7 370 or NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660/570 Storage : 8 GB available space -------------------------- RECOMMENDED: Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system OS : Windows 10 Processor : Intel Core i5 4570 @ 3.2 GHz or AMD FX - 8350 Memory : 16 MB RAM Graphics : AMD Radeon R9 290X or NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780 Storage : 8 GB available space

Insurance companies' pandemic-based premium repayments have not lived up to their earlier promises, U.S. PIRG finds. In the spring, insurance companies were happy to say they would be refunding some premiums due to the COVID-19 pandemic. And at first, things looked fine, with some issuing full-month or half-month refunds. But now that we're closer to a new spring than the old one, the consumer-protection advocacy group U.S. PIRG has studied the landscape and found that billions in profits were not returned. The solution, U.S. PIRG said, is for state governments to mandate refunds for these overpayments, since driving was way down this year. Drivers didn't drive quite as much in 2020 as they did in 2019, for obvious, COVID-related reasons. When the pandemic hit the U.S. in a big way this spring, auto insurers made a lot of noise about how they would be refunding millions of dollars worth of their customers' payments back to them. But as the pandemic has continued and continued, customers have not benefited as much as they should have, according to the U.S. Public Interest Research Group (PIRG) Education Fund. This week, the U.S. PIRG Education Fund released the details of its state-by-state (and company by company) analysis, showing that insurance companies did not live up to their earlier promises. Jacob van Cleef, U.S PIRG's consumer watchdog associate, told Car and Driver that the insurance companies have disappointed their customers. "They had an opportunity to use a significant portion of their billions of dollars in profits to genuinely help their struggling customers," he said. "Instead, most companies gave less than a month's worth of premiums back while making a big public to-do about doing a great service for their customers. Americans making sacrifices and staying at home deserve better, and these insurers should do more." Those profits came from the dramatic reduction in payouts the insurance companies issued this year since there were fewer cars on the road and thus fewer crashes. The way in which large insurance companies paid back premiums varied (the state-by-state details can be found on the U.S. PIRG website), but the gist is that most insurers "gave only a small fraction of the profits back to their customers" and most of those refunds were only for the March-May time frame, U.S. PIRG says. For example, when U.S. PIRG looked at the 10 largest insurers of personal vehicles in each state (for a total of 71 companies, since some companies were in the top 10 in more than one state), it found that only 18 of them returned at least 50 percent of one month's premium to its customers. Just eight returned at least a full month's premium payment. U.S. PIRG believes that long-term rate cuts are the best solution for consumers in this difficult time, but only four insurers reduced their rates by a defined percentage and, while most insurers that did issue rebates or rate reductions did so automatically, at least one (DTRIC in Hawaii) required customers to ask for the rate reduction. U.S. PIRG, which is an independent, nonpartisan consumer interest group and part of the Public Interest Network. is not the only organization that has identified the lack of substantial refunds. The Consumer Federation of America said in September that insurance commissioners in the U.S. are "asleep at the wheel" regarding efforts to get the "windfall" COVID profits back to consumers. The solution, U.S. PIRG's van Cleef said, is for state governments to step up. "State governments need to act now," he said. "While the federal government controls stimulus bills, the states can help their inhabitants by doing things such as mandating refunds from insurance companies. That alone won't fix anyone's pandemic-based financial problems, but it can help customers in this time of dire need."

The Australian state of Victoria has moved to toughen border restrictions to prevent the spread of coronavirus from a growing outbreak in Sydney. Sydney residents have been told to stay home after a virus cluster ended Australia's two-week run of no locally transmitted cases. The cases were found in the city's Northern Beaches area, which entered a five-day lockdown on Saturday. Since then Sydney residents have rushed to leave the city ahead of Christmas. Thousands have travelled from the city in New South Wales (NSW) to the neighbouring state of Victoria in the past 24 hours, leading to calls for tighter border restrictions. An emergency meeting of Victoria government officials was held on Saturday night to discuss a possible hard-border closure with NSW. An announcement is expected on Sunday, with local media reporting that Victoria's police force is preparing to set up border checkpoints with the help of the Australian army. The outbreak has also forced organisers of the Sydney to Hobart yacht race to cancel the event for the first time in its history. Sydney's Northern Beaches outbreak grew to 38 cases on Saturday, with 23 new cases recorded in the previous 24 hours. The new cluster emerged just days before the Christmas period, prompting concern that travel restrictions may impact festive plans. Until Wednesday Australia had recorded just one locally transmitted infection in the past fortnight. The country, which is considered a relative success story of the pandemic, has recorded 28,128 infections and 908 deaths in total, according to a Johns Hopkins University tally. What are the restrictions in Sydney? The more than 250,000 people who live in Sydney's Northern Beaches have been banned from leaving their homes except for work, exercise, essential shopping and compassionate reasons until Wednesday. Those living in other parts of Sydney have been told to avoid the area. The NSW government has urged all locals to wear masks in public areas like supermarkets and churches and to be on "high alert". NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian pleaded with all Sydney residents to limit their activities over the next few days and stay home "unless you really have to" go out. "We will be considering [whether] we do revert back to some restrictions in greater Sydney, but we are still considering that," Ms Berejiklian said. "I just want to put everybody on notice that that is a possibility and that will depend on the health advice." The next five days has been described as a "tipping point" by epidemiologist Mary-Louise McLaws. "We can only hope that it remains focused in the Northern Beaches, but if it goes across all of Australian than we will need more tightening," she said. Where did the outbreak come from? Tests have shown that the outbreak in Northern Beaches is similar to a strain of Covid-19 found recently in quarantined travellers, state officials said. But authorities still do not know how it got into the community. They said it had spread after one couple failed to isolate at home while awaiting coronavirus test results. Their December 11 visit to a po[CENSORED]r lawn bowls club and pub in the Northern Beaches suburb of Avalon has now been identified as the "super spreader" event. However, it's unclear how the couple - who hadn't travelled overseas - became infected. Since Australia closed its borders in March, its outbreaks have largely begun with breaches in its hotel quarantine system for returned international travellers. Such instances led to Australia's biggest outbreak in Melbourne.

DH1 DH2

DH1 DH2

DH1 DH2

Great Activity keep it like this and i need you be more active in channel ts3 . Welcome to The Family

DH1 , legend song .

Both are good , but i'll vote for DH1 , melody + rhythm , i like it more than DH2 .

Game Informations. Developers : NEXT Studios. Publisher : Team17. Released : Oct 16, 2020. Genre : Adventure, Strategy, Role-Playing. Mode : Single-player. Platforms : Microsoft Windows - PlayStation 4 - Nintendo Switch. In the past few months, I’ve played several rogue-lite games from the likes of Hades and Risk of Rain 2. Those are known as “action rogue-lites” due to the emphasis on faster movement and attacks as you explore stages. This time around, I had the pleasure of trying out Crown Trick, a new title from developer NEXT Studios and publisher Team 17 Digital. What makes Crown Trick different from the aforementioned examples is that it emphasizes turn-based combat with RNG-based mechanics mixed in. The Dreamrealm In Crown Trick, you play as Elle. The opening cinematic implies that she’s ventured forth to a mystifying locale known as the Dreamrealm. Here, enemies abound and it’s up to you to help Elle survive. Along the way, you’re guided by a sentient crown companion. This kicks off the tutorial and the rest of your journey where every dungeon floor has multiple rooms. Many of these have you facing off against several mobs whereas others hold treasure chests, secrets, and unique dilemmas that offer a choice. Turn-based combat and weapons As mentioned earlier, Crown Trick uses a turn-based combat system. Whenever you enter a room with an enemy encounter, you move from tile to tile normally while hostile mobs do the same. I’m reminded of one of my favorite PlayStation 1 games — Azure Dreams — because of the dungeon delving and turn-based exploration. Furthermore, this is where tactical acumen and strategic planning apply since you can only move upwards, downwards, and to the sides — there’s no regular diagonal movement whatsoever. Should you move forward more aggressively and risk an enemy’s attack? Or would you prefer moving off to the sides to gain an advantage when your foe closes the gap? Perhaps you should use the “Blink” ability too? It has limited charges, but it lets you teleport to another tile without causing enemies to move or act. In addition to basic movement, Crown Trick gives you a plethora of weapon types, each one with its own attack range and coverage such as sniper rifles, staves, pistols, and daggers. Axes tend to be my favorite since you can hit every mob surrounding you. Weapons also have affixes. The higher the quality of the weapon, the more affixes it could have. Oh, and if you beat up your opponents severely, they might just “break,” allowing you to attack them with impunity while they’re stunned for several turns. Crown Trick‘s items, relics, and familiars Crown Trick‘s items and relics complement your weapon of choice. Items are your basic consumables such as those that cast debuffs, direct damage, or protective barriers. Relics, meanwhile, can be considered temporary buffs akin to passives that last throughout a run. Likewise, you have over a dozen familiars with various skills. These familiars are initially fought as elites monsters. Upon defeating them, they’ll grant you their powers and abilities when selected. For example, the Trickster lets you fire a Gravitation Field that sucks in enemies. You can also use a Lightning Orb that bounces between nearby targets. My top pick, though, is Firebreather. It lets you throw an explosive barrel that not only blocks the movement of hostiles, but can also be made to go boom when it’s destroyed. This damages anyone caught within the blast area while applying a fire damage-over-time (DOT) effect. Due to the rogue-lite nature of Crown Trick‘s gameplay, your runs often start and progress differently. You could have myriad weapons, relics, items, or familiars to select from, yet these are randomized at the start of your attempt. You’ll never know what you’ll get as you continue onward. Events, challenges, and decisions Speaking of randomization, some rooms might contain slot machines or challenge rooms. There’s even a nod to Thanos’ Infinity Gauntlet. You can continue powering this up as if you’re socketing Infinity Stones. Moreover, Crown Trick‘s dungeons might have particular events with decisions for you to make. It’s possible to find a shrine that grants a buff — like full healing, double damage, or immunity from elemental status effects. Those sound swell, however, there are downsides — such as your character bleeding until you kill enough enemies, or taking quadruple damage in return. Battling those bosses and fresh starts At the end of each floor, you’ll find a boss waiting for you. The bosses in Crown Trick all have unique spells and mechanics. One of them, Vlad, even has several variants. This includes an encounter with mechanics akin to “chess,” complete with pawns that transform into queens once they reach the opposite edge. Anyway, most zones will have three to four dungeon floors to beat so it gets permanently completed. If you fail at any time before that, you’re back to square one. Conveniently enough, there’s a vendor that sells wares and a restoration pool just before you head to the next floor (kinda like Hades). Even the crown companion itself replenishes your mana and Blink charges when you enter a room filled with enemies. Still, if you failed your run, or if you cleared the entire zone, you’ll end up back in Elle’s HQ in the Dreamrealm. Your base has several NPCs that provide permanent buffs and boosts. My main gripe in Crown Trick, however, is that every new attempt is heavily reliant on whatever you find in the initial room. Pray to the RNG gods that you’ll have the weapon and familiar you need. Otherwise, you’ll feel severely gimped and it’s going to be a pain to continue your trek. Indeed, there’s an over-dependence on the initial items or spells that’d make or break your run regardless of what you spot later. That means restarting over and over until you could have a combination that’s preferable. This can be somewhat tedious too. There’s also little variety with regard to tilesets, encounters, and bosses. Although dungeon floors in Crown Trick are procedurally-generated, you’ll notice the same baddies you’ve seen in the past throughout multiple runs. Furthermore, my other concern with encounters, in general, is that certain effects seem opaque or confusing. There were times when I didn’t know why my character was losing HP or why my attacks no longer dealt damage. A crowning achievement Crown Trick‘s turn-based combat and strategy formula, including planning your tactics and the plethora of weapons, relics, and abilities, are all remarkably fun and engaging. I found myself playing a short romp late at night and, the next thing I knew, the sun was already up. It’s ridiculously addictive, and the core gameplay loop will keep you coming back for more. You’ll experience the challenge you’ve come to expect from the rogue-lite genre, but the difficulty is always fair. Again, it’s just the tediousness of having to restart until you get the “proper” initial room you want. The capabilities of weapons and/or familiars will feel restrictive especially if you’re gunning for an ideal build. Unlike Hades or Risk of Rain 2, the concept of mixing and matching in Crown Trick is significantly limited, and we might need to see some tweaks, balancing, or improvements down the line. In the end, though, Crown Trick remains a crowning achievement for NEXT Studios. It just might become part of the pantheon of new rogue-lite titles that’ll charm and excite players. You might want to give it a go once it releases via Steam tomorrow, October 16. System Requirements: MINIMUM: OS : Windows 7 (32-bit Version) Processor : Intel Core(TM) i3-4160 / AMD X4 830 Memory : 4 GB RAM Graphics : NVIDIA GeForce GTX 650 / AMD R7 350 DirectX : Version 11 Network : Broadband Internet connection Storage : 2 GB available space Sound Card : No specific requirements -------------------------- RECOMMENDED: OS : Windows 7 (64-bit Version) Processor : Intel Core(TM) i5-7500 / AMD Ryzen 3 1300X Memory : 8 GB RAM Graphics : NVIDIA GeForce GTX 750 / AMD R7 360 DirectX : Version 11 Network : Broadband Internet connection Storage : 2 GB available space Sound Card : No specific requirements

Anyone chasing quarter-mile times is better off skipping the GT500's $18,500 Carbon Fiber Track Pack. In Car and Driver testing, the 2020 Ford Mustang Shelby GT500 hit 60 mph and 100 mph 0.2 second quicker on the standard street tires than on the optional track tires. A Ford engineer who works on the GT500 confirmed that the standard Michelin Pilot Sport 4S tires tend to have better longitudinal traction than the optional Michelin Pilot Sport Cup 2 tires. The Cup 2 tires deliver their big benefit in lateral grip, a boon for road-course lap times. It might seem intuitive that if you're trying to run the quickest straight-line times with Ford's most powerful production car ever—the 760-hp Mustang Shelby GT500—you'd want to spend the money to upgrade to the optional performance tires. Car and Driver testing reveals that hunch is wrong, though. A GT500 is quicker—to 60 mph, to 100 mph, and through the quarter-mile—with the standard Michelin Pilot Sport 4S tires than with the Michelin Pilot Sport Cup 2 tires that are part of the $18,500 Carbon Fiber Track Pack. Here's what the test numbers reveal: Michelin Pilot Sport 4S 0–30 mph: 1.6 sec 0–60 mph: 3.4 sec 0–100 mph: 6.9 sec ¼-mile: 11.3 sec @ 132 mph Michelin Pilot Sport Cup 2 0–30 mph: 1.7 sec 0–60 mph: 3.6 sec 0–100 mph: 7.1 sec ¼-mile: 11.4 sec @ 132 mph "There's no surprise here," said Steve Thompson, the lead development engineer for the GT500, when we asked Ford about our findings. "It's not atypical to see a PS4S equal the Cup tire or go a bit faster." Thompson cited several factors that explain why the street tire is quicker. The Pilot Sport 4S's thicker tread blocks do a better job holding heat, which improves traction so the car gets off the line quicker. You'll notice that in the standard tire's quicker zero-to-30-mph time. Thompson also credited differences in the internal construction, noting that the street tire is designed with occasional drag racing in mind. The Cup 2, on the other hand, is optimized for lateral grip and racetrack use. The track tires deliver a wild 1.13 g's of lateral grip in our skidpad test, while the Pilot Sport 4S summer tires manage 0.99 g. In cornering, the lateral forces are largely carried by the outer ribs and shoulders of the tire. The tire compounds and tread patterns used at the tire's edges are optimized for that work, but the center section of the Cup 2 track tire is designed to account for the likely scenario that they'll also be driven on public roads. "When you look at the contact patches of the two tires, they're not dissimilar. The inside ribs on the Cup tire are geared toward the street," Thompson said. That contact patch is what translates the supercharged 5.2-liter V-8's massive thrust into forward motion. So if you plan to drive a Shelby GT500 straight off the dealer lot and to your local drag strip, know that you're better off skipping the pricey Track Pack. You'll have a quicker car and the $18,500 you save will cover entry fees, fuel, and replacement tires for years' worth of dragging racing.