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Game Informations : Developer: Justin Calvert Platforms: PC Initial release date: February 13, 2012 at 6:44PM PST Mark Twain once described golf as "a good walk ruined." Perhaps he'd have been a little more forgiving of the sport if he'd had an opportunity to spend some time with Tiger Woods PGA Tour 10. EA Sports' latest hit-the-ball-at-the-hole simulator doesn't reinvent the genre, nor does it represent a huge leap forward over its predecessor, but there are plenty of new features and refinements on its scorecard to make it a winner for newcomers and veterans alike. Tiger Woods 10 is a golf game that seems designed to be all things for all people. For purists, there are 16 of the world's finest courses, club tuning options, US Golf Association rules, and a Tournament Challenge mode in which you can relive memorable achievements alongside pros. There are also live tournaments that take place alongside real-world events, such as the US Open, and let you compete with pros on the same leaderboard and in similar weather. For those whose knowledge of golf is limited to having seen Adam Sandler's Happy Gilmore, on the other hand, there are items of clothing that dramatically improve your attributes, an extremely forgiving default difficulty level, and wacky customization options that include a pink rabbit suit and a biker jacket. There are also laughable unlockable golfer animations and the ability to hit the ball significantly farther than any real-life pro--much like the hero of the aforementioned movie. Tiger Woods 10 is a game that anyone with even a passing interest in golf can enjoy, but it's unfortunate that its serious side and its Sandler side don't always play well together. The game's biggest problem is that while new game-changing weather, the great new (optional) putting system, and the quality of your analog or three-click swing are factors that affect your performance on the course, all too often, it's your choice of golfer that has the biggest impact on how well you do. There are more than 30 pro and novelty golfers to choose from, but unless you're deliberately looking to handicap yourself, there's really no reason to play as anybody but Tiger Woods. There are a handful of characters with slightly better ratings for accuracy, but none that come close to matching Tiger's near-perfect ratings for all three of the remaining attributes: power, short game, and putting. None, save for the countless superhuman player-created golfers online who, after several hours of play, can make a trip to the pro shop and purchase a "max attributes" outfit. Initially, creating and playing as a custom golfer can be very satisfying. You have the option to use digital photos uploaded to an EA Web site or your console's camera to put something vaguely resembling your face into the game; you play a few shots to determine your starting attributes; and, for a few rounds, you really have to play well to keep up with the pros. Your attributes will improve (or occasionally worsen) after every round based on your performance, and you're given opportunities to work on aspects of your game by replaying shots from your previous round in simple exercises presented by your in-game coach. That's all well and good, but your golfer improves so rapidly that by the time you reach your second or third Career mode tournament, it's relatively easy for you to win every competition thereafter--at least playing on the default difficulty. . Switching among Tiger 10's four difficulty modes doesn't impact which tees you play from or the inconsistent AI of the pro players. Rather, it determines how forgiving the controls are and which player aids you get to use. For example, on the default amateur difficulty, moving the analog stick down and then up to perform a swing determines the power of your shot but has very little impact on its direction. However, on pro difficulty, anything other than a perfectly vertical movement of the stick will result in a hook or a slice. If you ramp up the difficulty to the most challenging tour pro setting, you can no longer use power boosts, which you trigger by tapping a button during your swing; you can no longer add spin to the ball after striking it, which is done in much the same way; and, you don't get to use the putt preview, which gives you a second chance to line up shots on the green by showing you what your first attempt will look like without actually having to play it. Given that the beginner and amateur difficulty settings are unrealistically easy (scores of 20 under par for a single round aren't uncommon) and that the tour pro difficulty is very challenging (expect scores closer to 20 over par to begin with), the pro difficulty is likely to be the sweet spot for anyone looking to realistically compete with the household name players. Unfortunately, the only time you can use pro difficulty online is when you're competing in one of the slickly implemented daily or weekly tournaments that force all players to use the same settings. Only the amateur and tour pro settings are available in the remaining multiplayer modes. While such games as best ball, four ball, and skins are great additions to the requisite stroke play and match play options, it's unfortunate and baffling that they only support two of the four difficulty settings. Regardless, online play is a lot of fun, and the Simultaneous Strokes mode in which four players take their shots at the same time and can see their opponents' efforts represented by ball-tracing colored lines is a great way to go head-to-head without having to sit and watch other players while waiting for your turn. Even if you're not playing online, being connected to EA's servers improves the Tiger Woods 10 experience. You'll see a handful of advertisements that don't appear when you play offline, but the payoff is that you get to see news feeds of sports results and the like. You can also opt to play any course with "live" weather conditions courtesy of The Weather Channel. Weather is undoubtedly one of the most significant additions to this year's game because rain has just as big of an impact as wind, which has been a staple of golf games since day one, on how a course plays. GamerNet challenges are another benefit of playing while connected: Any time you play a particularly impressive shot, you have the option to upload it as a challenge for other players to beat during their regular play, and, of course, you can expect to be presented with plenty of them when you're playing yourself. It's possible to set up quite elaborate challenges, but for the most part, you're judged either on the length of your drive or how close you get to the hole with an approach shot. The latter are always possible to better, but the former are dependent on both your character's skills and the weather--being challenged to drive a ball almost 500 yards just isn't possible unless you're maxed out and have the wind at your back. Other forms of player competition include a large selection of minigames and modes that use the mechanics of golf in some inventive ways. There are three modes that employ archery-style targets, including one titled Capture the Flag in which you can claim targets by hitting their bull's-eyes; you can play H.O.R.S.E., which here is known as T.I.G.E.R.; and if you're feeling extra competitive, you can challenge a friend to a game of Battle Golf, in which winning a hole entitles you to remove a club form your opponent's bag or return one to your own. In short, Tiger Woods 10 has plenty of variety, regardless of whether you're looking for a traditional golf experience, less conventional games to enjoy with friends, or both. There's no guarantee that your custom golfer will be instantly recognizable as you, but for the most part, Tiger Woods 10 is a good-looking game. Professional players are instantly recognizable, and if you've ever visited such courses as St. Andrews and Torrey Pines, or even just seen them on television, you'll find that they are as well. Details, such as bunkers and expanses of water, look great in this year's game, and when you see waves rolling in on the rocks alongside the 18th at Pebble Beach, you'll understand why it's one of the most celebrated holes in golf. Crowds made up of emotionless doppelgangers that form to watch your tee shots and putts detract from rather than enhance the experience, but at least they're easy to ignore. The same, unfortunately, can't be said for the commentary team of Scott Van Pelt and Kelly Tilghman. Commentary is generally something that greatly enhances the TV-style presentation of a sports game, but in Tiger Woods 10, the option to mute the commentary is definitely a welcome one. One will frequently correct the other after he or she wrongly predicts where your ball is going to land, they'll tell you that they've never seen worse putting after you miss a giant putt by only the tiniest of margins, and Van Pelt regularly states that he has no idea who's at the top of a competition leaderboard--even when you're winning by an unrealistic 20-plus strokes. Neither commentator's delivery is great, but ultimately, it's the quality of the writing and its implementation in the game that brings it down. As golf games go, Tiger Woods PGA Tour 10 is tough to beat. There really is something for everyone with even a passing interest in golf in this sizeable package, and although there's clearly still some room for improvement, it's well worth a look even if you already own last year's game. System Requirements CPU: Pentium 4 or Athlon XP equivalent. CPU SPEED: 2 GHz. RAM: 512 MB. OS: Windows XP. VIDEO CARD: 3D-accelerated 128 MB video card (NVIDIA GeForce 6600+ / ATI Radeon 9700+) TOTAL VIDEO RAM: 128 MB. 3D: Yes.

Samsung has launched the new version of its operating system customization layer, One UI 3.1, based on Android, and with it has brought to its mobile phone catalog several image functionalities originally created for its flagship Galaxy S21. One UI 3.1 was announced and launched first for the Galaxy S21, but since this Thursday it has begun to be available for the Galaxy S20 and Note20 families, Samsung's flagships in 2020, as well as its Galaxy Z Fold2 and Z Flip folding phones. , as Samsung has reported in a statement. The Galaxy S10, Note10, Fold, A71, A51, A90, A80, A70 and A50 will also receive it, although some functions will only be in the high-end of 2020. Samsung's new operating system customization layer brings to the Samsung catalog several functions that until now were only present in the Galaxy S21, launched in January. The camera functions are completed with a new exposure controller and autofocus, with which users can adjust the image by sliding to the side before capturing it. Finally, the Android-based layer adds the 'Share privately' feature, with which users can share files such as images with other people so that they have access to them only for a limited time. Requires Android P version or higher.

One of the biggest problems in computing today is the so-called "memory wall," the difference between processing time and the time it takes to send data to the processor from memory chips. The growing po[CENSORED]rity of AI applications has only made that problem more pronounced, because huge networks that find faces, understand speech, and recommend consumer goods rarely fit on a processor's onboard memory. Now separate research groups from the US and Belgium believe that a new type of zero-latency DRAM could be the solution, and here's how it works. The new DRAM, made of oxide semiconductors and built in layers above the processor die (that is, integrated), retains hundreds or thousands of times more bits than commercial DRAM and could provide significant area and power savings , especially running large neural networks. How Zero Latency DRAM Works The DRAM memory cells in your PC are made of a single transistor and a single capacitor each in a design called 1T1C. To write a bit to the cell the transistor is turned on and the charge is pushed towards (1) or removed from (0) the capacitor. To read from it, the charge (if any) is removed and measured; it is a very fast, cheap and low power consumption system but it has some disadvantages: on the one hand, reading the bit depletes the capacitor so it has to be written back to memory and in fact even if the bit is not read the charge will eventually leak out of the capacitor through the transistor. So all cells need to be updated periodically just to be able to keep data, and in modern chips this is done every 64 milliseconds. DRAM-chips-01 Embedding DRAM on the processor chip itself is done commercially, but it has its limits. The challenge with the 1T1C monolithic design has always been the difficulty of building the capacitor, as well as making a non-leaking transistor using the manufacturing process intended for logic transistors. Good capacitors are difficult to make in manufacturing processes created for logic circuits. Instead, the new built-in DRAM is made of just two transistors and uses no capacitor (2T0C), and this works because the gate of a transistor is a natural capacitor, albeit a small one. So the payload the bit represents can be stored there, and this design has some key benefits, especially for AI. 2T0C DRAM Circuit One of these advantages is that writing and reading involves doing it on separate devices, and therefore can be read from a DRAM 2T0C cell without destroying the data and having to write it again. All you have to do is see if the current flows through the transistor whose gate holds the charge, and if it is there, it will turn the transistor on, the current flows, and if there is no change it stops. This is a zero latency read, and it is especially important for AI because neural networks tend to read at least three times for every write. However, a 2T0C arrangement does not work well with silicon logic transistors, and any bits would immediately drain because the transistor gate capacitance is too low and the leakage through the transistors is too high. So researchers have turned to devices made from amorphous oxide semiconductors, such as those used for the pixels in some displays. A new manufacturing method for a new DRAM These types of materials have some especially useful qualities for DRAM. In particular, they can carry a lot of current, which makes writing faster, and when they are off they lose very little charge, which makes the bits last longer. The US-based team used Indium Oxide doped at about 1% with Tungsten (IWO) as its semiconductor. The currents in this type of device provide sufficient read and write speed sufficient for logical operations, and at the same time the shutdown currents are really small, on the order of two or three times less than with Silicon.

The Government decreed a total quarantine in ten regions from January 31 to February 14, extended this Wednesday until at least next February 28 to stop the growth of the second wave of COVID-19 infections. These are Áncash, Pasco, Huánuco, Junín, Huancavelica, Ica, Apurímac, Lima Region, Metropolitan Lima and Callao. In these regions, the curfew begins at 6:00 p.m. and ends at 6:00 a.m. Regions In these 10 regions, only one person per family can go out for essential activities like stocking up on groceries, going to essential medical appointments and buying medicine. The use of private and public transportation for non-essential personnel is prohibited. Nor can you use your personal vehicle if you do not have a work vehicle pass, which can be requested only by people who are part of the areas whose activities are allowed, such as health, security, journalism, food supply, among others. Other regions In addition, in nine other regions the alert category has been raised to Very High, so that some stricter measures are also imposed in them to reduce the spread of COVID-19. These are: Tumbes, Amazonas, Cajamarca, Ayacucho, Cusco, Puno, Arequipa, Moquegua and Tacna. In these regions, the curfew begins at 08:00 and ends at 04:00. In Piura, Loreto, Lambayeque, La Libertad, San Martín, Ucayali and Madre de Dios, regions in which the Government has established a high alert, the curfew begins at 9:00 p.m. and ends at 4:00 a.m.

The world of gaming is very broad and each user has their preferences, but when we talk about the professional world and more specifically about professional eSports gamers, there is usually a common denominator: they prefer to play at 1080p resolution rather than at higher resolutions, such as 4K . Why is this so? In this article we tell you in great detail. It is quite common to see professional gamers and even streamers that reduce the resolution of the games to 1080p, and even relax the graphic settings in order to obtain a higher performance, so important are the FPS in competitive gaming? Wouldn't it be better to have more powerful hardware capable of moving titles at 4K resolution and higher FPS instead of settling for 1080p? 1080p vs 4K resolution in gaming, what is better for gaming? When you are watching a series or movie, or if you are in a single player game where you want to enjoy the details of the settings and special effects, obviously most users would choose a higher resolution and with the maximum graphic settings although to do so they must sacrifice some performance. However, in competitive gaming it is always said that even the last FPS counts, but why is this so? 1080p vs 4K Actually, for practical purposes there is not "that much" difference in terms of quality when you play 1080p vs 4K as long as you keep the graphics settings, but as you may already suppose, a professional gamer does not play to have fun (or not just for that) or to enjoy, but play to win. And in competitive games it has always been said that every last millisecond of latency counts, and they effectively choose to play at a lower resolution due to latency issues. Latency and performance, the difference between winning and losing When you play at higher resolution you are forcing the graphics card to render a huge number of pixels every second; To give you an idea, 1080p contains 2,073,600 pixels, so rendering a game at 1080p resolution at 60 FPS requires the graphics to render almost 124.5 million pixels every second. If we raise the resolution to 4K (3840 x 2160), 8,294,400 pixels are rendered per frame, which at 60 FPS is more than 497.6 million pixels per second, literally four times more. This additional load on the graphics card obviously causes performance to suffer and that in many cases the graphics is not able to maintain a rate of images per second that is synchronized with the refresh rate of the monitor, so it is they produce "FPS crashes" and tearing and stuttering effects. When every millisecond counts, you want to have the highest possible frame rate per second and a monitor with the highest refresh rate, because if you see 240 images (240 Hz) in one second, the latency between frames will be much lower than if you see 60. FPS in games To "ordinary" users it may seem imperceptible, but professionals are trained to have far superior reflections (and this is supported by scientific studies, we do not say it) and a difference of just a few milliseconds in the rendering of frames per second can mean the difference between hitting a shot or missing it. In the image above you can see the difference of where the peephole is pointing in each case, as an example. And why do they modify the graphic settings? Obviously, if you relax the graphics settings you are putting less load on the GPU and it will be able to generate a higher rate of images per second, but it also has another component that is, perhaps, less ethical but equally valid in the competitive environment: it gives you increased visibility. A clear example is in PUBG, where by lowering the graphic settings to a minimum it eliminates weeds from the environment, and where an enemy thinks that he is hiding, you are actually seeing him. PUBG settings Thus, relaxing the graphic settings has a double benefit for a professional gamer, because on the one hand it improves performance and on the other it gives them greater visibility and fewer distractions. Now, you should keep in mind that this happens in competitive gaming, because if you think about it, playing at a low resolution and with the graphic settings to a minimum is certainly not going to give you a good gaming experience, but how? We have mentioned before, a professional plays to win, not to have fun or enjoy.

It is an online live video platform that your younger children, brothers, nephews and cousins have been consuming in recent years. For them, it is their television. To situate you, it is usually a person who places a camera in front of his computer, starts the live broadcast and from his chair he talks directly with his audience about any topic that may occur to you while playing a video game, analyzes a news story or comment on posts on the net. At first, Twitch was used primarily by gamers, video game fans who broadcast their games with a whole network of followers. Millions, in many cases. But in recent months the platform has changed rapidly and has been filled with content creators with channels of all kinds: influencers, cooks, travelers, journalists or artists. Being a streamer - as broadcasters are known - seems to be in fashion. Every day Twitch receives an average of 26.5 million visitors and each month more than 6 million people transmit their own content, according to data from the platform. And several of the most po[CENSORED]r content creators earn millions in advertising, sponsorship and donations. But what is really behind the success of Twitch and its millionaire audiences? Will this type of platform be the future of television as we know it? "Twitch has come at the right time" Experts agree that the great Twitch boom comes when Amazon buys it for $ 1 billion in 2014. "It was already a consolidated platform before, but from there and from the rise of video games like Fortnite, Twitch takes off definitively," Elena Neira, professor of communication studies at the Open University of Catalonia, in Spain, tells BBC Mundo. Twitch specialized in eSports coverage, but it is increasingly hosting content and broadcasts of all kinds. GETTY IMAGES It may seem strange to many, or at least curious, that so many people can entertain themselves by watching how others play video games. But the American sociologist T.L Taylor, a specialist in online gamer culture, says that this pleasure comes from afar. "Watching others play is a powerful modality that has been tried to carry out since the 80s, what happens is that now there has been a lot of progress in improving internet infrastructures and devices such as cameras, headphones and microphones", explains Taylor to BBC Mundo. "Twitch has come at the right time and has exploited it. The expansion of the gaming culture and technological improvements have been great for it," she adds. The pandemic, another catapult It wasn't just the Amazon purchase that boosted the platform. Like many other services on the internet, the coronavirus pandemic has also consolidated a paradigm shift for Twitch. "During the confinement it has perhaps become more evident that Twitch has abandoned the video game redoubt a bit and has quickly become a platform with more typical transmissions, a serious alternative to YouTube," explains Neira. With the confinements, the platform doubled the hours consumed. GETTY IMAGES As of the second quarter of 2020, with many of the national lockdowns around the world already consolidated due to the pandemic, Twitch experienced a 56% growth in total hours consumed, surpassing the five billion mark between April and June. hours, according to data from the specialized consultancy Streamelements. "I think much of the key to Twitch's success is that it perfectly combines the enjoyment of viewing content with a strong sense of community. This is a global phenomenon," says Taylor. Threat to television? The growth is such that many debate whether the consolidation of various services such as YouTube, Netflix, and now Twitch are leading to the decline of traditional television. Professor Taylor understands that this is a valid debate and gives an example: "Before, eSports organizers dreamed of their competitions being broadcast on traditional television, but little by little they have been convinced that they don't really need it." However, Elena Neira believes that it is a mistake to pose the phenomenon Twitch as a "thief" of television audiences. "What happens is that now we consume many different media. But it is true that television on the grill is aging and for very specific cases it cannot be renewed," she explains. Expert Elena Neira believes that it is a mistake to pose the phenomenon Twitch as a "thief" of television audiences. GETTY IMAGES "Likewise, right now there is so much supply that it is very difficult to have a scheduled consumption of how many people consume what type of media or entertainment. Audiovisual consumption is more fragmented than ever."

Game Informations : Developer: Jason Venter Platforms: PC Initial release date: February 13, 2012 at 6:44PM PST If you've caught a nasty case of first-person-shooter fatigue, you might be wondering what the genre needs to do to reignite your interest. Gotham City Impostors, a downloadable offering developed by the people responsible for the F.E.A.R. franchise, has one potential answer: add obsessed Batman and Joker admirers who can grapple, glide and roller-skate around arenas with aplomb. It's an unusual solution that produces a memorable game. Gotham City Impostors doesn't star Batman himself or any of the traditional antagonists from the DC canon. Rather, the experience focuses on two rival gangs that are vying for control over Gotham City. They call themselves the Jokerz and the Bats, but they're not nearly as sophisticated as the hero and villain who inspire them. The differences can be explained by financial limitations; one of the Bats will inform you if you wisely choose to complete the Initiation mode. Batman can afford to be noble--to beat the stuffing out of a bad guy and let him limp home--but these gang members don't have that luxury. Death and dismemberment are their only options. Apart from the brief tutorial and a more extended Challenges mode that turns the game's available arenas into demanding obstacle courses (consider this mode your boot camp; a chance to acquaint yourself with area layouts without needing to constantly look over your shoulder), the entire experience takes place online. You are randomly assigned to one of the two gangs at the start of a given round. You and as many as five allies try to demolish the rival team in one of three primary modes: Team Deathmatch, Fumigation, and Psych Warfare. Team Deathmatch offers the least structure of any mode. The first team to score 50 kills within the time limit wins, or the gang in the lead when the timer reaches zero snags the victory. Fumigation plays out more like a round of Conquest in the Battlefield games. Gang members try to secure and hold three objectives that gradually add percentage points to the team's overall total. A constant tug-of-war ensues as both sides race to reach 100 percent, which is a difficult undertaking when the other side can steal points by claiming control points. Finally, Psych Warfare is Capture the Flag with a twist: the team that finds and holds a battery for a certain period of time can then start broadcasting propaganda that leaves rival team members defenseless except for hilariously effective slaps. While the general descriptions of the three modes may sound like they could just as easily apply to nearly any recent FPS of note, Gotham City Impostors stands apart from its peers because of the lengths it goes to encourage controlled chaos. On one level, it's a standard shooter. Players choose from a variety of weapons that include machine guns, grenade launchers, sniping rifles, and so forth. That's only the start, though. Each standard character is also equipped with special gear that determines how he or she moves around the map. There are roller skates that make speedy movement a breeze, along with ramps that can send a skating warrior flying through the air as a lethal blur. There are gliding suits that allow gang members to catch updrafts and then dive-bomb their foes into submission. It's even possible to use cloaking skills, double jumps, and charged leaps that allow even the bulkiest of thugs to bound up to the highest platforms. Fast-paced combat practically requires constant movement. The five available arenas are arranged in a manner that truly capitalizes on the potential that the various gadgets provide. Whether you're ducking around crates stacked along the docks, negotiating the confined amusement park hallways, gunning down rivals in the open city streets, sailing through the air as you circle the chemical treatment plant, or sniping from rooftops along the edge of a nuclear power plant, you can find options that suit your style of play and equipment. Players who want to keep to the ground and play Gotham City Impostors like a standard corridor shooter can certainly do so. But open rooftops and streets provide a sniper's paradise while also allowing you to spend most of your time in the air if that's what you prefer. The freedom is exhilarating. Because each arena can be experienced in so many different ways, the limited number of venues remains entertaining for much longer than you might expect. The developers also included a robust system for character customization. You receive experience points based on your performance each round. As you gain levels, you unlock custom characters that you can then outfit with two weapons, a gadget, and a support device. You can also access "fun facts" that work like perks in the Call of Duty: Modern Warfare games. You can boost health, resistance to headshots, strength against explosives or traps, knife effectiveness, and so forth. Once you hit level 30, which won't happen soon unless you're actively completing feats that award hefty experience bonuses, you can also change your psych profile and earn more points for taking certain approaches. There are ample incentives to play as the different character types, which in turn often keeps you playing "just a little bit longer" to unlock a new weapon mod so that you can add a laser scope to your favorite gun or perhaps unlock a camouflage kit. Though Gotham City Impostors goes through the motions with surprising finesse, it also remembers not to take itself too seriously. Practical modifications are joined by tweaks that fit the game's comic presentation. You can customize the pitch of your voice, for instance, and your smack talk when defeating opponents. You also earn virtual coins to spend on costume pieces. The game is extremely stingy about doling out its currency, so you may have to play a few dozen rounds if you want your lady warrior to rock some skimpy attire. Alternatively, you can spend real-world currency to speed up the process if you prefer. There are about 100 different virtual clothing articles for sale and none of them impact your stats, but it's nice to have options. Unfortunately, the developers don't seem to have spent as much effort on their net code. Between rounds, you have to wait most of three minutes (about as long as a commercial break on television) before you can return to battle. You can spend that time reviewing your performance in the previous battle or choosing content to unlock, but sometimes, you just have to wait on a timer. In other instances, you might return to the lobby after a heated match and find it completely empty. Even when a lobby is full, there can be lengthy delays as the game decides which player to assign to which team and then shuffles the lineup repeatedly to accommodate distressingly common lost connections. You or a couple of your teammates might spend three or four minutes waiting through all of the menus and then get kicked just as a match is about to start. Lost connections in the middle of a match are no better, plus anyone who is kicked doesn't receive experience bonuses and character coins. Poor matchmaking is a big problem when online team play is the heart and soul of the game. Gotham City Impostors is available on a variety of platforms, but its strengths and flaws are consistent no matter which version you choose to play. The game looks sharpest on a good PC setup, but visual differences across the board are insubstantial compared to the advantages offered by the version that features a control setup you find comfortable. Movement and actions are mapped similarly to a Call of Duty or Halo game, which should allow console owners to jump right into the thick of things. The PC build supports only a mouse and keyboard, as well as maps special movement to the middle button or track wheel on your mouse. Keep that in mind because gliding and grappling are important. Key inputs can be customized as you see fit, at least, but it may take a while to find a satisfactory setup until you've played long enough to understand the game's unique style. Technical issues aside, Gotham City Impostors is a consistently thrilling experience that's easy to recommend. The limited arena count isn't nearly the flaw that it would be in most other shooters, thanks to the surprising number of ways you can experience each of them. And the deep class and cosmetic customization options may keep you up for some late nights even when you've already spent dozens of hours with the game. Some players might find all the options overwhelming or the combat too fast paced, but anyone looking for something different within the genre should find a lot to like. System Requirements OS: Windows XP SP3. Processor: Dual Core CPU 2.5 GHz. Memory: 1.5 GB RAM. Hard Disk Space: 7 GB Hard Drive Space. Video Card: 256MB dedicated memory DX9 Video Card (GeForce 8600 or ATI X1800 or better) DirectX®: DX9. Sound: DX9 compatible Sound Controller. Additional: Broadband Internet Connection.

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The next Experiment 101 game, Biomutant, will be released on May 25, but the minimum and recommended system requirements have already been announced to be able to play it on PC, and in this article we are going to tell you not only what they are, but we are going to analyze them to have a clear perspective of what type of PC you will need to play it in a dignified way. Biomutant is a new title that offers gamers a post-apocalyptic experience in RPG mode that many analysts have already compared to the famous Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild in terms of gameplay, story and content, although Biomutant is a bit more throwing into action. Now THQ Nordic has published what the system requirements are and they have confirmed that the title will work under the DirectX 11 graphics API. Biomutant will certainly not be one of the easiest games to run on PC with its recommended settings, although this is logical since it is a "cross-generation" title designed for both consoles and PC, although it is true that it does. funny is that it will be released for PS4 and not specifically designed for PS5. Thanks to this, the game can be run on a PC with a fairly moderate hardware configuration, since we are talking about a mid-range gaming PC from many generations ago. In its minimum configuration (we are talking about 1080p at 30 FPS), Biomutant will work with an FX-8350 or Intel Core i5-4690K processor, with 8 GB of RAM memory and a quite old graphic already but that has 4 GB of dedicated video memory . Now, to play in the recommended settings (1080p at 60 FPS) Experiment 101 already recommends no less than 16 GB of RAM, more modern processors and GPUs with at least 6 GB of VRAM. Biomutant In short, all this means that if you have a relatively modern mid-range gaming PC (3 years old or less), you will be able to play at 1080p and 60 FPS or more without any inconvenience, because in reality the greatest requirement it has this game is the 16 GB of RAM that it asks for, something that is already being standardized in almost any gaming PC. What if you want to play at 4K resolution? If you have a monitor with 4K resolution and want to take advantage of it, this game will certainly be compatible, although it is true that the system requirements will be hardened a bit. Neither Experiment 101 nor THQ Nordic have revealed the requirements to play at that resolution, but it is not difficult to imagine that we will need a processor only slightly better than the recommended ones, such as an AMD Ryzen 5 2600 / Intel Core i5-8600K, with the same 16 GB of RAM (we think it is unnecessary to jump to 32 GB for this game) and a graphics that should provide much more power than those recommended for 1080p, such as a Radeon RX 5700 XT / RTX 2070 SUPER. Biomutant gameplay In short, Biomutant has quite reasonable system requirements and the only thing that stands out above the rest is the fact that it asks for 16 GB of RAM for its recommended configuration, something that on the other hand is beginning to be usual and for this For this reason, 16 GB has been standardized for a long time in any configuration of PC gaming worth its salt.

Microsoft has removed from the official store of extensions for its Microsoft Edge browser several illegal copies of classic video games from sagas such as Mario, Sonic and Minecraft, which in some cases had remained unnoticed on the platform for months. The existence of the pirated games in the official Edge extension store was made known after a publication of the official Microsoft Edge developer account on Twitter, deleted in a short time but warned by Resetera, which promoted the existence of extensions of classic video games. In the list of titles shared last Friday by the official Microsoft account there were several illegal copies of sagas such as Mario Kart, Tetris and Pac-Man, published by private users and accounts outside the proprietary studios. Most were pirated ROMs and emulators. Likewise, the Microsoft Edge extensions store also accommodated other pirated video games such as Super Mario Bros, Sonic the Hedgehog 2, Cut the Rope, Minecraft, 2048, Flappy Bird, Fruit Ninja and Temple Run, as reported by The Verge portal . Currently Microsoft has removed all these video games from its official platform, although some of these titles had been available on it at least since October 2020, according to the aforementioned medium.

Game Informations : Developer: Gamespot Staff Platforms: PC Initial release date: February 2, 2012 at 6:19PM PST Waterworld is a different take on post-apocalyptic life, one where the breakdown of civilization doesn't lead to desolate wastes but instead results in a watery grave. Gaming has largely ignored this sort of apocalypse, but Oil Rush brings such a world to life in a real-time strategy/tower-defense blend. And while it's nice to see a game venture somewhere so distinct, the end result isn't all that different from Kevin Costner's flop. It's interesting and somewhat diverting, but this merging of RTS with tower defense doesn't open up as many strategic options as you may imagine it would. The Earth is awash in water, the effects of global warming melting the polar ice caps. In this world, humanity clings to the few outcroppings of rock that are tall enough to rise above the waves. Yet the most precious commodity isn't land--it's oil. Yes, society still thirsts for the same fossil fuel that caused the downfall of civilization. Oil, you see, is what drives your war machine. Boats, planes, and helicopters are the tools the various factions use to consolidate their control over their territories--and to acquire more oil. Your faction, The Sharks, is led by The Commander, an aging man whose sunken features bear a striking resemblance to Grand Moff Tarkin. (And they share a similar sinister streak.) Low on oil, The Commander sends you out on raiding missions to secure oil rigs and production platforms to bolster and improve your forces. You start most missions with platforms and/or oil facilities and can kit out platforms with weapons towers. You can use machine guns for small targets, artillery for larger targets, and rockets to knock down copters or planes, but you must assign units to protect oil facilities. Platforms also spawn units, depending on the type of production facilities they contain. Piranhas are jet-ski-like fast-attack units that can swarm foes but are easy to pick off. Angler boats have cannons and provide a greater challenge. Hammerheads look like landing craft from World War II, and these units are fantastic for assaulting enemy platforms. You gain access to other units, such as the stingray helicopter and the barracuda submarine, as you advance through the missions, conquering technology from other factions. The game's RTS elements consist of sending units to platforms and oil facilities. You click on a platform to assign units, and you can send everything, keep 50 percent behind, or send out just 25 percent to probe a foe's defenses or to bolster another platform's protection (of course, you can send half your forces, and then half again, to attack with 75 percent of your might). You can also deselect a type of unit to keep it behind, which gives you more control over the disposition of your forces. Once you point your forces to the enemy, you have no control over what they attack; you hope that the units take out targets that they are best suited for engaging (such as angler boats firing their cannons at artillery placements or large vessels). You also have a tech tree with a variety of active and passive abilities that can give your units a boost. Passive abilities increase weapon damage, armor, and speed. Active powers can demoralize the enemy, give your units a damage boost, increase construction speed (handy when you're repairing destroyed towers), or call down a strike of napalm to burn your foe. Oil is important because it powers your platforms and abilities. While you may continue to spawn units (the platforms do this automatically until they hit their limit; it's similar to the creation of AI creeps in multiplayer online battle arena games such as League of Legends), you need oil to build your towers and use your active abilities. You also need oil to upgrade your towers. Fortunately, most maps have plenty of oil rigs and storage facilities for you to conquer, though on some maps, the strategy focuses on managing your forces with limited oil--or no crude at all. The game quickly develops a rhythm as you set out your forces, pull some back for defense, or balance out your defenses. The pace of the enemy's attacks is less of a rush and more of a steady stream, though this changes on some levels. A few of the missions provide strategic twists as well, where you have to shepherd your smaller force through mines as an overwhelming force pursues you or hold out against waves of enemy forces in a more traditional tower-defense stage. But on other missions, enemy reinforcements appear from off the screen, even after you've captured all of their production platforms. It really stinks to find yourself fighting off forces after taking all of the production facilities. And one mission proves the futility of most escort scenarios: you escort civilians in Chinese junks away from your vengeful mentor after a betrayal. In this case, the junks stop at every platform on your escape path, unfurling their sails. Why do they stop? It makes no sense for them to stop, especially if they're trying to evade a well-equipped foe--other than to provide an artificial challenge. Throughout the course of Oil Rush's missions, the game appears to be balanced for you to use overwhelming force more often than not, as the enemies' defenses require you to swarm to whittle them down. On some missions, you do want to split your forces--especially to help defend oil rigs and storage areas--but when it comes time for offense, the hammer works much better than the rapier. The game shines when you find ways to break out of this, using some finesse to achieve your goals. You can amass your fleet to bludgeon your way through a map, but with some creative thinking and bold strikes, you can get away with splitting your forces to storm several enemy platforms while relying on your towers and token units of defenders to hold off the foe. The game's voice acting, frankly, stinks. The characters rarely convey the proper sense of urgency (one actor reads her lines calmly even in the most intense situations), and the appalling accent of a Chinese character may turn off some players. After two updates, the game still crashes sometimes, and your video settings occasionally reset when you start the game. Multiplayer is both the most attractive and disappointing aspect of Oil Rush. It has 15 maps, with some allowing you to face up to three other players (this can be a combo of human and AI players). Many of the maps have interesting layouts, such as a two-player scenario that puts oil resources in protected covers. Another fun map lacks aerial forces, and still another map is an arctic maze that makes it difficult to navigate large fleets. Good luck, though, finding people to play with: the online community, like Oil Rush's world, is somewhat desolate at this time. But you can still play these maps with AI foes, and many of them are more fun than replaying missions from the campaign. Oil Rush's artists nail its watery setting. Crumbling skyscrapers and rusting bridges jut out of the sea on some levels, and in others, you can see civilization's remains underneath the waves. The platforms look like motley collections of girders and concrete; some of the vessels look like slapdash barges with guns thrown on them; and floating villages and other habitations hint at the misery of a postapocalyptic existence. The art direction sets the mood well, and the visuals look sharp, even at lower settings. The fusion of real-time strategy gameplay with elements traditionally associated with tower defense make Oil Rush an original game, but unfortunately it doesn't mold its novel concept into a consistently enjoyable experience. An uneven level of tactical depth and some boring missions are glaring flaws, but there's still some fun to be had in this watery world. System Requirements OS: XP. Processor: 2 GHz. Memory: 1 GB RAM. Graphics: NVIDIA 9600 256 MB or Intel HD 4000. Hard Drive: 3 GB HD space.

President Francisco Sagasti explained that the Sinopharm laboratory delivered 2,000 additional doses of vaccines for the research team and personnel related to the study. He details that said batch was not at any time a matter of decision by the current government, placing the responsibility on the management of Martín Vizcarra. "All the agreements on clinical trials with vaccines in Peru were made prior to the Transitional and Emergency Government," he says on the Twitter account. Investigation and waivers The presidency of the Council of Ministers has requested the information from all ministries to reveal the list of senior public officials who would have been vaccinated with these additional doses. In this way, also, on February 13, 2021, the National Institute of Health sent a letter to the legal representative of the Center for Clinical Studies of the UPCH so that, within two calendar days, provide information, explain and support the use of the doses of vaccines that could only have been applied to the research team and personnel related to the study. Earlier, the former Deputy Minister of Health, Luis Suárez, through a statement, reported that he received the candidate for the vaccine against the coronavirus from Sinopharm in the period of September and October 2020. “We were also informed that Sinopharm researchers, as in other countries where phase III research is carried out, made the candidate vaccine available (which is still in experimentation) with the possibility of protecting the team responsible for conducting the response to the pandemic, ”Suárez pointed out. The same has happened with Chancellor Elizabeth Astete, who submitted her resignation and now the president has accepted it. Sagasti indicated that he has accepted the resignation of Chancellor Elizabeth Astete who acknowledged in a statement having received the first dose of the Sinopharm vaccine on January 22 and explained that "this decision will not affect the arrival of the committed vaccines or the negotiations in march to guarantee vaccines for all Peruvians ”.

Welcome!

Transparency has never been a quality of former President Martín Vizcarra. In fact, his government ended with more questions than answers on matters known to all, related to the role that Richard Cisneros played in his administration and the lies that were woven around him; to the presence of multiple relatives of his in the public sector since he became president and, of course, everything linked to the web of accusations against him for allegedly having received bribes from construction companies when he was regional governor of Moquegua. But if all this involved opacities that the country did not deserve and that the Executive had the duty to clarify, what is known today about the secret vaccination against COVID-19 of the former president and his wife is simply an affront. Made worse by the lies that the now congressional candidate has insisted on since the truth came out and by the effects these inevitably have on the inoculation process in the making. First, there is no record of Vizcarra having participated, as he says, in clinical trials of the Sinopharm vaccine. He did not go through the existing procedures, did not sign the informed consent and, according to sources in this newspaper, received a "vaccine for consultants." In short, he asked that the drug be applied to him, a reality that deflates the alibi of the "courage" that the former head of state has used and credits, rather, the opposite: "I save myself first." On the other hand, the show that he did with the antibody test a few days ago, to settle the issue and imply that it did not generate resistance to the pathogen, has all the characteristics of a sham. As reported by El Comercio, there are forms of immunity that persist that are not measured by this type of examination and that these, therefore, do not confirm the thesis of the applicant for Somos Peru. In this sense, and it is clear that he did seek to immunize himself, his pantomime can threaten the confidence of the people in the effectiveness of the formula that has been applied with so much effort in the country for a few days. An attitude that makes sense with other inaccuracies at odds with science that the former president has assumed since he began his campaign for Parliament, such as his recommendation to use ivermectin as an effective remedy to face COVID-19. In addition, the fact that the head of the Executive Branch has benefited from a vaccine whose negotiation for its acquisition was still pending implies serious ethical and possibly legal conflicts. That everything has happened behind the backs of the majority of his Cabinet and covered in mystery seems to make it clear that Mr. Vizcarra was aware of the controversy of his decision. And, above all, it is important to note that what is particularly offensive about the former president's decision to be vaccinated quietly and by means of dubious legality is at the juncture in which he decided to do so. We must not forget the circumstances in which the country faced the epidemic while the then president tried to save his skin. By October 2 (the day the first dose was applied) Peru had 821,564 confirmed cases of the new coronavirus and, according to figures from the Ministry of Health, 32,609 compatriots had died. The use of molecular tests was limited and rapid tests proliferated, despite experts' questioning of their accuracy and relevance. Also, now we know, the Government was undertaking a lazy negotiation with the laboratories that would sell us injectables, and it would leave us at a clear disadvantage with other countries. The same that the current administration is trying to compensate. In short, "Peru first, but after me" would have been a more precise slogan for the government of Mr. Vizcarra, which the latest news has finished painting in full. There is no longer a valid explanation or a lie to hold.

What a CPU does is execute the instructions of a program located in memory. But, did you know that they all follow the same general rules? They all follow the same instruction cycle, which is divided into three different stages called Fetch, Decode and Execute, which are translated as fetch, decode and execute. We explain how these stages work and how they are organized. In order to simplify and make the concepts explained in this article more understandable, we have decided to describe an extremely simple processor for current times, so in this article you will see an explanation of what instruction cycles are in a generalized way that can be apply from the first 8-bit processors to the most complex ones available today Visualizing the instruction cycle Control Unit Instruction Cycle Processors are not different from a certain point of view to a combustion engine, which always carry out a continuous process of fuel explosion in different stages, whether they are 2-stroke or 4-stroke. The reason for this is that the processors work in three different stages in their simplest version, which are the following: Fetch or Capture: In which the instruction is captured from RAM and copied to within the processor. Decode or Decoding: In which the previously captured instruction is decoded and sent to the execution units Execute: Where the instruction is resolved and the result written in the internal registers of the processor or in a memory address of RAM These three stages are fulfilled in every processor. There is a fourth stage, which is Write-Back, which is when the execution units write the result, but this is usually counted within the execution stage of the instruction cycle. First stage of the instruction cycle: Fetch Fetch Process The first stage of the instruction cycle is responsible for capturing the instructions in the RAM memory assigned to the processor through a series of units and registers that are the following: Program Counter or Program Counter: Which points to the next memory line where the next processor instruction is located. Its value is incremented by 1 each time a complete instruction cycle is completed or when a jump instruction changes the value of the program counter. Memory Address Register: The MAR copies the content of the PC and sends it to the RAM through the addressing pins of the CPU, which are wired with the addressing pins of the RAM itself. Memory Data Register or memory data register: In the event that the CPU has to perform a memory reading, what the MDR does is copy the content of that memory address to an internal register of the CPU, which is a temporary pass register before its content is copied to the Instruction Register. The MDR, unlike the MAR, is connected to the data pins of the RAM and not to the addressing pins and in the case of a write instruction the content of what you want to write in the RAM is also written in the MDR Instruction Register: The final part of the fetch stage is the writing of the instruction in the instruction register, from which the processor control unit will copy its content for the second stage of the instruction cycle. These 4 sub-stages occur in all processors whatever their utility, architecture and binary compatibility or what we call ISA. Control unit Control Unit The control unit is the most complex part that exists in a processor and its tasks are as follows: They are in charge of coordinating the movement and the order in which of the data that moves inside and outside the processor, as well as the different subunits that are in charge of it. In general, it is considered that the units of the capture stage or Fetch are part of the hardware that we call the control unit and this hardware is also called the Front-End of a processor. It interprets the instructions and sends them to the different execution units to which it is connected. It is communicated to the different ALUs and execution units of the processor that act It is responsible for capturing and decoding the instructions, but also for writing the results in the registers, caches or in the corresponding address of the RAM. Opcode-Mode-Adress

Amazon's digital assistant, Alexa, can now greet visitors through Ring's smart doorbells, one of three new features the company has incorporated with smart responses. The new Smart Responses target users of Ring Camera, Security Camera and Subscriptions, allowing you to select a pre-recorded audio message, set a pre-recorded alert for each time the doorbell rings, or have Alexa save a message. One of the new features allows Alexa to greet visitors when they ring the Ring Video Doorbell Pro. The digital assistant will ask them a question and based on the response they receive, pick up a message or provide directions, for example for deliveries of packages, if you have a Ring Protect subscription. Six quick responses have also been introduced, preset for certain situations, such as when the user cannot arrive in time to attend to the visitor or does not feel like opening the door, as indicated by Amazon in a statement. The smart reply feature is currently available in the United States and Canada, as confirmed by Ring's account via Twitter.

Game Informations : Developer: Carolyn Petit Platforms: PC Initial release date: February 28, 2012 at 11:59AM PST "Go big or go home!" Elise Riggs of SSX shouts this from the skies as she catches big air off of some of the tallest mountains in the world. It's a fitting credo, both for Elise and for SSX itself, and presented with those two alternatives, the SSX series has most definitely gone big. From its inception, it has been about snowboard racing and tricking on a superhuman level. Appropriately, the 2000 original was the first game released under the EA Sports BIG brand, and its two direct sequels were each bigger and better games than the last. But this SSX sets a new standard for the series, with a varied and dangerous world, a more incredible sense of speed, and competition on a massive scale. This is the SSX game fans of the series have been longing for, and the heart-pounding thrills to be had in conquering these mountains are sure to turn many newcomers into fans as well. Whether you're playing the single-player World Tour mode or competing against other players, most of your time in SSX is spent racing or tricking your way down snowy mountain courses. Those courses are set in Alaska, Siberia, the Alps, and 7 other regions, and although they're much more rooted in reality than those seen in many SSX games, these real-world locations have been given the extreme treatment. You won't leap over congested freeways or speed down the slope of an oversized pinball machine as in previous games, but you will trick off of your helicopter and grind on rails that snake through the cavernous heart of Kilimanjaro. The PS3 version includes the exclusive Mount Fuji of Japan, which you get when you redeem the online pass that's enclosed with new copies of the game and can be purchased separately from the online store. Mount Fuji is one of the more tranquil environments in the game, and the only one that doesn't have a deadly descent associated with it. The environments are vast and majestic. Details like sunlight sparkling on the surface or swirling flurries of snow capture the natural beauty, as well as the harsh conditions, of these locales so effectively that you can almost feel the bracing air enter your lungs. These details become all the more impressive when you fly past them; the smooth frame rate and immersive environments come together to create a truly impressive and exhilarating sense of speed. During a good run, the way you flow seamlessly from one thing to the next--from boosting down a slope to grinding along a rail to tricking wildly through the air--can make you feel like a superstar. Tricks are central to SSX even during race events because pulling tricks off is how you fill your boost meter. The controls for tricking are intuitive and feel great, and they allow you to use either the right thumbstick or the face buttons. If you want to grab the left side of your board with your left hand, you simply press the thumbstick left or hit square. If you want to grab the front of your board with your right hand, you quickly tap right or circle to indicate your right hand and then up or triangle to indicate the front of the board. All the while, you can use the left thumbstick to spin and flip effortlessly. The simplicity of the controls makes doing what you want to do a snap. If you prefer something that more closely resembles the controls of the early SSX games, there's a "classic" control option as well. It's the risk-versus-reward element of tricking that makes it so exciting. When you catch big air, you want to trick as long as you can to maximize your boost (and your points, if it's a trick event), but if you hold it for just an instant too long, you wipe out when you hit the ground, and all your tricking was for naught. Do you do simple ground tricks to maintain your combo and keep building up your score multiplier? Or do you play it safe and stop tricking to cash in the combo with your current multiplier? It's a balance you constantly need to maintain to get the best times and highest scores, and it's so rewarding to stick the landing after pulling off an especially risky trick combination. The thrill of such moments is enhanced by the great sound design. The eclectic soundtrack includes shimmering pop, funky R&B, and pulsating electronica, and when you leap from a mountain to catch big air, the music fades, as if it emanates from the surface down below. When you hit the ground, it kicks back in at full strength. If you've tricked enough to fill up your boost meter, the music gets remixed into Run-DMC's "It's Tricky," which reprises its significant role from SSX Tricky in this game. Being in the "tricky" state also means you have unlimited boost while it lasts, and you can do ubertricks, which are worth more points. Score enough points in this mode and you get access to even wilder super ubertricks. The relationship between the game's adapting music and your actions gives your landings a satisfying sonic impact that complements the physical one. Satellite surveys of the real-world mountain regions in SSX were used in forming the terrain, but clearly the hands of humankind have molded these environments to make them not only traversable but also conducive to high speeds and big trick opportunities. The end results are exceptional; numerous viable routes and intertwining pathways make the environments feel organic, which makes you feel like you're pioneering your own way down these slopes. Your helicopter pilot surveys the terrain from overhead and sometimes provides warnings about upcoming hazards or suggestions about which route to take, not entirely unlike a co-driver in a rally racing game informing you of upcoming turns. These tips can be quite helpful--particularly until you've done a run enough times to learn its ins and outs for yourself--but if you find the pilot's chatter distracting, you can always turn it off. Earlier SSX games never needed anything like this guidance because there was rarely much danger. There was little sense that you were competing against the environment itself, but the new SSX is different. It's much more challenging; the environments are more treacherous; and in the single-player World Tour mode, your AI opponents are tough enough to put your skills to the test. There may be many viable routes through these courses, but there are also numerous pitfalls, and if you fall into a chasm (you will), the game won't just reset you back on the course. Instead, you must use the rewind feature (similar to the one seen in many auto racing games of late) to roll time backward and find a suitable spot to resume your run from, but this is not without its penalty. In race events, other riders continue on unaffected, and there's a particular sting to seeing an opponent fly forward past you while you are moving yourself backward out of disaster. In trick events, where the winner is the one who scores the most points, rewinding carries with it a point penalty. And then, there are the deadly descents, the most grueling events in SSX. There's one in each region; each presents a different sort of challenge and limits your number of rewinds. If you first approach these via the World Tour, there's a smooth difficulty curve that makes advancing from one to the next easier. Your first is Mount Robson in the Rockies, a course littered with trees. High speeds and huge tricks are unimportant here; it's all about maneuvering carefully to avoid impact with these natural hazards. Failure here and on subsequent deadly descents is likely, and you may get frustrated, but when you finally master the terrain, there's a real feeling of triumph. Weaving and leaping your way through a tangle of trees unscathed is all the more exhilarating because there's a very real possibility of an ugly wipeout. A few deadly descents require you to make active use of new equipment; the coolest example is Patagonia's Fitz Roy, where you need to employ a wingsuit to glide through the windy air and over some chasms. Some of the deadly descents work better than others; the freezing cold of the shadows on Antarctica's Mount Slaughter is a thrilling threat to avoid, while the constant encroachment of tunnel vision brought on by oxygen deprivation on Mt. Everest is more of an annoyance. But on the whole, these challenging runs are a great way to close out your time in each region in the World Tour, and they're a great place for multiplayer competition as well. The World Tour is a good way to familiarize yourself with the environments and mechanics of SSX, but the action really heats up in the robust multiplayer modes. The Explore mode lets you aim for medal targets and compete against times and scores set by friends on any of the dozens of runs around the game's globe. The performances of your friends here show up as ghosts, and the ghosts leave glowing trails in their wakes, which look cool and are quite useful. If a rival of yours charts a particularly speedy and efficient path through a run, for instance, you can see the route he or she took. Deadly descent events here challenge you and your friends to see who can travel the farthest; when you make it to the bottom of a run, you're sent right back up to the top via helicopter to continue racking up distance. The other multiplayer option is Global Events, which are competitions that have set time limits; they might last for a day or a week, and tens of thousands of players can compete in them. Depending on how your performance stacks up against other entrants, you're placed in a bracket--diamond, platinum, gold, and so on--and the higher your bracket, the more credits you earn when the event comes to a close. SSX constantly keeps you updated on pertinent happenings in both the Explore and Global Events modes, informing you when a friend shatters your time in a certain race or when your performance no longer qualifies for a certain bracket. And it makes it easy to jump right back to one of those events to try to improve your performance. Additionally, whether you're in Explore or Global Events, you can plant geotags in any spot you can reach, and they can be collected by other players. You want to make these as difficult to nab as possible, because the longer a geotag you plant goes uncollected, the more credits you earn. You might be inspired to approach a run completely differently than you otherwise would in the hopes of planting a geotag in a hard-to-reach spot or of grabbing one you can see but can't immediately figure out how to collect. With so many runs to conquer and so many ways to compete, it can be hard to walk away from SSX. Still, the absence of a traditional simultaneous multiplayer mode is conspicuous. You can create a global event that's limited to just friends or friends of friends, but there's no option to create an event that places you and your friends at the starting line simultaneously. You might see your friends on the slopes in a global event, but without a coordinated start, it doesn't matter who actually crosses the finish line first; it matters who takes the least time to get there. You can always create a party and chat with friends as you hang out on the slopes, but it's still disappointing that the game doesn't have a built-in option for simultaneous social competition. What do you do with the credits you earn for performing well across the game's various modes? Well, lots of things in the game cost credits. New gear for your characters--better boards or outfits that provide perks like a bonus to your trick multiplier--costs credits. Accessing many runs in Explore mode costs credits. Entering many global events costs credits. And it's conceivable that you might end up in a situation where you have to choose between doing some events you don't want to do to earn credits, or just shelling out actual money to acquire them. Yes, you can purchase them with cash. You're never forced to spend money, but the game may tempt you at times with a sweet new snowboard or other alluring item, and the monetization of credits makes the whole thing feel a bit tawdry. But when you're actually on the slopes, the action is so good that you can lose yourself in the moment, joyously tricking and speeding your way down some of the most majestic mountains in the world. Whether you just want to relax and carve some sweet powder in the Rockies or you prefer a grueling struggle against the terrain and the elements, SSX has you covered. It improves on its storied predecessors in every way, with outstanding tracks, intuitive controls, amazing visuals, a diverse assortment of challenges, and fantastic multiplayer options that may have you competing with your friends or the world for a long time to come. Editor's note: This review originally misstated the total number of regions included in the game. The review has been amended accordingly. GameSpot regrets the error. Game Informations : Developer: Leif Johnson Platforms: PS3-PC Initial release date: May 1, 2012 at 6:18PM PDT

My Vote DH1, nice music

My vote DH1, nice music!