. PREDATOR

NEW DELHI: Google Inc has made its Meet app free for all users, with up to 100 people being able to connect simultaneously, as the US-based technology behemoth seeks to capitalise on the surging po[CENSORED]rity of video conferencing apps. Earlier, the premium video conferencing app was available only for paid enterprise users of the GSuite. This is the first time that a product designed for enterprise use is being extended to individual users, Smita Hashim, Director Product Management, Google Cloud told ET The Covid-19 pandemic has made video conferencing tools such as Zoom hugely po[CENSORED]r, with people using it for office meetings as well as for social chats. Earlier this week, Facebook also launched its Messenger Rooms app, where 50 people can participate in a call at the same time. Since video conferencing is an essential service, Google decided to extend its Meet offering to individual users for free on the lines of its other services such as Gmail or Maps, the Mountain View, California-based Hashim said in the exclusive interview. “We've already seen how Google Meet has been helping a lot of businesses and schools. We kept seeing the need for a very secure as well as easy-to-use, high-quality service for individual users as well. These apps are being used in ways which are unprecedented right now…" she said. Since January, Google has seen Meet’s daily usage grow by 30x and has been adding roughly 3 million new users every day, with Meet’s daily participants surpassing 100 million as of last week. All advanced features of Google Meet, which were previously available to enterprise customers, will be made available to G Suite customers as well. The features include recording, streaming, in-person meetings and enhanced safety controls. Google also accelerated the development of some features that enable users to see more people during a conversation. The San Francisco-headquartered search giant said video conferencing was seeing increased use across family, friends, hobby groups, parents and physicians. “There's so many ways in which people need video conferencing right now, even for business use it could be for tele-health, it could be retail, it could be again education. We really felt like there was a need for very secure, as well as reliable and high-quality product,” Hashim added. Google Meet would be different from other po[CENSORED]r apps because it would be highly secure and easy to use since there are already billions of Google accounts. Users will soon be able to access Meet by clicking its icon from the Google Chrome browser, she said. The company is also confident its network infrastructure will scale up quickly to meet new demand, at a time when the Covid-19 pandemic has led to more people working remotely across the globe. Google’s customers are talking about retaining work-from-home practices as they go forward, since it is working well for them, she said. “We hear stories all the time from customers telling us how they've been productive, from schools on how they've been able to continue online teaching. I really do feel that the some of the changes here will hopefully stay as a society and also leave us a better place to live in,” Hashim said.

A mysterious AMD Ryzen Threadripper 3980X CPU-Z screenshot is making rounds. AMD's new Ryzen 3000-series Threadripper CPUs are something to behold, especially the range-topping 64-core, 128-thread Threadripper 3990X. Beneath that resides the Threadripper 3970X with 32 cores, which leaves a glaring hole in AMD's lineup for a 48-core offering. Even though AMD never confirmed a 48-core Threadrippper 3980X, we've seen claims of the CPU coming before. The latest comes courtesy of Twitter user @NPCdes0, but we're convinced that it's fake. For starters, in the screenshot the chip reads as the AMD Ryzen Threadripper 3980X at the top, along with core counts of 48 across the board. But down by the Specification line, which is the name CPU-Z reads out straight from the installed CPU itself, it's read out as a Threadripper 3990X. Consequently, it's very possible that the image is either a result of disabling cores or bad editing. We had an interview with AMD's Robert Hallock in January, and he said that at the time AMD had no plans for a 48-core chip. This was because AMD noticed that with the previous generation of Threadripper CPUs, customers picked either the "sweet spot" chip or the range-topping product, rarely opting for the chip in the middle. Could We See a Real 48-Core Threadripper? Still, AMD hasn't completely ruled out the 48-core Threadripper chip entirely. It is very possible that it would still come in the future, as the $2,000 price gap between the Threadripper 3970X and the 3990X is still significant (bigger even than the Threadripper 2990X cost at launch). With its current lineup, AMD could potentially leave a pool of customers interested in a $3,000 chip untouched. It is possible is that this is an elaborate business strategy from AMD. First, it comes out with the sweet spot chip and then with the high-end product. Holding off on releasing the middle child, could push customers in need of more than 32 cores to splurge on the Threadripper 3990X. So it's feasible that AMD could drop a Threadripper 3980X when Threadripper 3990X sales start to drop. Either way, at this time we simply don't know whether the Threadripper 3980X will ever become a reality. Anything more is just speculation.

Jos van As, BMW’s head of driving dynamics, is grasping an imaginary steering wheel as he enthusiastically details the character of the new 4 Series Coupé. “It’s more sporting in every way compared with the old model,” he says. “But we’ve managed to improve overall comfort as well.” Having just driven a prototype of the new model at 175mph along a German autobahn and then on some magnificently smooth back roads, I was eager to hear first-hand what the man responsible for its development had to say about its clearly more engaging properties. But before I’d even had a chance to even pose the question after we pull into a shady layby in a sleepy town to swap cars (from the four-wheel-drive M440i xDrive into the altogether milder rear-driven 430i), he’s already singling out the variable electromechanical steering as the biggest benefactor among a whole series of changes that have been made to the Audi A5 and Mercedes-Benz C-Class rival. “We’ve concentrated on making it more direct and responsive than in the recent past,” says the man who has spent more time yet in the upcoming two-door than probably anyone else with obvious pride. “There’s greater clarity and added linearity, too. We’ve incorporated measures to make the body structure a lot stiffer than before. It’s a better basis than with the four-door.” So that’s the message: the new 4 Series Coupé, which goes by the BMW codename G22, is intended to be not only a more sporting car than any of its predecessors but also more comfortable and, crucially, further differentiated from the 3 Series upon which it’s heavily based. This is an observation that could be made of its styling as well. Although the two prototypes I drove were both heavily disguised, the new 4 Series appears sleeker than the current model and is clearly more differentiated from its saloon sibling. We’ll avoid any comment on the controversial grille, which is set to mirror that of the Concept 4 Series Coupé revealed at the Frankfurt motor show last September, until we see the production version. However, the car certainly cuts a sharper profile than before, with a long sweeping bonnet, a more heavily sloping roofline and a rather high-set bootline providing it with clear aesthetic links to the larger 8 Series Coupé and, according to van As, improved aerodynamics – namely a lower drag coefficient and added downforce. There’s also greater volume to the wheelhouses, allowing them to accommodate rims of up to 20in in diameter. The new 4 Series looks bigger up close, although not excessively so. Underneath, it’s based around the same CLAR (Cluster Architecture) as all other recent BMWs that have a longitudually mounted engine, giving it a wheelbase 42mm longer than its predecessor’s, at 2851mm. BMW engineers aren’t at liberty to reveal exact dimensions just yet, but they suggest the new car is also slightly longer and wider while being 57mm lower than the 3 Series saloon. The Coupé will once again head a family of 4 Series models, with successors to the existing Cabriolet and Gran Coupé to follow in 2021. The latter four-door also forms the basis of the new electric saloon, the i4, which is also due out next year. With more than six months still to go before the model heads into showrooms, BMW has confirmed just variants so far: the 430i and M440i. However, I’m told the line-up will extend to include replacements for the 420i, 430d and 435d as well. The two-door will also, of course, form the basis of a second-generation M4, which is planned to be unveiled as a rival to the recently upgraded Audi RS5 Coupé and upcoming new Mercedes-AMG C63 Coupé within the next 12 months. The M440i xDrive is the obvious highlight of the line-up at launch, offering junior M4 qualities and the added security and all-season capability of BMW’s latest four-wheel drive system. Its turbocharged 3.0-litre in-line six-cylinder engine is combined with a 48V electrical architecture in a development that introduces mild hybrid properties, including off-throttle coasting. Making 369bhp between 5500rpm and 6500rpm and 369lb ft of torque from 1850-5000rpm, it’s smooth, punchy and nothing less than determined on a loaded throttle. By engaging the left-hand shift paddle for longer than a second, you can call up Sprint mode, in which the alternator provides an additional 11bhp and a good dollop of torque. At the same time, the car delivers wonderful relaxed and effortless cruising qualities on more measured throttle openings in taller gears. The 430i, meanwhile, adopts the latest version of BMW’s turbocharged 2.0-litre four-cylinder petrol engine, which is tuned (as in the 330i) to deliver 255bhp between 5000rpm and 6000rpm and 295lb ft of torque from 1640-5000rpm, giving it 7bhp and 34lb ft more than the unit it replaces. It’s not a particularly melodious engine, due in part to the adoption of a petrol particulate filter that mutes the exhaust note, but it’s engagingly responsive, with little lag and an inherent smoothness as it pulls to 7000rpm with a good deal of zest. It’s the abundance of torque, though, that forms the basis of the performance. In fact, the engine is almost diesel-like in the way its urgency builds, giving the 430i impressive flexibility and relatively strong in-gear accelerative qualities across a wide range of revs. The eight-speed torque-converter automatic gearbox is brilliantly suited to the engine’s strong torque characteristics, helping to endow the 430i with outstanding refinement. Its action is crisp and smooth in D mode, suitably rapid and eager in S and obliging via either the steering wheel-mounted paddles or a nudge of the gear selector in M. BMW won’t quote any acceleration figures just yet, but you can take it as read that the new model will eclipse the old 430i’s official 0-62mph time of 5.6sec. And given that it features the same driveline as the 330i, it should come close to matching, if not bettering, the saloon’s figures of between 38.7mpg and 41.5mpg on the WLTP combined test cycle. Still, it’s a final layer of polish to the ride and handling that BMW is focusing its development on as it prepares to launch the new 4 Series. And although our impressions were garnered in a pair of high-mileage prototypes, there appears to be strong promise of a return to the driver-centric traits that characterised earlier incarnations of the two-door coupé, whose roots can be traced all the way to original 3 Series introduced back in 1975. What BMW has achieved is a heightening of agility and driver engagement while further refining the levels of ride quality and comfort. Predictably, they’re similar to the improvements reflected on the latest 3 Series and are very much dependent on the selected driving mode. But with five different settings (Adaptive, Eco, Comfort, Sport and Sport Plus), the new 4 Series offers an even broader range of driving characteristics than before. There’s precision and assurance in the latest incarnation of BMW’s variable sport steering system. It’s also more finely tuned, with less build-up of weighting and greater feedback. It quickens with lock, providing quite direct turn-in in combination with relaxed on-centre properties and impressive ease of manoeuvrability around town. In a bid to achieve a 50:50 weight distribution front to rear, the bonnet, front wings, doors and front suspension towers are made from aluminium, combining with other unspecified weight-saving measures coped from the 3 Series. Among the changes BMW has brought to the chassis in order to give the 4 Series a more sporting flavour are wider tracks than those of the 3 Series, with that at the rear extended by 23mm. This gives the coupé a particularly well-planted stance, which is further enhanced on the range-topping M440i by way of an otherwise-optional M Sport suspension set-up that lowers the ride height by 10mm The suspension retains the same hardware as the 3 Series’, with an aluminium-intensive MacPherson strut layout at the front and five-link arrangement at the rear, although it has been given its own unique settings and kinematic properties. Fundamental in achieving what van As describes as “more authentic steering feel” is additional camber brought to the front axle. “It makes for a more direct action and greater response off centre,” he reveals. The long-time BMW engineer also credits a series of new braces and other measures as being key to enhanced sportiness. Included is a new shear panel within the front bulkhead, a newly designed strut across the front suspension towers and an additional A-frame support at the front of the engine bay. Together, these served to increase both the static and torsional stiffness of the body while providing a more rigid and firm basis for the suspension. Another feature that van As attributes to the improved steering is a decision to fit every new 4 Series Coupé variant with BMW’s lift-related dampers. Brought over from the 3 Series, these feature both main and auxiliary springs as well as hydraulic bumpstops to progressively increase pressure within the damper under compression while also progressively adjusting rebound. “There’s greater wheel control and less corruption,” van As explains. To this end, BMW will also offer adaptive damping as part of the optional M Sport package. There’s an appealing tautness and progressiveness to the handling of the 430i, enabling it to corner in a flat and neutral manner. However, there’s also sufficient body movement for its limits to be communicated and allow you to explore the adjustability offered by the reworked chassis when its three-stage Dynamic Stability Control (DSC) system is switched into one of its more liberal modes. The four-wheel drive of the M440i increases the amount of grip and enables you to carry greater speed through corners, but it’s no less engaging despite its added security. While the adaptive set-up of the M440i is our early preferred choice, the passive suspension of the 430i does a pretty good job of soaking up nasty bumps in its Comfort mode. It’s quite firm – firmer than the 330i by way of comparison – but rebound is excellently controlled and road shock is nicely absorbed through the stiffened body structure. We’ll have to wait to fully explore the new 4 Series, including its reworked two-plus-two interior, but these prototypes have made quite a positive first impression. Although the model has grown slightly, it feels more compact than its predecessor from the driver’s seat and is more appealing to drive, too. BMW has clearly listened to the criticisms of the old model, not least of all its lack of true steering feel and overall engagement, and reacted with the sort of engineering solutions traditionally only reserved for its high-performance M models. As van As suggests, “It’s more authentic.” And that’s a good thing. BMW 430i Coupé specifications Where Munich, Germany Price £37,000 (est) Engine 4 cyls, 1998cc, turbocharged, petrol Power 255bhp at 5000-6000rpm Torque 295lb ft at 1640-5000rpm Kerb weight tbc 0-62mph 5.5sec (est) Top speed 155mph (est) Economy 38.7-41.5mpg (est) CO2 154-158g/km (est) Rivals Audi A5 Coupé, Mercedes-Benz C-Class Coupé

There is "clear-cut" evidence that a drug can help people recover from the coronavirus, say US officials. Remdesivir cut the duration of symptoms from 15 days down to 11 in clinical trials. The full details have not been published, but experts said it would be a "fantastic result" if confirmed, but not a "magic bullet" for the disease. A drug would have the potential to save lives, ease pressure on hospitals and allow parts of lockdown to be lifted. Remdesivir was originally developed as an Ebola treatment. It is an antiviral and works by attacking an enzyme that a virus needs in order to replicate inside our cells. The trial was run by the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) and 1,063 people took part. Some patients were given the drug while others received a placebo (dummy) treatment. Dr Anthony Fauci who runs the NIAID said: "The data shows remdesivir has a clear-cut, significant, positive effect in diminishing the time to recovery." He said the results prove "a drug can block this virus" and were "opening the door to the fact that we now have the capability of treating" patients. The impact on deaths is not as clear cut. The mortality rate was 8% in people given remdesivir and 11.6% in those given a placebo, but this result was not statistically significant, meaning scientists cannot tell if the difference is real. It is also not clear who is benefiting. Is it allowing people who would have recovered anyway to do so more quickly? Or is it preventing people from needing treatment in intensive care? Did the drug work better in younger or older people? Or those with or without other diseases? Do patients have to be treated early when the virus is thought to peak in the body? These will be important questions when the full details are eventually published, as a drug could have the twin benefit of saving lives and helping to lift lockdown. If a medicine can stop people needing intensive care then the risk of hospitals being overwhelmed is smaller, and there is less need for social distancing. Prof Peter Horby, from the University of Oxford, is running the world's largest trial of Covid-19 drugs. He said: "We need to see the full results, but if confirmed this would be a fantastic result and great news for the fight against Covid-19. "The next steps are to get the full data out and work on equitable access to remdesivir." The US data on remdesivir has come out at the same time as a trial of the same drug in China, reported in the Lancet medical journal, showed it was ineffective. However, that trial was incomplete because the success of lockdown in Wuhan meant doctors ran out of patients. "These data are promising, and given that we have no proven treatments yet for Covid, it may well lead to fast-track approval of remdesivir for treatment of Covid," said Prof Babak Javid, a consultant in infectious diseases at Cambridge University Hospitals. "However, it also shows that remdesivir is not a magic bullet in this context: the overall benefit in survival was 30%." Other drugs being investigated for Covid-19 include those for malaria and HIV which can attack the virus as well as compounds that can calm the immune system. It is though the anti-virals may be more effective in the early stages, and the immune drugs later in the disease.

Game Informations : Developer: Dotemu, Lizardcube, Guard Crush Games Publishers : Dotemu , Yooreka Studio (China) Platforms: PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, Xbox One, Microsoft Windows Initial release date: 30 April 2020 Still raging 26 years later, Streets of Rage 4 is a faithful revival of the classic arcade beat-’em-ups. Move from left to right, punch enemies, destroy objects for points, health, and weapon pickups, punch a few more enemies, and repeat. It’s simple and unadventurous, and while it expands modestly on combat with a few new skills to master, Streets of Rage 4 definitely prioritises nostalgia over any kind of big modern reinvention. The plot is wafer-thin and predictably corny, but it's beautifully presented in a comic book panel style. Mr and Ms Y, the twin offspring of series’ villain Mr X, are the big bads this time and their evil scheme is to control the city by “corrupting everything good” while looking like a couple of sub-par Scott Pilgrim villains. It’s all very silly, but in a knowing, not-taking itself-too-seriously kinda way, and it just about pulls it off. It’s 10 years since the events of Streets of Rage 3 and series regulars, Axel Stone and Blaze Fielding, return to fight crime again despite likely being “too old for this shit.” To balance out the familiar with something different is the addition of two brand-new characters, Cherry Hunter (the daughter of series stalwart, Adam Hunter) and a cybernetic armed, absolute unit called Floyd Iraia. Just like in the old games, each character has a special move that does a lot more damage at the cost of taking a chunk out of your own health bar. However, an added risk-reward twist for Streets of Rage 4 is that any lost health can potentially be earnt back if you string a combo of standard attacks together on top of it. Any break in this combo results in the health being lost permanently. On my first playthrough, which took between two and three hours, I found myself avoiding special moves due to their risky nature. However, as I got the hang of combos I started using them semi-regularly in situations where I felt confident I could earn that precious health back. It’s a simple but interesting minigame, and perhaps the most important addition into progressing the Streets of Rage formula as a whole. Using Star Moves on regular goons often feels unnecessary, but they’re still a fun spectacle. A stronger weapon in your arsenal are Star Moves. Every character’s is slightly different – Axel’s, for instance, is a flaming rising uppercut, while Cherry’s is a Pete Townshend-inspired guitar powerslide – but triggering them will do a huge amount of damage to any Y Syndicate members unlucky enough to be in your path. At the start of every level you’re given one charge, but more can be collected during your travels and they’re almost always best reserved for bosses where you’ll need it the most. Using them while fighting the regular goons often feels unnecessary as most situations are manageable, but they’re still a fun spectacle with Floyd’s screen dominating uni beam being a visual treat. Another enjoyable addition to combat is the inclusion of the weapon catch maneuver. Throw any weapon at an enemy and, if it makes contact, it’ll bounce back, giving you a split-second to catch it and keep whacking away with it. Like Gears of War’s active reload timed-button-press mechanic, there's a rhythm required to master it, but once you’ve do it’s supremely rewarding. However, for every moment of feeling like a deadly ninja, there are moments that are simply unfair due to factors completely out of your control. There’s one section where getting hit with a grenade bounces you into the path of another explosion, with no way to dodge or escape. I lost half my health as a result and this inability to prevent it from happening was very frustrating. Of the four starting characters, the returning duo of Axel and Blaze immediately felt familiar and fit right in place in a ’90s side-scrolling beat-’em up, but they do feel a little generic at this point. They’re both well-rounded fighters who don’t necessarily excel in any ability, but work best as an introductory character for new players and a recognisable sight for veterans. By contrast, Floyd and Cherry couldn’t be further apart, and their movesets are by far the most exciting and fun to play. Cherry's ability to sprint and weave through attacks feels more in line with what I expected a modern Streets of Rage would play like. Cherry Hunter – despite carrying a guitar on her back – can move at a significant speed, which is (literally) a nice change of pace to the other characters, and that made her my preferred choice in my first playthrough. Her ability to sprint and weave through attacks feels more in line with what I expected a modern Streets of Rage would play like, which is also why I was initially disappointed with how sluggish the other characters felt in comparison. Floyd, for instance, is by far the slowest character, but I soon appreciated that what he lacks in speed is compensated for with strength. His ability to toss enemies around like rag dolls eventually won me over and had me experimenting with different playstyles. Within the constraints of the restricted nature of side-scrolling beat ’em-ups, Streets of Rage 4 at least makes an attempt to spice up the level design. Levels like Skytrain and Airplane add little bits of variety (like high-speed train signs flying at you during combat, for example) to keep the environments fresh. Weapons are no longer restricted to hand-to-hand combat either: we get giant wrecking balls, chandeliers, and plenty of destructible scenery playing its part in the violence. There’s even a level of tactics to using some of these, especially the wrecking balls. Timing your activation just right can result in dealing an extremely satisfying level of damage. There’s also a 2D sequence that conjures up memories of the hammer hallway scene from 2003’s South Korean classic film, Oldboy, where mastery of the weapon catch can make you feel unstoppable. Every change of pace really adds to the enjoyment of Street of Rage 4, so much so it’s disappointing there isn’t even more variety throughout to ensure combat is fresh from beginning to end of its short run. As it is, they’re all-too-brief moments of joy; returning to the more traditional levels is sometimes a drag. The music sets the tone and definitely feels on-brand with the iconic beats of the series. Although I’d have to say that in the era of game soundtracks like Hotline Miami and the recent Final Fantasy 7 Remake, they don’t quite hit the same sort of ‘I can’t get this track out of my brain’ status, or even its predecessors. All 12 levels predictably end in a boss fight and, for the most part, there’s a good balance of variety and difficulty throughout. Most are smartly designed with often-challenging attack patterns you’ll need to learn, but disappointingly there are repeated enemies in later levels with arbitrary difficulty spikes like, “Here’s two of them now!” In general though, the enemies are a good mix of old and new with neither feeling out of place, despite the 26-year age gap. I played through the first time alone, but that’s only half the fun. Less, even. The two-player online co-op really shines though with the intensity and chaos increased. It also made me fully appreciate the potential character combos and the satisfaction of perfectly executing a tandem move such as Floyd throwing an enemy into Cherry’s rushing flying knee. If you’re looking for longevity, two-player co-op is where it’s at. (Streets of Rage 4 also has local four-player co-op but, due to the current isolation circumstances, I was unable to try it out.) Beyond the campaign and its five difficulty levels (Mania is exactly what it sounds like!) there's a tough boss rush mode, Arcade (which is basically the story campaign but with a consistent life count), and a PVP battle mode to mess around with. But that’s it. And frankly, the story mode is better than any of these options, so if you’re playing alone there’s little replayability on offer. The retro characters fit nicely into the combat loop and help reinforce how the latest instalment reignites that passion for the series through nostalgia. One thing Streets of Rage 4 does offer, however, is the wealth of nostalgic choices, such as the retro Streets of Rage 1 and 2 soundtracks and old CRT filters. It takes a little grinding to unlock, but there’s also a lifetime point system that gives access to faithfully recreated playable characters (and a modern version of Adam who unlocks during the story) from previous entries in the series. They aren’t just skins either – these characters have their own move sets, animations, and sound effects. Despite their sprites contrasting against the lush, cartoon-like world of Streets of Rage 4, these retro characters fit nicely into the combat loop and help reinforce how the latest instalment reignites that passion for the series through nostalgia. In fact, they’re so accurately recreated that, annoyingly, the characters from Streets of Rage 1 don’t even have special moves and must solely rely on their basic, “Call the cops for an airstrike” star moves. As a result they feel at odds with the new risk-reward system and it pretty much renders them unusable on the harder difficulties. In a way, this feels like a metaphor for the entire game: instead of taking bolder steps to modernise the formula, Streets of Rage 4 sticks rigidly to the past, for little more than nostalgia’s sake. Verdict Streets of Rage 4 delivers the greatest hits of the classic series and is at its best when played with at least one friend. If the primary focus was delivering a traditional Streets of Rage experience with a modern coat of paint, it absolutely succeeds. But while it layers on a few new and interesting mechanics, it’s still a very conservative update to the quarter-century-old format that feels like a slave to the past. Streets of Rage 4's System Specs OS: 64-bit Windows 7. CPU: 64-bit AMD Phenom II X4 965 or Intel Core 2 Duo E8400. GPU: AMD Radeon HD 6670 or Nvidia GeForce GTS 250. RAM: 4GB. Available Storage Space: 8GB.

BMW iX3 electric SUV spotted in near-production guise We can see the X3's trademark kidney grille has been blanked out for production, as is often the case with EVs that no longer require air cooling to the same extent. Vertical intakes at each edge of the front bumper seem to be brake cooling ducts, while blue backlighting appears to feature around the grille and down the sills. The unusual aero-focused wheel design is adopted from the iX3 concept, although the car's overall look has been toned down a little as the EV becomes more closely linked to the standard X3. Blue detailing also features at the rear, with two panels acting as styling inserts in place of the usual twin exhaust outlets. We have yet to see shots of the interior, but it's safe to assume that - bar some new functions in the instruments and infotainment to show EV-specific information and buttons for the extra drive modes - it will remain largely identical to that of the standard X3. Details of the production iX3's powertrain are not yet forthcoming. When the 2018 iX3 concept was first shown the plan was to offer a battery capacity of over 70kWh, a range of around 250 miles and an electric motor rated at 270bhp (an output that could in theory be doubled with a dual-motor set-up on top models). There is no official reveal date for the iX3 and it is likely to have been postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic. However, it is still expected that the model will be shown off and go on sale before the end of 2020.

Non-essential shops will reopen in France from 11 May - but shoppers may be asked to wear masks France will make face masks compulsory on public transport and in secondary schools when it starts easing its coronavirus lockdown on 11 May, Prime Minister Edouard Philippe has said. Schools will reopen gradually, starting with kindergartens and primary schools. Pupils aged 11-15 will be expected to wear face masks. It comes as hard-hit Spain also outlined its lockdown exit plan, aiming for what its prime minister called "a new normality" by the end of June. How will France reopen? Non-essential shops and markets will open their doors again from 11 May, but not bars and restaurants. Stores will have the right to ask shoppers to wear masks, and should ensure they remain a metre (3ft) apart, the prime minister said. In a relief to many, the French will be able to go outside again without a certificate confirming their intentions, and public gatherings of up to 10 people will be allowed. Crèches will also reopen - but with a maximum of 10 children in each group. France has suffered one of the highest Covid-19 death rates in Europe, along with the UK, Italy and Spain. On Tuesday the number of people who have died with the virus rose by 367 to 23,660, the country's health ministry said. Some 129,859 people have been infected. Hospital admissions and the number of patients in intensive care have been falling, however, giving cause for cautious optimism. Addressing parliament, Mr Philippe said the lockdown had saved an estimated 62,000 lives in France in a month, but that it was time to ease measures to avoid an economic collapse. "We will have to learn to live with the virus," he said, until a vaccine or effective treatment is available. He summed up France's priorities as "protect, test, isolate". Parliament was scheduled to vote on the government's proposed measures after a debate. Only 75 of almost 600 French MPs were allowed into the chamber for reasons of social distancing, with others voting by proxy. Will the lockdown definitely be lifted? Mr Philippe stressed that France must take strict precautions to avoid a second wave of coronavirus infections. "The risk of a second wave, which would strike a weakened hospital fabric, which would impose a 're-confinement', which would ruin the efforts and sacrifices made during these eight weeks, is a serious risk," he said. The lockdown will not be eased on 11 May if new cases don't stay below 3,000 a day, he added. France has seen about 2,162 new cases a day on average over the past two weeks. The government has set a target to carry out at least 700,000 coronavirus tests per week from 11 May, the prime minister said, and will cover the cost of testing. "Once a person has tested positive, we will begin to identify and test all those, symptomatic or not, who have had close contact with them. All these contact cases will be tested and will be asked to isolate themselves," he said. Mr Philippe said that where possible, people should keep working from home beyond 11 May. French central planning is at its finest in a crisis As the prime minister said, never in history - not in war, occupation or disease - has France had to confront such massive disruption. And now from the best fonctionnaire brains in the land comes an exit strategy that might just measure up to the disaster. As ever in hyper-rational France, the plan is built round numbers, categories and systems. The key figure is 3,000. That is what the government reckons will be the number of daily infections in the weeks ahead. By setting up local "brigades" of investigators to track the trail of infection, they reckon they will test 20 contacts per infection - so 420,000 tests a week, which is well within planned capacity. Those found to have the virus will be expected to self-isolate, either at home with their families or in requisitioned hotels. And as for the rest of the po[CENSORED]tion, life will very gradually resume. Protection, testing, isolation. That is the system. Which is itself then conditioned by three imperatives: acceptance of the enduring nature of the virus, progressive implementation, and regional adaptation. It always sounds a mouthful when a French technocrat expounds on a plan. But sometimes it may be exactly what the country needs. Who will have to wear masks? Addressing the shortage of masks in France, Mr Philippe said they would be widely available by 11 May. He called on all companies to provide staff with masks, and said the government would help small firms if necessary. Masks will also be sold on the website of the French post office, and five million washable masks will be set aside each week for the most vulnerable. From 11 May everyone using public transport, including trams, trains or the metro, will have to wear a face mask. It comes after Germany made wearing cloth masks compulsory on public transport, and in shops in some regions. In schools, France's kindergarteners will not be expected to wear masks unless they start showing symptoms during the school day. Middle school children (aged 11-15) will be expected to, however, and the government will make masks available for students who can't access them. Classes will be no larger than 15 students, the prime minister said. Elementary schools will begin opening from 11 May. Middle schools in districts with milder outbreaks may be allowed to reopen from 18 May, and high schools at the end of the month. What will remain closed? The prime minister noted that some parts of the country had suffered worse outbreaks than others, and said mayors and local authorities would be allowed to adapt the government's strategy to their locality. The framework to decide which areas need a stricter form of lockdown easing will be fixed on 7 May, he said. Some areas will be categorised as "green" and others as "red", depending on their tally of new cases, testing capacity, and the pressure on local hospitals. Nationwide restrictions that will remain in place include: Funerals will continue to be limited to 20 attendees Churches and mosques will be open, but may not organise ceremonies before 2 June Beaches, bars, cinemas and restaurants will remain closed France's top two football divisions, Ligue 1 and Ligue 2, will not resume this season

Game Informations : Developer: Playground Games Publishers : Xbox Game Studios Platforms: Xbos One , Microsoft Windows Initial release date: 13 juin 2019 Playground Games is doing its best to please everybody. Forza Horizon 4’s first expansion – Fortune Island – was the DLC for authentic driving and drifting purists, but its second is a quirkier package that’s more in line with Forza Horizon 3’s memorably wacky Hot Wheels add-on from 2017. After that, Forza Horizon 4: LEGO Speed Champions feels like a logical leap and it looks absolutely terrific, although it doesn’t quite hit the same heights as its Hot Wheels-based predecessor (figuratively or, indeed, literally). LEGO Speed Champions remains in sync with Playground’s previous work with Hot Wheels – just like the enormous, highway-width orange tracks of Hot Wheels Island, the LEGO bricks here have been scaled up to suit the real world, as if some billionaire lost a bet to a 10-year-old in the toy aisle. The LEGO looks quite remarkable, too – especially under bright sunlight. The softly-scratched surfaces of the LEGO bricks (particularly clear pieces like headlights and windscreens) are incredibly authentic; close up it’s far more in line with the look of The LEGO Movie and its follow-ups than Traveller’s Tales’ more stylised LEGO-branded games over the years. Zoom in on the headlights of a LEGO Mini and you’ll be able to make out individual part numbers and copyright symbols. Gaze over a grey baseplate and you’ll notice the word “LEGO” is stamped on every single stud. Stickered parts even have a completely different sheen to them, and the texture of raised, glossy paper is noticeably distinct from the hard and smooth ABS plastic surface of a LEGO brick. This expansion has certainly been assembled with oodles of affection for Earth’s favourite building blocks. The world itself is an ode to various famous LEGO themes, from the quaint village of Brickchester and its countless streetside cafes to a beach lined with pirate shipwrecks, a forest filled with glowing ghosts, and a desert spotted with towering dinosaur skeletons. Inspect the bones and skulls themselves and you’ll note they’re constructed with a broad spectrum of tiny, recognisable LEGO parts, and I get the feeling anything in the game could be built in real life with a big enough parts bucket at one’s disposal. In keeping with the theme, there’s a new radio station called Radio Awesome which plays the aggressively saccharine LEGO hymn “Everything Is Awesome” non-stop. The animals have been replaced with LEGO versions of themselves, rocking back and forth on their stiff plastic limbs. Even the custom map screen itself is a remarkable, miniaturised version of the whole LEGO Valley environment, literally pieced together with fistfuls of digital LEGO bricks and packed with tiny riffs on the world’s huge pirate ships, bright-green football fields, and even its high-speed dedicated race track (which, notably, is the first purpose-built, full-time race track to appear in a Forza Horizon game). It’s a fairly small map but it’s a dream vacation for the LEGO obsessed. As with Fortune Island, what happens on the mainland happens in LEGO Valley as well, so Forzathon Live events still occur on the hour. Seasonal changes also still take place, too (trees change to brown bricks during autumn and are topped with white bricks during winter, for instance). The new cars are also cute; they’re life-size versions of several cars from the toymaker’s Speed Champions range, including a McLaren Senna, a ’67 Mini Cooper, and a Ferrari F40. They obviously look a little peculiar at 1:1 scale alongside their real-life counterparts, but the daftness to it all is kind of endearing and certainly part of the whole point of this exercise. They shed minor parts when damaged and they even have a cabin view where you can watch the little LEGO steering wheel twist on its own accord (the LEGO minifig drivers swing their arms up and down but they can’t reach the wheel, because they can’t in the toys, either). Unfortunately, there’s just not that much material here. There have only been three cars added, which seems like a bizarrely slim selection when, by comparison, Fortune Island and Forza Horizon 3’s Hot Wheels expansion came with 10 new cars each. There is a fourth LEGO car waiting to be discovered as a barn find, but after digging it up I learned it won’t be available for use until after a future content update. You can, naturally, still drive any one of the existing hundreds of non-LEGO cars presumably in your garage from Forza Horizon 4 (and LEGO cars can be taken back to fang around the roads of Great Britain) but three cars don’t feel like quite enough to shoulder the weight of an entire LEGO-oriented expansion. It’s particularly conspicuous in the LEGO Speed Champions Horizon Stories thread, which sees each of the three cars used for multiple challenges. There’s no building process or really any interactivity involved with the cars either, which also feels like a bit of a shame. They just turn up in your garage as you progress and earn their “instructions.” I feel like LEGO Speed Champions takes a shot at lampshading the fact the cars turn up pre-built by having Jaimin, the announcer, apologise for his eagerness in constructing them on at least one occasion, but it still feels a little bit like buying a new LEGO set and your brother putting it together without asking. Progression in LEGO Speed Champions is tied to a giant, LEGO-themed spreadsheet of challenges in which you earn LEGO bricks in order to build both an enormous LEGO dream house and, further into proceedings, the LEGO F40 and Senna. The jobs are a cocktail of typical and familiar Forza Horizon 4 racing events, plus specific time trials, destruction assignments, and skill challenges demanding certain driving tasks be executed in certain cars. The skill challenges are a bit of a mix between the modern Forza Horizon weekly Forzathon activities and the original Forza Horizon’s ‘1000 Club’ challenges, but the destruction assignments are where this expansion leans most heavily into exploiting its LEGO-lined landscape, and I’m still not really tired of the clink of cascading LEGO and shattering bonus boxes. However, it was during these destruction challenges that I realised that, unlike the neck-snapping, gravity-defying Hot Wheels DLC for Forza Horizon 3, Forza Horizon 4: LEGO Speed Champions is really a lot more similar to the traditional Forza Horizon experience than it first appears. There are no giant loops or flaming rings, and no vast banked bends or colossal elevation changes. There are boosters on the jump ramps but, beyond that, it’s really just regular Forza Horizon gameplay through a LEGO lens. Regular Forza Horizon gameplay is still the best in the open-world arcade driving business – don’t get me wrong – but for all of LEGO Speed Champions’ oddball areas, imaginative brickwork, and general silliness it’s really quite grounded. Verdict After at least two dozen Traveller’s Tales LEGO games bringing a grab-bag of LucasFilm, Disney, and WB properties to life, Playground Games’ take on the toy line in Forza Horizon 4: LEGO Speed Champions is the freshest twist on LEGO games in years. The realistic look of the LEGO itself is terrific and I just cannot tire of shattering it to bits. Forza Horizon 3: Hot Wheels remains the bigger and bolder toy adaptation though and, as a strictly car and vehicle stunt-based toy, it’s probably always going to be the more elegant fit for a madcap, unprecedented experience in the Forza world. For all its eye-catching colour and good-humoured fun, there’s a far more standard Horizon driving experience baked into LEGO Speed Champions. Official Recommended Requirements Recommended Your device should meet these requirements for the best experience OS: Windows 10 version 15063.0 or higher, Xbox One Architecture: x64 Keyboard:Integrated Keyboard Mouse: Integrated Mouse DirectX: DirectX 12 API, Hardware Feature Level 11 Memory: 12 GB Video Memory: 4 GB Processor: Intel i7-3820 @ 3.6Ghz Graphics: NVidia GTX 970 OR NVidia GTX 1060 3GB OR AMD R9 290x OR AMD RX 470

What is it? Selling practical cars in significant volumes at reasonable prices is what Skoda does best. Nowhere is this more evident than with the modern-day Octavia, which has gathered more than 6.5 million sales worldwide across three model generations since being introduced to the Czech car maker’s line-up back in 1996. Over that time, the Octavia has regularly accounted for up to a third of production at Skoda’s Mladá Boleslav factory in the Czech Republic and a good deal of its profits as well – all of which leaves the new fourth-generation model with quite a lot to live up to. Well aware of what’s at stake, Skoda has defiantly risen to the challenge. Despite the ever-growing number of SUV models in the brand’s line-up, it’s clear that the Octavia still demands a great deal of respect among those holding the development budget purse strings. And it’s fully reflected in the attention to detail and depth of engineering displayed by the new model. Up close, there’s an appealing richness to the Octavia’s design that hints at greater maturity than with any of its predecessors. This is reflected in elements such as its bold new chrome grille, angular headlights, heavily contoured bonnet and deeply etched flanks, plus in Skoda’s claim that the car is up to 14% more aerodynamically efficient than its predecessor. As it has for the past 23 years, the Octavia offers a choice of two bodystyles: a liftback or an estate, as tested here. Both will be available from the start of UK sales, which has now been delayed until the second half of 2020, due to the transport restrictions caused by the coronavirus pandemic. Pricing hasn’t yet been announced, but we expect the new Octavia Estate to start from about £22,000, with the variant driven here likely to come in at around £26,000. Underneath its sharply drawn exterior, the Octavia retains the versatile MQB platform that it first adopted in 2012 and is now used extensively across the Volkswagen Group – albeit in a lightly modified form, with added rigidity and stiffness to its hot-formed steel-and-aluminium structure. The Octavia retains the 2686mm wheelbase of the car it replaces but, in a move aimed at providing greater interior accommodation and more load-carrying space, the estate has grown moderately; length is up by 22mm to 4689mm, width is extended by 15mm to 1829mm and height has risen by 3mm to 1468mm. The retention of the MQB platform means many of the hard points of the third-generation Octavia are also carried over to the new model, as is the electromechanical steering system and the suspension, which uses a combination of MacPherson struts up front and either a torsion beam or multi-link arrangement at the rear, depending on the model, but all with detail changes aimed at making the car more comfortable. Overall, there are four different chassis options, including the top-of-the-line Dynamic Chassis Control (DCC) with Driving Mode Select system fitted to our test car. Together with a general 10mm lowering in ride height, this brings adaptive damping and a range of different driving modes that allow you to alter the characteristics of the steering, damping and throttle mapping. Yet while the mechanical basis remains much the same, Skoda has mirrored the developments brought to the eighth-generation Volkswagen Golf, alongside which the Mk4 Octavia was conceived, by providing the car with a reworked electric architecture. With this comes more advanced active safety systems, including optional adaptive cruise control and lane-keeping assistance with level two autonomous functions, as well as matrix LED headlights. In a bid to provide the new car with the same broad appeal as previous iterations of the Octavia, Skoda is offering a wide range of powertrains. These include two turbocharged petrol units, a single diesel in three different states of tune, a compressed natural gas (CNG) powerplant, a pair of mild hybrids and, in keeping with recent developments at the company, a petrol-electric plug-in hybrid. They come mated to a standard six-speed manual or optional seven-speed dual-clutch automatic gearbox and front-wheel drive or optional four-wheel drive on selected models. The variant driven here, the front-wheel-drive 2.0 TDI, uses the latest evolution of the Volkswagen Group’s turbocharged 2.0-litre four-cylinder diesel engine, which now powers all diesel Octavia models, with 148bhp and 265lb ft of torque. Among its developments are new pistons and conrods – both of which are aimed at providing it with added refinement. In addition, there are two catalytic converters featuring a twin-dosing urea injection system that’s claimed to reduce NOx emissions by up to 80% compared with earlier incarnations of the engine, providing it with Euro 6d-Temp compatibility. Inside, the Octavia has taken a clear step upmarket and in doing so exposed itself to a whole new group of potential customers who seek premium brand values, equipment and technology. Whether this will alienate its existing buyer base remains to be seen. However, the shift in emphasis is quite marked, as exemplified by the decision to provide the Octavia with expensive-looking chrome trim elements and optional ambient lighting throughout the cabin. What's it like? It immediately feels nicely sized and agreeably roomy as you step inside. There’s a sense of greater space from the driver’s seat, which can be adjusted to a generous degree, as can the steering wheel. This sense of added accommodation also extends to the rear, which, although having a fairly low-set bench, now gives more leg room than before. The design of the new multi-layer dashboard and its various controls – including the standard twin-spoke multifunction steering wheel, the new electronic-control gear selector and the optional 10.25in high-definition digital instrument display fitted to our test car – is classier and more intuitive to use than before. The materials featured throughout are also clearly of a higher grade and feel more premium than those used in any previous iteration of the Octavia. Reflecting the upmarket shift, a head-up display is offered – a first in any model from Skoda. Of further note is the wide range of infotainment options. Drawing on the technology introduced on the Mk8 Golf, the Octavia offers a choice of four systems, with central displays ranging from a standard 8.25in up to 10in across. Along with standard touchscreen control and a slider element used to change the audio volume, you can opt for voice control and gesture control. In top-of-the-line Columbus guise, the response of the touchscreen is excellent: you can touch and swipe through commands quickly without interruption or any annoying pauses. What’s more, its clarity is outstanding, with a good range of brightness and contrast. On the connectivity front, smartphones can be paired via SmartLink to Android Auto, Apple CarPlay or Mirror Link. An in-built eSIM card also provides the basis for a range of online services and a wi-fi hotspot for passengers. Two USB ports come as standard within the front centre console, although you can specify up to five, including two in the rear and one in the overhead console. There’s also an inductive charging pad on the options list. Still, Skoda hasn’t forgotten why buyers have traditionally flocked to the Octavia Estate: its outstanding everyday usability. At 640 litres, the boot is 30 litres larger than before. Allow the electronic mechanism to open the tailgate and the flat cargo floor appears commodious even before you lower the rear seats by pulling the handles at the rear. Storage space elsewhere, including in the centre console and large door bins, is equally impressive, making this an easy and highly practical car to live with. For those who tow, there’s a retractable towbar on offer. The Octavia Estate 2.0 TDI tested here isn’t geared towards performance – but that’s not to say it lacks for driving appeal. In everyday conditions, it proves wholesomely capable without ever distinguishing itself in any one of its four driving modes. The 148bhp version of the diesel engine is likeable for its punchy low-end disposition. There’s a pleasing slug of shove from little more than 1500rpm that allows you to pick up speed in authoritative fashion. It’s not rapid by any stretch of the imagination and becomes a bit breathless beyond 4500rpm, but it manages to deliver fairly vigorous acceleration when you load up the throttle in lower gears, thanks to its 265lb ft peak of torque at 1600rpm. However, it’s at constant motorway speeds that the Octavia Estate 2.0 TDI is arguably at its most convincing, as the flexible nature of the engine, the tall gearing and the impressively smooth mechanical refinement combine to make for relatively relaxed qualities. It never really excites as the miles pass by, but neither does it make extended journeys a chore. It’s quite economical, too. WLTP combined figures suggest this car will return at least 52.3mpg in its most economical driving mode. Part of this comes from the programmed willingness of the automatic gearbox, as fitted to our test car, to shift into a higher gear at the very first opportunity in automatic mode. With the adoption of shift-by-wire technology, the shift quality itself has been improved from that in the previous model, making for smoother progress and greater well-being. The Octavia Estate’s dynamic traits mirror the competent qualities of its diesel engine, the emphasis being very much on the overall ease of driving and handling that’s controlled but never excitable. Operate within the car’s limits and it’s satisfying in almost every situation. Just don’t expect much in the way of all-out athleticism. Not in this particular model, at least. The steering isn’t exactly alive with feel and feedback, but it’s accurate and suitably weighted for the Octavia’s positioning. There’s a distinct lightness to the steering wheel at low speeds that makes for excellent manoeuvrability around town, then it weights up nicely for greater engagement at higher speeds. The Octavia corners with a good deal of agility in its most sporting driving mode. Turn-in is crisp and precise, while body roll is nicely controlled with progressive movement as lateral forces rise. Push hard in slower corners and the electronic stability control system triggers well before the front end begins to push wide. In this respect, the car is secure and quite adept. Thanks in part to the varying qualities offered by its optional adaptive dampers, the Octavia also provides excellent compliance and absorbance in Comfort mode, at least in combination with the 205/55-profile Continental Winter Contact tyres worn by the 17in alloy wheels of our test car. Should I buy one? All of this leads to the conclusion that the appeal of the Octavia Estate continues to centre on its outstanding versatility, cleverly packaged interior and overall roominess, rather than its performance, driving appeal or dynamics – in 2.0 TDI guise, at least. To this, the fourth-generation model also adds a smart new appearance, a renewed layer of perceived quality and greater refinement – all of which help to make the latest incarnation of the most po[CENSORED]r Skoda a more attractive proposition than ever before. Skoda Octavia Estate 2.0 TDI 150 DSG specification Where Stuttgart, Germany Price £26,000 (estimated) On sale summer Engine 4 cyls in line, 1968cc, turbocharged, diesel Power 148bhp at 3500rpm Torque 265lb ft at 1600rpm Gearbox 7-spd dual-clutch automatic Kerb weight tbc Top speed 138mph 0-62mph 8.8sec Fuel economy 52.3-65.7mpg CO2, tax band 112-141g/km, 25-31% Rivals Ford Focus Estate, Seat Leon Estate

The UK is at the moment of maximum risk in the coronavirus outbreak, Boris Johnson has said, as he urged people not to lose patience with the lockdown. Speaking outside No 10 for the first time since recovering from the virus, Mr Johnson said "we are now beginning to turn the tide" on the disease. He said lockdown would not be relaxed too soon but details on any changes will be set out over the "coming days". Some paused NHS services in England, such as cancer care, are to resume. And the families of front-line NHS and social care staff who die with coronavirus will receive a £60,000 compensation payment, the government has announced. It comes as the latest daily figures show a further 360 people died with the virus in hospitals, taking the total number of deaths to 21,092. This number includes 82 NHS staff and 16 care workers who have died in hospital. The UK deaths figure do not include people who died in the community, for example in care homes, or people who have died in their own homes. 'Invisible mugger' The prime minister returned to Downing Street on Sunday after more than three weeks off sick. Mr Johnson said he understood concerns from business owners who were impatient to end the lockdown. But ending it too soon could lead to a second spike in cases and cause more deaths, "economic disaster" and restrictions being reintroduced, he said. He said there were "real signs now that we are passing through the peak" - including with fewer hospital admissions and fewer Covid-19 patients in intensive care. And comparing the outbreak to someone being attacked, Mr Johnson said: "If this virus were a physical assailant, an unexpected and invisible mugger - which I can tell you from personal experience, it is - then this is the moment when we have begun together to wrestle it to the floor. "And so it follows that this is the moment of opportunity, this is the moment when we can press home our advantage, it is also the moment of maximum risk." Mr Johnson said the UK has "so far collectively shielded our NHS" and "flattened the peak" - but he could not yet say when or which restrictions would be lifted to ease lockdown. Once the UK is meeting the five tests for easing restrictions - including a consistent fall in the death rate and making sure the NHS can cope - "then that will be the time to move on to the second phase" in the fight against the outbreak, he said. But he added: "We simply cannot spell out now how fast or slow, or even when those changes will be made though. Clearly, the government will be saying much more about this in the coming days." A Downing Street spokesman said there could be more on how the government will judge the country's ability to "move forward" by the end of the week. Soldiers give instructions at a drive-through testing centre in Salisbury As people are told to stay at home, triathlete Lloyd Bebbington trains in a pool in his garden in Newcastle-under-Lyme Labour's environment spokesman Luke Pollard said he welcomed signs the government would be more transparent about exiting lockdown, adding the party had called for the government to publish its strategy. First Minister Nicola Sturgeon told the Scottish government's daily briefing, it was "not the time to throw caution to the wind" and lift lockdown measures - although there had been "real signs of progress". Speaking at the Downing Street briefing later, the UK government's chief medical adviser, Prof Chris Whitty, said scientists were trying to asses how "opening up of different bits of society" would affect the spread of he virus. But he warned there was "no perfect solution" and said ministers would face "very difficult choices" about what measures could be lifted. Analysis by laura kuenssberg The political could hardly be more personal. But the prime minister's return to work and return to health is far from a metaphor for the country making a quick recovery from the crisis. In contrast, Boris Johnson's statement at the lectern this morning was a request to the public to be patient, to keep going, to hold firm through the frustrations of living life mainly behind closed doors for a while longer. Despite some restlessness among the public, increasing volume in his own party, and from the opposition for a clearer route out of this, for the prime minister it's not yet the time to give more detail - and certainly not yet the time to change any of the restrictions. And when that time is reached, when the infection rate is deemed low enough, he was clear, that there will be no sudden nirvana - life in the 'next phase' will be a slow return of a more familiar rhythm, acknowledging, but not being swayed by demands to open up the economy much more swiftly. Health Secretary Matt Hancock announced plans at the briefing to restart some NHS services in England which were paused to help the health service cope during the outbreak. Mr Hancock said the "most urgent" services - such as cancer care and mental health support - would be restored first, starting on Tuesday. "The exact pace of the restoration will be determined by local circumstances on the ground, according to local need and according to the amount of coronavirus cases that that hospital is having to deal with," he said. The health secretary also announced details of the new life assurance for NHS and social care workers who die on the front line from coronavirus. He said the government wanted to do "everything we can to support families" dealing with their grief and was "looking at other professions" for who the scheme could be expanded. Hancock: "We want to do everything we can to support families dealing with this grief" The minister has set a target of carrying out 100,000 tests a day across the country by 30 April. But latest Department of Health figures show 37,024 tests were carried out on Sunday - still far short of the target. Mr Hancock said he was still confident of reaching the target, which he said would be "big enough" to support the next phase of the government's strategy to "test, track and trace". Earlier, Downing Street said it could take a "couple of days or more" before it was clear if Thursday's 100,000 testing target has been met. A spokesman said there was a "time lag" in collating some of the figures, such as on home testing kits. Mr Hancock said the government is still aiming to conduct 250,000 tests a day - including antibody tests. "We want testing to continue to increase. As you will know, the Prime Minister set a goal of 250,000 some time ago - especially for when the antibody tests come on stream. "But, so far, there isn't one of those that is clinically valid." Monday's press conference was the first to feature a question from a member of the public. Lynne from Skipton, North Yorkshire, said she missed her grandchildren and wanted to know whether allowing family to hug would be one of the first steps when restrictions are eventually eased. Mr Hancock said the question "brought home the emotional impact of lockdown" and that he hoped it would be allowed "as soon as possible". Anyone over the age of 18 can now submit a question for those at the daily briefing which will be chosen by an independent polling organisation. Analysis By : nick triggle Health secretary Matt Hancock was certainly bullish about the government's testing strategy at the daily briefing. The numbers being tested are going up and there is certainly capacity to process more - three mega labs are now open in Glasgow, Cheshire and Milton Keynes. But the problem in the UK though is more to do with giving people easy access to tests. To date, the UK has relied on hospitals and drive-thru centres to carry out the swab tests. But to make it more convenient home testing kits are now being offered and mobile units staffed by the army are in operation. The smooth rollout of these will be essential if numbers are to continue climbing and ministers then succeed in moving to the "test, track and trace" strategy once lockdown restrictions are eased. In terms of testing, this means providing access to tests to the general public - at the moment only hospital patients, care home residents and essential workers are entitled to them. But even these restricted groups have been enough to overwhelm the system - the online booking system has had to be closed at points because demand has been too high. There is, it is fair to say, plenty of work still to do.

Game Informations : Developer: IllFonic Publishers : Sony Interactive Entertainment Platforms: PlayStation 4, Microsoft Windows Initial release date: 24 avril 2020 The driving, iconic score that welcomes you to Predator: Hunting Grounds is one that instantly sparks nostalgia into anyone familiar with the cult 1987 movie. Unfortunately, very little else of what made the Arnold Schwarzenegger vs alien monster bullet-fest so much fun has made it into Illfonic’s latest ‘80s adaptation. There are brief bursts of frantic action lurking in the undergrowth which, when combined with tense firefights, create blockbuster moments synonymous with the source material. These moments are all too infrequent however, as Hunting Grounds often underwhelms more than it excites. Before dropping in for your daily dose of asymmetric action you’ll have one crucial decision to make: play as one of four fireteam members as you infiltrate an area of nondescript South American jungle and attempt to complete a series of objectives and then exfiltrate before the 15-minute timer runs down; or, choose the Yautja life and become the titular Predator as you hunt down the fireteam and try to pick them off one by one, distract them from their mission, and be an all-round nuisance. It seems like the latter should be the far more appealing option - even if the relatively long matchmaking times that come with it are not - but it’s actually as a fireteam member that I found the majority of my enjoyment in Hunting Grounds. There’s a variety of missions that you’ll be randomly assigned when landing in one of the three maps currently available. Each is essentially the same package wrapped in different paper, however, and almost entirely consist of going to a marked area on a map, holding down the square button, and dealing with a few AI-controlled guerilla fighters before moving onto the next. It’s actually as a fireteam member that I found the majority of my enjoyment in Hunting Grounds. These fighters aren’t the sharpest blades of grass in the jungle and will consistently funnel down the same few corridors waiting to be greeted by gunfire. They’re also surprisingly few in number and often not enough to keep all four members of your squad occupied. Disabling alarm systems can prevent enemy reinforcements but I was often tempted to let them go off so that I’d have more to do. The shooting itself feels adequate - not operating on the same plane as an Apex Legends or Call of Duty - but serviceable and at no point gave me a reason to want to stop playing. There’s a small selection of weapons to choose from, each more than effective against the AI – especially the default shotgun which counts as a secondary weapon and appears able to one-shot every grunt at a frankly absurd range. As a result of those factors these firefights offer little to no challenge and quickly become repetitive as you gain knowledge of the enemy spawn positions. It’s a real rinse-and-repeat situation, but actually more “muddy-up and repeat” in this case as you can resourcefully use the ground below you to hide your heat signature from the perpetual Predator threat. It’s a smart mechanic which actively affects the gameplay as well as being a fun nod to the film – and also where things actually get interesting. When the PvE becomes PvPvE is where a lot of the enjoyment can be found in Hunting Grounds. Moving through an enemy camp and seeing a branch out of the corner of my eye shake 30 feet above me put me instantly on edge. Seeing a pair of laser sights emerge from the canopy means trouble’s about to go down. When all of the elements of the hunt come together, high-action moments are created and the appealing core idea of Hunting Grounds shines through. Especially in the final phase, after all mission objectives have been completed and you inevitably need to ‘get to the chopper.’ The stakes are heightened as you have to defend your location from both militia and the Predator, who has to abandon subtlety and go all-out at this stage to prevent you from escaping. This often leads to those desired blockbuster fight scenes where your feet are getting hacked and slashed at by a desperate Predator as you attach to the helicopter’s dangling ropes. When all of the elements of the hunt come together, high-action moments are created and the appealing core idea of Hunting Grounds shines through. For all of this to come together just right largely relies on the ability level of the player controlling Predator, and that’s exacerbated by the disappointingly unbalanced nature of Hunting Grounds – and not in the way you’d expect. Too often, the hunted become the hunters and what should be a tense, fearful encounter for the fireteam descends into a game of cat and mouse where the mouse can just turn around and unload a full clip of ammunition into their pursuer. The Predator can easily be defeated by the fireteam as long as they stick together, because the stealthy alien has very little answer to four guns being pointed at him. His health depletes quickly, and even if he does manage to escape after a close call then all the fireteam needs to do is follow the fluorescent green blood and finish him off before the tediously long healing process is complete. After all, if it bleeds... Every round is a fairly straightforward process and it’s a shame that there isn’t more to it. I would have loved to have seen a more powerful Predator have to deal with some of the makeshift traps that Arnie’s Dutch uses at the end of the movie implemented into the gameplay. A more tactically thought-out plan of attack sounds so much more interesting than successfully going toe-to-toe with a creature that you have no business matching up against. Defeating the Predator should be the pinnacle of the experience when it comes to Hunting Grounds, but it happens far too often and offers little satisfaction. Even in Illfonic’s previous asymmetric multiplayer outing, Friday the 13th, required a ridiculously long list of win conditions and on the very rare occasion that they were completed, taking down Jason felt like a real achievement. It’s a shame that the fragile Predator offers very little threat when compared to Crystal Lake’s resident boogeyman. Defeating the Predator should be the pinnacle of the experience when it comes to Hunting Grounds, but it happens far too often and offers little satisfaction. Once the Predator is downed three different scenarios can play out, each underwhelming to varying degrees. First, if you get enough damage in quickly then you can finish the monster off for good and call in to HQ for the body to be collected. Once this happens you’ll have to keep the body in pristine condition while defending it from a slightly increased but still impotent number of AI forces. I have no idea why these guerilla fighters want to damage the dead Predator’s body, but they do. Once you’ve done this for long enough a cutscene will play where two of your team will recreate the most meme-able of bicep filled handshakes, which is a fun touch, but does wear thin on repeat viewings. The match then ends. It’s all very abrupt and your original mission objectives are left incomplete as the drug recipes or ancient artifacts that you were meant to collect are left untouched. It’s like going to the store with a long list of groceries, seeing a deal on ice cream, and just buying that before returning home without the essentials. It all doesn’t make much sense. If you don’t finish off the Predator thoroughly, though, he’ll have just enough time to set off his iconic self-destruct mini nuke. This is the much more interesting option that provides a few seconds of tense decision-making. You can either run and try to escape the blast radius, meaning you’ll either end the match alive or dead as again it abruptly ends once the explosion occurs. Or, if you’re feeling brave, you can try to defuse the bomb by completing a series of four puzzles against the clock. The Witness this is not, but the minigame does provide a brief period of fear and excitement that I wish there was so much more of in Hunting Grounds. The only downside to this option is that if you’re successful you’ll revert back to the monotony of defending the Predator’s body against waves of bullet-sponge AI. Meanwhile, playing as the Predator should feel like a power trip, but Hunting Grounds falls short in this regard. Some elements of everyone’s favourite Yautja’s skillset do feel great to wield and leaping purposefully through treetops, or ‘Predkour’ if you will, feels fluid. Using the net gun to trap unsuspecting enemies can be very effective, too. For the first few hours of playing your arsenal will be limited to pretty much the basics, but more exciting options begin to open up the further you progress, such as the Smart Disc and Hand-Held Plasma Caster. Those toys cater to different styles of play and let you decide what kind of Predator you want to be. It’s just a shame that you often aren’t powerful enough and are quickly put onto the back foot when engaging with the fireteam. When at close quarters it takes several imprecise melee attacks with your sharpened claws in order to down an enemy, by which time you’ll be lucky to not have a good chunk of your health bar taken away. From this point on, the tables are often turned and the Predator becomes the prey after your first engagement. Even when using your cloaking device it’s fairly easy to get spotted in the trees when retreating and before you’ve had time to claim your kill the fireteam have already revived their squadmate. It’s a fairly unsatisfying kind of encounter that needs balancing out in the near future, whether that’s by increasing the Predator’s damage output or his resistance to gunfire. The look of the Predator and in particular the sound design is spot-on. The look of the Predator and in particular the sound design is spot-on, though, and when combined with the movie’s pulsating score evokes a big hit of nostalgia. It’s disappointing that the same care hasn’t gone into the fireteam, who are just a selection of generic male and female character models that can be minorly customized. There are a couple of little nods to the original movie in the unlockable cosmetics, such as minigun madman Blaine’s cowboy hat, but it would have been nice to see more for fans of the series. On the whole, Hunting Grounds is without any game-breaking issues but could definitely do with some stabilising. There are quite a few technical annoyances such as texture popping, a few UI bugs, and then we get to the chopper choppy frames. It never gets in the way too badly, but can be especially noticeable when watching another player’s view once you’ve been killed by the Predator and decide to stick around. Verdict Predator: Hunting Grounds doesn’t quite let you live out that power fantasy of being an extraterrestrial master hunter, nor does it provide top-tier co-op FPS gunplay. Brief moments playing on either side of the battlefield create genuinely exciting action scenes, but they’re all too infrequent and end far too abruptly when you find them because the Predator is too often outgunned and has few means of dividing and conquering his prey. There’s a consistently enjoyable experience buried somewhere in the janky jungle of Predator: Hunting Grounds, but it’s just not that easy to find yet. Predator: Hunting Grounds Minimum System Requirements Operational System: Windows 10 64-Bit. Processor: Intel Core i5-6400 @ 2.70GHz / AMD FX-8320 Eight-Core. Video Card: GeForce GTX 960 / Radeon R9 280X. RAM Free: 8 GB RAM. Disk Space (HD): 18 GB Free. Directx Version: Directx 11.

Italy's Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte has outlined the country's first steps out of coronavirus lockdown Restrictions will start to be eased from 4 May, he said, and people will be allowed to visit their relatives in small numbers, wearing masks. Parks will reopen, but schools will not restart classes until September. Italy has endured the world's longest active coronavirus lockdown, and has Europe's highest official death toll. The country has suffered 197,675 cases of the virus, according to data from Johns Hopkins University, and 26,644 people are confirmed to have died with it. The number of cases has been falling, however. Italy reported 260 new deaths on Sunday - the lowest daily toll since 14 March. Authorities now believe Italy's contagion rate - the number of people each person with the virus infects - is low enough to justify a cautious easing of curbs. Suviving lockdown blues in an Italian villager Italians have been living under a national stay-at-home order since 9 March, with everyone required to stay within a few streets of their door. Other aspects of the lockdown easing announced today include: People will be allowed to move around their own regions - but not between regions Funerals are set to resume, but with a maximum of 15 people attending, and ideally to be carried out outdoors Bars and restaurants will reopen for takeaway service from 4 May (not just delivery as now), and food must be consumed at home or in an office Hairdressers, beauty salons, bars and restaurants are expected to reopen from 1 June Some sporting activity will also be permitted, but without spectators Individual athletes can resume training, and people can do sports not just in the vicinity of their homes but in wider areas There was no announcement on the possibility of Italy's premier football league Serie A resuming, even behind closed doors. Mr Conte stressed that social distancing measures would need to continue for months to come.

Game Informations : Developer: Frima Studio Publishers : Frima Studio Platforms: Microsoft Windows Initial release date: April 30, 2013. I'm disappointed in Zombie Tycoon 2: Brainhov's Revenge, and if you crave strategy games and brains, you might be too. An opening campaign mission gives a taste of the fun we could've had ordering a horde of zombies to chase the remains of mankind through a ruined suburb. It's the classic promise of power we've seen time and again: whet our appetites with a taste of what's to come, then take it all away, and make us feel primed to earn it back. Only here, you're chasing something that doesn't exist. Zombie Tycoon 2 certainly starts out looking like a deep real-time strategy game on a handheld, but it isn't long until it becomes obvious it's dead on its feet.Oddly, the first thing you'd imagine would feel wrong is one of the few things that goes right – the controls. Tradition dictates that RTSes only work with a mouse and keyboard, but Zombie Tycoon 2 sidesteps the issue by limiting you to as only many unit squads as you have face buttons, and tying abilities for your single hero-like monster units are mapped to the d-pad for fairly easy access. You won't be stutter-stepping or focus-firing with a scheme this basic, but combat has been wisely designed with such limitations in mind, and missions never demand any more precision than the controls afford. I wish the same forethought had also gone into tailoring the campaign map designs to those limitations. You've only got access to two small squads of undead infantry, a monster unit, and your mobile command vehicle, and they all have two speeds: slow, and slightly less slow. That's entirely fine if the action is confined to small, focused maps, but the sprawling, convoluted layouts these missions take place in are anything but. Objectives are scattered haphazardly across each massive level, with little regard to logical flow. Shambling your way back to the side of the map you just came from to complete a new task is annoying the first time, but when kept happening I had to wonder if the designers are just trolling us. Given the humor on display though, I'd be surprised, because the rest of the jokes generally work. Is the story on display riveting? No, but it does manage to find the charm and humor in pop-culture zombies. This conflict is one that any fan of the undead can take a side in: the eternal battle between fast and slow-moving zombies. Each side sports a surprising level of unit diversity – the in-game codex reveals a wealth of zombie variants with varying stats and tactical specialties. Engineers capture buildings especially quick, brawlers hit like a truck at the expense of speed, and self-regenerating scouts would theoretically excel at guerrilla-style hit-and-run tactics. As mechanically simple as it is, Zombie Tycoon 2 still has all the pieces needed to deliver a competent RTS experience, just that those pieces are literally spread out all over the place. The only way to deploy different units is to send existing ones into specific building types to be converted. In your typical strategy game, all these structures would be bunched together, but since traditional bases don't really exist here you end up traveling coast to coast just to switch unit compositions. And “composition” is more a figure of speech here than anything else, because with only two customizable squads to control at a time there isn't much room for experimentation. Having to choose between wasting several minutes to backtrack or simply pushing through doesn't feel like much of a choice at all, and that's where Zombie Tycoon 2 starts to really fall apart. Much of the single-player campaign requires that you keep a particular unit type handy at all times, and the need to protect your mobile command center around the clock makes every mission feel like an extended escort assignment – and we all know how much fun those are. Of course, just like most RTS games, the campaign here is just an appetizer to prepare you for the online multiplayer. But once I jumped into that, I was left wondering where the entree is. With one game mode, and a single, solitary map, multiplayer proves to be completely anemic. Infantry needs to stay near the command center for reinforcements, which in turn needs the infantry’s protection, so balling up your forces is heavily incentivized. I found myself wanting to send a single squad to scout my opponent’s position, or to capture unit upgrade structures, but without a second squad or the mobile spawner for support, the building’s point defenses just chew them up. With such a straightforward victory condition and a symmetrical map comprised of narrow corridors, it's hard to imagine a practical use for anything but the most hearty of combat units. Effectively utilizing your monster's special abilities proves to be the only meaningful input you have. The aptly named Bearhug monster excels at controlling space with traps, area-of-affect damage, and debuff abilities, where the support specialist Braintrust uses cloaking and scouting abilities to misdirect your opponent. Of course, you’ll rarely get to use them that way since you're always engaged in toe-to-toe battles to take down your opponent’s mobile spawner while defending your own. All that really matters during these sloppy, undead mosh-pits is that you deal as much damage as possible by using the right skill at the right time. And amidst the tedium of trundling along and slowly capturing buildings, it's hardly enough to make a match interesting. These overarching issues conspire with a number of smaller ones to keep Zombie Tycoon 2 from being a good time. Enemy AI often appears brain dead, even by zombie standards, and it's not uncommon to see friends or foes stand around doing nothing. Certain objectives don't trigger events they're supposed to, and there were even a few moments where my troops became completely unresponsive, forcing me to reload entirely. The lack of ad-hoc connectivity is also a real head-scratcher, especially given that the developers went to the trouble to include Cross Buy and Cross Play. The camel's back was already broken, but these last few straws keep it down for the count. Verdict Zombie Tycoon 2: Brainhov's Revenge makes a good first impression with its clever controls, but ultimately abandons RTS fans by failing to create any real depth or options. Campaign maps and mission designs work directly against the small unit count and slow movement, and the one mode that could've worked with what little potential it has left – the multiplayer – proves too weak to shoulder the dead weight. System Requirements OS: Windows XP 32 or 64 bits Win Vista / Win 7 / Win 8. Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo E6550 2GHz / AMD Turion II P540 Dual Core 2.4 GHz. Memory: 2 GB RAM. Graphics: ATI Radeon HD 3870 / Nvidia GeForce 8800 GT

A Hong Kong tour guide jailed for 45 months for stabbing three people during last year's anti-government protests has received a judge's sympathy. The judge compared the protesters to an army that had brought fundamental change to Hong Kong. Judge Kwok Wai-kin said the defendant was himself a "victim" of the anti-government unrest. The three victims needed hospital treatment, and one of them was critically wounded. Tony Hung Chun attacked a newspaper reporter and two others with a meat cleaver at a pro-democracy "Lennon Wall" of stickers and posters in the Tseung Kwan O area of Hong Kong after a discussion over current affairs, the South China Morning Post (SCMP) reports. The discussion, inside a pedestrian tunnel used by protesters to leave messages of support for each other, became heated in August last year. Hung had felt angry when he passed the wall and saw people putting up posters, as he had been out of work for about two months and believed these were the people who had caused the economic downturn, the website reports. His lawyer told the judge his income as a tour guide had been badly affected by the protest movement, Radio Television Hong Kong reports. Hong Kong has seen some of its biggest protests in history over a proposed extradition bill Judge Kwok Wai-kin agreed during sentencing on Friday that the anti-government protesters had been "like an army", beating people up and blocking roads. He said protesters who hurt ordinary people while pursuing their cause were no different from terrorists, according to local media reports. Their extremist conduct was reminiscent of that seen during the Cultural Revolution, the judge is quoted as saying. The Cultural Revolution, a campaign launched by then-leader Mao Zedong to get rid of his rivals, led to massive social, economic and political upheaval in China. Millions are thought to have died. Hung pleaded guilty in December to three counts of wounding with intent, and apologised to his victims and the people of Hong Kong. The judge described Hung as "an involuntary sacrifice and a bloodstained victim hanging by his last breath" as the protesters had "ruthlessly trampled on his right to work, live and survive", according to the SCMP. Lennon Walls plastered with colourful notes spread across Hong Kong during the protests. They got their name from a wall in Prague that was filled with John Lennon-inspired graffiti after the singer-songwriter's death in 1980. The territory saw weeks of protests over a proposal to allow suspects in the city to be extradited to mainland China. While that was later abandoned, the protests morphed into demands for greater democracy and less control from Beijing, and anger against the government remains. As a former British colony, Hong Kong is part of China but run under a "one country, two systems" arrangement that guarantees it a high level of autonomy, except in foreign affairs and defence.

Game Informations : Developer: Monolith Productions, Zombie Studios Publishers : Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment Platforms: PlayStation 3, Microsoft Windows, Xbox 360 Initial release date: 4 décembre 2012 When I first reviewed Guardians of Middle-earth for consoles, I praised it for its ability to ease new players into the notoriously difficult MOBA genre. Now that it’s crossed over to the genre’s native platform, it’s just as accessible as it was then. To bring a hardcore MOBA to consoles, developer Monolith had to take some serious liberties with the genre. Guardians of Middle-earth is tuned to be played with controllers rather than a mouse and keyboard, no in-game item shop, and a much smaller map than Dota 2 or League of Legends. The result is a great game for those interested in the genre, but aren’t ready for the incredibly tough learning curve that comes from its more hardcore brethren. Gone are some of the more nuanced attributes of MOBAs like last-hitting AI-controlled enemies for gold, leaving just the core elements of the genre: Brawling with other characters in order to get more powerful and destroy the other team’s base. Without any of the other things to worry about, GOME doesn’t feel so much simplistic as streamlined, choosing to focus on a consistent amount of action rather than the slow, tactical experience that can come from other games. Thus, players looking for a competitive experience won’t find it here. Without the flexibility of being able to change your items on the fly in game (buffs are chosen, loadout style, before every match) or a ranking system, GOME is more of a quick and fun experience that can be played in under 20 minutes, with the unique addition of a match timer. Content-wise, the PC port collects all the DLC from the console release, including the 14 extra Guardians, as well as the Shire and Mirkwood map skins. The horde-like Survival mode makes an appearance, too. PC-exclusive Guardian skins are also available, giving each of the 36 combatant a new, alternate look - for a price. Now, you could play GOME with a mouse and keyboard, but because of its console origins, the experience is better with a controller in hand. Rather than single-target attacks like many MOBAs, Guardians emit a cone or column of damage, which are aimed with the right stick. It’s essentially a twin-stick shooter, and both moving and aiming with a mouse can feel clumsy and lead to frustration. Some things are improved on PC, however. Where I had a problem with the messy UI when playing on a TV, things made a lot more sense on a computer monitor. Sure, the screens tend to be smaller, but the closer viewpoint and higher resolution allow for a greater ease of understanding of the complicated map and stat screens. Things are decidedly easier to read. Plus, all the characters and maps look super sharp on PC monitors, further proving that the art style is an excellent adaptation of the classic fantasy series. It seems that many of the technical problems have been solved, as well. There were far fewer disconnects and lag problems in my games, and there was never a loss of in-game currency as a result of being dropped from a game. Matchmaking could still use a bit of improvement, though, as matches can often take well over five minutes to find. VERDICT With many of the technical and UI problems solved in the transition from console to PC, Guardians of Middle-earth has become the game it should have been when it was originally released: A streamlined, easy to understand MOBA for those looking for an entry point to the genre. Guardians of Middle Earth Recommended Requirements : CPU: Intel Core i5 750, 2.67 GHz | AMD Phenom II X4 965, 3.4GHz or better. OS: Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8. VIDEO CARD: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560 | AMD Radeon HD 6950 or better. FREE DISK SPACE: 8 GB.

Game Informations : Developer: Capcom Publishers : Capcom Platforms: PS4 , Xbox One , Microsoft Windows Initial release date: 26 janvier 2018 Monster Hunter: World initially seemed destined to be one of those game of the year candidates that, due to a January release, would be forgotten about when all the lists rolled around 12 months later. Thankfully, the promised PC port has finally appeared, and it’s set to reignite that discussion. When it first arrived on Xbox One and PS4, I wrote: “World takes a dramatic leap into a look, feel, and size that feels truly new, simultaneously staying true to the series’ ideals by maintaining the addictive loop of combat, intimidating monsters and meaningful upgrades that fans love. The sheer depth and commitment required is still intense, but it clearly isn’t Capcom’s aim to court a casual crowd. This is as all-consuming and incredible a ride as ever.” Read our original Monster Hunter: World review. Brilliantly, Monster Hunter’s first western foray onto PC is a near-perfect recreation of that console experience I fell in love with last winter. Those hoping this release would be Capcom’s excuse to add the much-loved G-rank challenges will be disappointed, but this remains the stupendously generous game it always was, with hundreds of hours of play in store for those that become entranced by its web of quests and upgrades. In fact, those returning having dropped off from playing earlier console versions will find a more welcoming experience. Months of updates saw Capcom fixing some of our few complaints about the launch version, from being able to sort the endless lists of Investigation quests to changing text size and adding more options to farm certain useful items. It’s not drastically different, but it’s definitely more efficient. While all the console versions’ quality of life improvements have made their way across, PC players will have to wait a little while to get the content updates that came post-launch. New monsters like Deviljho and Lunastra will be added at a later date - but in a game that takes at least 100 hours to finish the basic storylines, that isn’t a huge problem. The true benefit of playing on PC is, predictably, in the performance. Playing the game at the ‘Highest’ level of quality doesn’t outstrip what we’ve seen on PS4 Pro and Xbox One X but, as you’d expect, you aren’t forced to choose between higher resolution, graphical quality and frame rate here. The result is a game that looks as good as on the most powerful console, but runs without a hitch (and, with an uncapped frame rate option for those with beefier machines, even better than the original) While it’d take a more powerful PC than mine to run with every setting maxed, in hours of play at 1080p, 60 FPS at max quality with a GTX 1070, I’ve not seen a hint of the frame rate dips that hit every console version. Capcom’s hinted that it may release a PC-exclusive graphical improvement patch post-release but, even without, this is no slouch. Speaking of patches, you may have heard about a pre-release version of the port crashing regularly. Thankfully, a pre-release fix seems to have eliminated that issue. Despite suffering multiple crashes pre-patch, I’ve had none in the hours I’ve played of the release version. PC’s other major addition is keyboard and mouse play. While this works far better than I’d assumed it would, and feels like something of a novelty, I’d still recommend a controller. Monster Hunter’s combat requires pinpoint timing at the best of times, and using its more complex weapons can feel like more of a dance across a keyboard than it perhaps should. That said, with some input remapping, I can see the game’s ranged weapons becoming more usable on keyboard and mouse, offering real precision, but the default control scheme just isn’t there. Verdict : Fitting for the series’ first ever western PC version, this isn’t a case of bringing flashy new exclusive content but a supremely stable, confidently-put-together package of what got all the console players so excited about in January. If it’s the first time you’ve gotten a chance to see what Monster Hunter is all about, this is as good a starting point as you’re likely to get. Monster Hunter: World ( Recommended Requirements ) : CPU: Intel Core i7 3770 3.4GHz or Intel Core i3 8350 4GHz or AMD Ryzen 5 1500X CPU SPEED: Info RAM: 8 GB OS: WINDOWS 7, 8, 8.1, 10 (64-bit required) VIDEO CARD: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 (VRAM 3GB) or AMD Radeon RX 570X (VRAM 4GB) PIXEL SHADER: 5.1 VERTEX SHADER: 5.1 FREE DISK SPACE: 20 GB DEDICATED VIDEO RAM: 3072 MB

Game Informations : Developer: Kylotonn Publishers : Bigben Interactive Platforms: PS4 , Nitendo Switch , Xbox One , Microsoft Windows Initial release date: 5 septembre 2019 Though it’s been through some hard times over the past 19 years, KT Racing’s WRC series has been steadily improving since the French development team’s tenure with the license began in 2015, and WRC 8 represents its biggest leap in quality to date. Packed with outstanding stage design and bolstered by a number of welcome improvements – including a much richer and more nuanced career mode – WRC 8 is certainly the most in-depth rally sim to ever wear the official license. Finally, it’s positioned to compete with the big names in the genre. Whether played with a pad or a wheel, WRC 8 is a satisfying arm wrestle and certainly the best-feeling WRC game I’ve played – and that extends back to Evolution’s memorable stint with the license back in the PS2 era. On a pad, the FWD cars like aggressive taps of the stick for countersteering – anxious drags just induce fishtailing. They also need keen tugs of the trigger to brake hard and step the rear out. The AWD WRC cars and their otherworldly acceleration and grip require much more finesse; you can pivot them on the throttle but they demand smoother inputs all around. On a wheel, however, it really starts to sing; it’s slippy but responsive as the tyres relentlessly claw at any surface, and the force feedback is impressive and effective. There have been some drastic changes to the career mode in WRC 8 as well, and the result is far more engaging than the basic menu cycling from event to event that characterised WRC 7. WRC 8’s version has blossomed into something that feels more representative of a large-scale, globe-trotting motorsport, with non-championship events to opt into, training tasks to complete, and team members to contract. WRC 8’s [career mode] has blossomed into something that feels more representative of a large-scale, globe-trotting motorsport. Specific staff now need to be hired to fill six important roles, each of whom come with gameplay benefits attached to make those decisions feel meaningful. Skilled mechanics can accomplish more repairs within the limited window at the service park between stages; effective agents can wrangle invites to more exclusive one-off events; and canny meteorologists can forecast further into the future, giving you an idea about potential weather changes deeper into stages. Granted, it’s a little daft how quickly staff tend to tire considering they’re not the ones doing to the actual driving. For instance, while my co-driver and I spent several days slicing through Swedish tundra at speeds that would make even the sternest scrotum shrivel, my agent got so burnt out from sipping champagne and eating tiny triangle sandwiches in the hospitality tent that he needed a week off. It’s also more than a little incongruous that it’d be up to the driver to personally manage staff vacation time in the first place. That said, I think the crew management is still a good addition to WRC 8, injecting a welcome team atmosphere into what had previously been a pretty lonely experience. There’s also now a large skill and tech tree, shamelessly reminiscent of the R&D system that’s been part of the F1 games for several years now, and it adds a bunch of extra layers to WRC 8’s racing career. Whether you choose to apply upgrade points to improving your cash and XP awards or you opt to target strictly technical improvements is up to you. There’s a little bit of arbitrary game-y nonsense when it comes to managing bonus objectives (it’s illogical your reputation with your current manufacturer would take a hit simply for using a particular tyre compound during a rally if you’d also just won the rally) but overall it’s still a huge improvement from the entirely vanilla career experience of WRC 7. A handsome looking racer, WRC 8’s lighting effects are particularly strong this year. Low sun pierces through the treelines and a spectrum of time-of-day conditions are on offer to really change up the aesthetics of stages run under different cloud and weather scenarios. Attention to detail has improved, too. Beading water, which was surprisingly sub-par in WRC 7, has been replaced with a much more modern and authentic rain effect in WRC 8. The suitably streaky effect that accompanies flicking the wipers on for the first time is nice, too (with dynamic weather, those of us who race in cabin view need to manually toggle the wipers any time it begins to rain, or if the windscreen has simply accumulated too much muck to see out of). The water-splash effects have had a boost as well, and they’re accompanied by a deafening blast as puddles pummel the undercarriage. Sound is pretty top notch this edition, to be honest, with a great mix of a barking and burbling exhausts, tons of a kick-up, and plenty of meaty collision noises. Subtle stuff like the muted noise of crowds cheering big jumps – audible even over the wail of the needle bouncing off the limiter – didn’t go unnoticed, either. The full 2019 season is replicated inside WRC 8 – the complete 14-country calendar and all the cars and teams from WRC Junior, WRC 2, and WRC. This means Poland has been flicked, but Turkey and Chile have been added and those stages are all-new. Not every stage in WRC 8 is fresh – there are repeated routes from the previous game, plus reversed stages – but they’re still amongst the best in the business. The key strength of the stages in WRC 8 isn’t just the sheer variety that 14 extremely different locations from across the globe affords, nor is it just the colossal length of the very longest of them (which, again, are the longest stages in the genre). It’s rather how effectively claustrophobic they are, and how amazing the sense of speed is on a ribbon of road flanked with so much danger at barely an arm’s length. WRC 7 established KT Racing as uncommonly astute rally stage craftspeople, and WRC 8 only strengthens that reputation. The car roster is largely just the modern metal from the current WRC and supporting classes. There are a few older classics included for the first time – which is true step in the right direction – but don’t expect an extensive selection of rally icons (I hope you like Lancias, because they’re mostly just old Lancias). Dirt still has the WRC series well beat when it comes to the garage. Verdict WRC 8 is a rock-solid rally racer that’s now looming very large in the rearview mirror of current off-road kingpin Dirt Rally 2.0. It’s still not quite as beautiful or broad as the latter but the additions made on top of WRC 7 – particularly the dynamic weather and the vastly improved career mode – are real gamechangers.