Fight Crab (PC, Switch [reviewed]) Developer: Calappa Games Publisher: Playism, Mastiff Released: July 29, 2020 (PC), September 15, 2020 (Switch) MSRP: $19.99 I like crabs. Do you like crabs? I keep a small group of hermit crabs as pets, one has been with me for over a decade now. So, my first question when going into Fight Crab was, “can I play as a hermit crab?” The answer is no, sadly, but you do have the option of piloting a coconut crab, which is essentially a giant hermit crab. They grow up like hermit crabs -- hiding their soft, delicious butts in gastropod shells -- but eventually become too big and tough to use them anymore, so they just go naked. They're the largest terrestrial arthropod in the world and are known for being mischievous. That’s probably the most intellectual thing I’ll say in this whole review, because Fight Crab is an immensely stupid game, and I mean that as lovingly as possible. Do you like Goat Simulator? Do you remember Road Rash 64? Did you get your doctorate in Surgeon Simulator? These are all really dumb games that you’ll probably get a lot more enjoyment out of if you don’t take them very seriously. Jump off that building. Spoke jam that hog with a banana. Break open that rib cage with an alarm clock. Have a bit of fun! Fight Crab closely follows that philosophy. It sounds like every mechanic was proposed with the qualifier, “Wouldn’t it be funny if…” It’s a game that is exactly what it says on the box. You pick from a growing assortment of crustaceans, then pinch your way to victory. Or maybe your claws aren’t enough for you. There’s also a huge selection of weapons for you to pick from. Everywhere from a sai to a lightsaber. Pick your poison, then duke it out in a number of equally bizarre environments like a medieval dining room, a supermarket display, or a table at a Chinese restaurant. There’s actually a lot of stuff to choose from. There’s 23 types of crab ranging from the cute little snappers to Lovecraftian horrors from the nightmare corpse city of R'lyeh. If you throw down against them in the main campaign, you can rest assured that you can pilot their crabby carapaces, which includes all the big bosses. Size isn’t always an advantage, so you may need to experiment to figure out which crustacean works right for you. Once you’ve picked your pinchers and filled them with deadly weapons, it’s time to get down and dirty with Fight Crab’s fumbly, bumbly combat system. Soul Calibur, this is not. Each stick controls one of your claw arms, the triggers are for pinching and punching, and the shoulder buttons are for grabbing and blocking. You move by pressing a direction on the d-pad, which sends your crab scuttling indefinitely until you tell it to stop. Or you can play with motion controls using the Joy-Cons if you hate your arms. Simple enough, right? It is! Fight Crab is very pick-up-and-play, as there’s very little finesse needed with the controls. The crabs move like they’re submerged in molasses, so there’s a floatiness to all their actions giving you the opportunity to decide whether to go in for the offensive or shell up. Or you can just set your crab to go forward and start flailing; that works surprisingly well, too. Which isn’t to say there’s no strategy involved here. Most of my online battles resulted in me getting my exoskeleton handed to me by people who have mastered the art of the motorized scooter or know how to combine a jet engine with a katana. There’s a lot of experimentation to be done. Perhaps because the main event here is watching crabs fight, the campaign weighs in a little light. There are six stages and a trio of extra challenges. The stages can be tackled at various difficulties, adding a bit of replay value, but to get through it once won’t require you to reconfigure your calendar. Through the campaign, you can buy more weapons and level up your favourite crabs, though the leveling system seems a little inconsequential, as I never noticed a difference no matter how many points I crammed into each category. One feature I appreciated is that most levels in the campaign can be played co-op after a certain point. I got my first chance to play Fight Crab on the same day my husband had a brutal experience at work. A little bit of salt-water brutality was just the ticket to get him cheered up. It’s a very clumsy game, and that may be by design. Each crab takes some getting used to, featuring not only different weights, sizes, and speeds, but also different claw configurations. It is a lot easier to grab another crab with the fiddler’s big pincher than it is with the coconut crab’s downturned grabbers. Likewise, don’t expect to hit anything by sticking a double-barrel shotgun in the hands of a longarm crab. Those floppy appendages can barely withstand the kickback. To win a fight, you have to knock another crab onto its back, and the physics behind doing so aren’t easily understood. Sometimes you can clip at the face of your enemy until they roll over, other times you can just bowl into them, sometimes the physics screw up and launch your prey several meters into the air, and occasionally they just refuse to tip like some sort of shelled Weeble. Getting up can be equally unreliable. The game tells you to punch wildly to flip over, but if this has any effect, I haven’t experienced it. If you plan on taking this game seriously, you’re going to suffer some rage. Facets are janky, others are unreliable. The outcome of the match can be decided by who gets lucky with the physics. Skill definitely does play a factor, no doubt, but it can be easily trumped by misfortune. Similarly, the game is a bit messy from a technical standpoint. It runs okay, the graphics are fine, and I never had an issue with the netcode, even as I mostly played against people from Japan. The soundtrack is fun, but maybe a bit repetitive. Its worst sin is that the UI is absolutely horrid. It gets the job done, but not without some confusion and ugliness. If you’re willing to set your brain aside and just get down with some crusty bumping, you can count on having a good time. There’s a lot to be said about the spectacle of sea bugs throwing down with medieval weaponry. It manages to keep things smelling fresh by putting you through some absolutely bizarre situations, and you’ll never forget the first time a lobster comes at you with a revolver. On the other hand, this kind of stupid fun is always fleeting. You’re probably not going to spend a lot of time mastering the art of the death pinch, and once the novelty wears off, you’ll likely molt your old shell and move on. CPU: Intel Core i3. OS: Windows 8.1 or 10. VIDEO CARD: NVIDIA GeForce GT 630. FREE DISK SPACE: 1 GB.

The best website builders for musicians make it easy to not just showcase your band but especially present your music and track listings. BEST MUSICIANS' WEBSITE BUILDERS 1. Bandzoogle 2. Wix 3. Music Glue 4. Difymusic 5. Tumblr Read on for our detailed analysis of each service A host of different services will now let you put a website online, quickly and easily, no coding skills required – but if you're looking for something to show off your talents as a musician then you need a more specific set of features. Primarily, a way of uploading and sharing your tunes in a simple and secure way, even if it's just snippets of songs rather than whole tracks or indeed albums. If you're a musician for hire then it can be useful to have some kind of booking system in place as well, or at least a contact form. On top of that, there are all the extras you might be interested in, like support for your own domain name or gallery pages to show just how many people came to your last gig. Here are our picks for the best website builder for musicians to create a presence online. Want your company or services to be considered for this buyer’s guide? Please email your request to desire.athow@futurenet.com with the URL of the buying guide in the subject line. We’ve also picked out the best website builder for photographers You won't find too many website builder services aimed specifically at musicians, but Bandzoogle gleefully jumps in to provide a bespoke service specifically for bands and artists. While it lacks some of the polish of the big names, because it focuses on the musician niche in particular, it has everything you should need. That includes, of course, the ability to upload your own tracks and let visitors stream them from your website. You can get tracks organized into entire albums if you really want to go to town, or just share (or even sell) single tracks. And then, as well as that, you've got simple ways to post gig dates, blog updates, and so on. Whether you need to build a contact form or a video diary, Bandzoogle makes it easy, no coding required – you can really make a site that's as simple or as complex as you like, and the end result is something that looks like you hired a specialist. You've got over 100 themes to choose from (there is even one for crowdfunding), they're all straightforward to edit and tweak, and connecting up social accounts (including the likes of SoundCloud and Bandcamp) only takes a few clicks as well. As an added bonus, you can sell fan subscription, merchandise and tickets right through Bandzoogle as well. This all makes, in our opinion, Bandzoogle the best overall website builder for musicians. Check out any list of website builders for any purpose and Wix is likely to feature on it, but not only does this service earn that high reputation, it also has some useful tools for musicians – not least the ability to upload your own tracks so visitors to your website can listen to them without any extra software or browser extensions. Platforms that you're probably already using, like Bandsintown and Songkick, can plug directly into your Wix site: you can set up integrations like these in just a few clicks. What's more, you can add on an e-commerce portal to your site, for the purposes of shifting albums, T-shirts, or whatever else you need to sell. Wix has a very solid selection of templates, with more than 500 to choose from, and if you delve into the music section you'll see there are options for solo artists, bands, DJs, producers, or anyone else connected to the industry. Have a click around these templates to see the kind of sites it's possible to create. After that you've got all the features Wix has become known for: a site editor that's a breeze to use whether or not you know what CSS stands for, custom domain name support, easy blogging and simple social media support, and a free tier that lets you work out whether Wix is for you before you part with any cash. Overall, Wix offers a great website builder, and especially a website builder for musicians. Music Glue is a little different to the other website builder services we've featured here: it focuses first and foremost on the merchandise and ticketing aspects of the music business, and indeed powers the online stores for some of the biggest names in the industry. Its pricing system is unusual too, taking a 10% cut of whatever you sell rather than a flat fee. That does at least mean you won't be out of pocket if your online marketplace doesn't attract much attention to begin with. There are no additional fees for payment processing, and customers can rock up with debit or credit cards, or PayPal. Music Glue is less impressive on the website building side, although you do get the basics – a choice of themes for the site attached to your online shop, the option to bring over your own custom domain name, tools for tweaking the code and layout of your site, and so on. It's possible to plug in social media accounts and even set up a mailing list. If your priority is the mechanics of selling music and tickets to your audience, then Music Glue is a good bet, and has some very famous clients on its books, as we mentioned. If you don't really have anything to sell right now and want to spend more time fiddling with a site design and layout, then maybe look elsewhere. French website Difymusic isn't the most well-known website builder for musicians out there, and it doesn't have the same breadth of tools and features as some of the big names – but where it really comes into its own is in getting your music online quickly and easily. If you'd rather just get your stuff up quickly with a few pictures and links, rather than spend ages choosing a theme and editing HTML, Difymusic could be for you. It relies on plug-ins – like Spotify or SoundCloud for getting your music up, for example – but it supports an awful lot of them, so you're bound to find something that works. If you want to sell merch and tickets, then you can pay to add that on your main site, with a one-time €9.99 setup fee (about £9 or $12) and then 5% commission based on sales, but the basics are free. Connect up your Facebook page and your YouTube channel and you're good to go in just a few minutes. Admittedly the choice of templates and editing options aren't very strong, but the designs you can play around with are decent enough, and certainly won't put anyone off your music. Difymusic lets you get started quickly, and scale up as required.

We check over 130 million products every day for the best prices Nvidia's RTX 3090 Founders Edition is the fastest graphics card in the world, ranking at the top of our GPU benchmarks hierarchy. It's also the most expensive single-GPU GeForce card Nvidia has ever released, sitting at $1,500 … and yet it's still out of stock everywhere you look. Maybe you need an alternative, or maybe you don't want a graphics card that weighs over 2kg. Either way, the Gigabyte GeForce RTX 3090 Eagle could be just what you're after. It's basically just as fast as the 3090 FE, at the same price, so it's still the best graphics card available — best in this case meaning 'fastest.' We expect the GeForce RTX 3070 and AMD's Big Navi will be more impressive on a performance per dollar level. As we noted in our Founders Edition review, the RTX 3090 is very much a card designed for professionals and extreme enthusiasts. Typical gamers don't need to pay double the price for a relatively modest boost in performance. If you're running workloads where you need more than the 10GB of VRAM on the GeForce RTX 3080, though, the gap can increase. The 3090 is also the only 30-series GPU with NVLink and SLI support — not that we'd recommend dual-GPUs for gaming, considering Nvidia's new SLI stance. But for machine learning and GPU compute, multi-GPU can still be beneficial. All you need is about 750W of power for the graphics, plus whatever the rest of the system needs, meaning 1500W PSUs wouldn't actually be overkill. That's perhaps one aspect of the RTX 3090 Founders Edition that's problematic. It's a full triple-slot card, making it difficult to fit more than two cards into most cases. The Gigabyte 3090 Eagle is in the same category, as it's only 1mm thinner. The 3090 Eagle is also 7mm longer, but its height is 10mm less than the 3090 FE. Here are the full specs for the RTX 3090 cards we're looking at. You can watch our full teardown and video review of the Gigabyte 3090 Eagle above. The basic design is similar to many other recent AIB cards, with a triple fan layout over a large radiator. The Eagle brand is a newer line from Gigabyte, debuting in early 2020 (after initially leaking in late 2019). It appears to take over from the previous WindForce line of GPUs, falling toward the bottom of Gigabyte's lineup in terms of features and extras. Currently, Gigabyte has five different 3090 models available. The top of the range is the Xtreme series, followed by the Master, then Gaming and Eagle, with the Turbo line still sporting a blower-style cooler. There's very little in the way of bling on the 3090 Eagle — specifically, there are two slashes to the left of the Eagle logo that light up with RGB. Looking at the card, you'd expect the 'Eagle' logo to be backlit as well, but it's not. The slashes (a highly stylized eagle eyeball, apparently) can be configured via Gigabyte's RGB Fusion software. Still, they don't provide much light, and in most cases, they'll end up facing the bottom of your PC. If you're after wild RGB lighting, then this probably isn't the card you're looking for. Something else that's a bit interesting is the three fans. The left fan, closest to the video ports and sitting basically above the GPU, is an 80mm fan. The other two fans are 85mm. These are also the same style of Windforce fan blades that Gigabyte has used in the past, with a triangular 'tooth' on the leading edge that's supposed to improve airflow. The Gigabyte RTX 3090 Eagle includes five video ports, which is one more than the Founders Edition. There are three DisplayPort 1.4a outputs and two HDMI 2.1 outputs, and the card can drive up to five monitors if needed. Despite the ventilation cutouts on the rear IO bracket, however, the card won't exhaust much heat that route. The radiator fins are oriented perpendicular to the IO plate, so most of the airflow will end up exiting the top and bottom of the card. Disassembling the 3090 Eagle is relatively straightforward, though you have to remove the main cooler on the front before you can get at the last three screws that secure the backplate. As with other 30-series GPUs, there are quite a few thermal pads between the cooler and the RAM, capacitors, voltage regulators, and other components. A few of the pads ripped when we pulled the cooler off, even though we were trying to be careful, but that generally won't impact cooling performance. With the cooler and backplate removed, the bare PCB and components are visible. The Gigabyte design is different from several other GPUs we've looked at, with an extension at the back of the card that locates the two 8-pin PEG connectors beyond the end of the PCB. That's probably better for managing cabling in our PC build, though it doesn't really impact most other aspects of the design. The Gigabyte board appears to use a 15-phase power delivery system for the GPU, with three additional phases used for other elements. The RAM comes from Micron of course, it's currently the only manufacturer of GDDR6X memory, and is rated for 21Gbps, though like other 3090 cards it's only clocked at 19.5Gbps. Also of note is that behind the GPU are six SP-Caps, with no MLCC blocks. We experienced quite a bit of instability on the Gigabyte card with the launch drivers, but thankfully that was cleared up with the 456.55 and later drivers. Even with the latest 456.55 (and now 456.71) drivers, there doesn't appear to be much headroom for GPU overclocking on our Gigabyte RTX 3090 Eagle sample. Some graphics tests will allow for a +100MHz offset; others were unstable even with a +75MHz increase. For stability across the tests suite, +60 MHz was the best I could do. Average GPU clocks at stock were around 1840-1900 MHz, depending on the game, and 30-50 MHz faster with the overclock applied. A bigger benefit for the GPU clocks doesn't come from overclocking, but rather from boosting the GPU power limit. The RTX 3090 FE tended to exceed the 350W TGP by about 15W in our testing. However, the Gigabyte card respects the 350W limit, which means it tends to downclock more than the FE to keep power use in check. Raising the TGP limit by 10% gives it a bit more room to stretch its legs. Memory overclocking was better, and as with previous RTX 30-series cards, we managed a +750 MHz bump to the memory clock, bringing the effective speed up to 21Gbps. The Micron D8GBX chips used on the board are rated for that speed, so that shouldn't be a problem, though the chips on the back of the card don't have active cooling and may end up running a bit hot. With the above overclocks in place (+60 core clocks, +750 VRAM, and 110% power limit), gaming performance ends up being about five percent faster on average — at 4K ultra. That's enough to basically match the other 3090 cards we've looked at, without exotic cooling. The benefits of overclocking will generally be less at 1440p, and you probably shouldn't be looking at a 3090 for 1080p (outside of games that use ray tracing) in the first place. Or maybe you're just running CPU tests and want to show more separation among the chips (shades of AMD's Zen 3 launch are looming). You can see the specs of our standard GPU test bed on the right. We ran a series of RTX 3080 CPU Scaling benchmarks on several other processors as well, and the results are mostly applicable here — except the 3090 would potentially be even more CPU limited, particularly at lower resolutions and settings. But for 1440p ultra and 4K ultra, the Core i9-9900K shouldn't present a problem. Advertisement TOM'S HARDWARE GPU TEST PC Intel Core i9-9900K MSI MEG Z390 Ace Corsair 2x16GB DDR4-3200 CL16 XPG SX8200 Pro 2TB Seasonic Focus 850 Platinum Corsair Hydro H150i Pro RGB OpenBenchTable Phanteks Enthoo Pro M Our gaming test suite consists of nine games, and for the Gigabyte RTX 3090 Eagle, we're only looking at ultra quality performance at 1440p and 4K — without ray tracing or DLSS enabled. We provided 15 'bonus' benchmarks in the RTX 3090 FE review if you want to see other tests. As you'll see in a moment, the Gigabyte card is essentially equal in performance to the FE. We have four charts for each of the games we tested: 4K Ultra, 4K Ultra Percentile FPS, 1440p Ultra, and 1440p Ultra Percentile FPS. Despite a small factory overclock, the Gigabyte 3090 Eagle ends up just a touch slower than the 3090 FE, likely due to the differences in power and thermals that each card targets.

With no end to the coronavirus pandemic in sight, online shopping is likely to continue to grow in importance - and Microsoft Edge has announced a new price comparison tool to help users get the best deal. “You can easily compare the price of a product you want across other retailers with a single click,” Liat Ben-Zur, Corporate Vice President of Modern Life and Devices Product Marketing Management at Microsoft, explained. “You can try it out today by adding a product to a collection. When you click 'compare price to other retailers,' you’ll see a list of prices of that item across other retailers along with direct links to the pages so that you can quickly complete your purchase." With Amazon Prime Day fast approaching and Black Friday not far away either, Microsoft Edge’s news feature has arrived just in time for online bargain hunters. These are the best e-commerce platforms around Microsoft Edge finally lands on Linux Also check out our complete list of the best browsers The price is right At the same time, Microsoft has made a couple of other new features available to help shoppers looking to pick up the best deals. Bing Rebates is now available in the US and allows users of the search engine to find deals direct from the results page instead of having to trawl through multiple websites to find cashback offers. Plus, once users are signed up to the initiative, they can see a full list of deals on their Rebates offers page. Of course, in order to find the best deals, you first need to decide what you’re looking for. In order to help with this, Microsoft has also announced integration between Edge’s Collections feature and Pinterest. Simply add Pinterest items to your collection and you’ll find related Pins suggested at the bottom of your Collections pane.As the busiest time of the year for shopping approaches, Microsoft Edge will be hoping that its new features make it the browser of choice for anyone hoping to find the best Black Friday deals, birthday gifts and Prime Day offers. Start your own online store with one of the best e-commerce hosting providers

US President Donald Trump has completed his course of treatment for Covid-19 and can return to public engagements this weekend, his physician has said. Dr Sean Conley said the president had responded "extremely well" to medication and had "remained stable". Mr Trump later said he would probably take another Covid test on Friday and hoped to hold a rally over the weekend. The president earlier pulled out of next Thursday's TV debate with Democratic rival Joe Biden. He said he was "not going to waste my time on a virtual debate" after organisers said it would have to take place remotely because Mr Trump had tested positive for coronavirus. The move sparked a row about how and when further debates would take place. Meanwhile, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the most powerful Democrat in Washington, said she planned to introduce legislation on Friday to establish a commission to assess Mr Trump's fitness for office. A statement announcing the move said the commission would be set up under the 25th Amendment, which outlines how a sitting president can be stripped of power if they are deemed unable to conduct the duties of the office. Ms Pelosi told reporters on Thursday that serious questions concerning Mr Trump's health were still unanswered, and described the president as being in an "altered state". Any serious consideration of the measure is unlikely, but it will serve as a political tool to raise questions about Mr Trump's health, the Associated Press news agency reports. Mr Trump called Ms Pelosi "crazy" and said she was "the one who should be under observation". What's the latest on Trump's health? In a memo released by the White House on Thursday evening, Dr Conley said Mr Trump was displaying no signs "to suggest progression of illness". "Saturday will be day 10 since [last] Thursday's diagnosis, and based on the trajectory of advanced diagnostics the team has been conducting, I fully anticipate the president's safe return to public engagements at that time," the memo added. Dr Sean Conley: Who is Donald Trump's physician? Earlier, Dr Conley said that if the president's condition remained the same or improved throughout the weekend and into Monday, "we will all take that final, deep sigh of relief". Speaking to Fox News late on Thursday, Mr Trump said he was feeling "really good" and hoped to hold a campaign rally on Saturday evening, possibly in Florida. How did the debate row unfold? It began with the Commission on Presidential Debates announcing candidates would take part in the Miami debate on 15 October "from separate remote locations... to protect the health and safety of all involved". This infuriated the president who, in a phone-in interview with Fox Business Channel, said he was not prepared to "sit behind a computer, ridiculous". Mr Biden said the president "changed his mind every second" and his campaign team added that Mr Trump "clearly does not want to face questions from the voters". The Trump campaign answered back, with manager Bill Stepien saying the commission's decision to "rush to Joe Biden's defence" was "pathetic," adding that Mr Trump would hold a rally instead on the same date. The Biden team then proposed the town-hall style debate, set for Miami, should go ahead on 22 October instead. This brought a brief moment of agreement, on the date at least.This infuriated the president who, in a phone-in interview with Fox Business Channel, said he was not prepared to "sit behind a computer, ridiculous". Mr Biden said the president "changed his mind every second" and his campaign team added that Mr Trump "clearly does not want to face questions from the voters". However, the Trump team said there should be a third face-to-face debate - on 29 October, just five days before polling. But the Biden team said that debates could only be scheduled on the three dates already agreed: 29 September, 15 October and 22 October. On 15 October, Mr Biden will now take part in his own primetime event on ABC answering questions from voters. Quite what format any Biden-Trump debate takes now is hard to pin down. US election 2020: Who is ahead - Trump or Biden? What did we learn from the VP debate? The first presidential debate on 29 September had descended into insults and interruptions. The vice-presidential debate, held on Wednesday night between Mike Pence and Kamala Harris, was a far more measured affair. The US election will be held on 3 November. Latest opinion polls suggest that Mr Biden's lead has increased since the first debate and the president's coronavirus diagnosis. The Democratic candidate has a steady single-digit lead in the handful of key US states that will decide who wins the White House. Six million ballots have already been cast in early voting. What else did Trump say on Fox? Addressing the issue of his health, Mr Trump said: "I'm back because I'm a perfect physical specimen." Who has Trump met and who's tested positive? He said he had stopped taking most "therapeutics" but was still taking steroids and would be tested for Covid again "soon".

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Hotshot Racing (PC, Switch [reviewed], Xbox One, PS4) Developer: Lucky Mountain Games, Sumo Digital Limited Publisher: Curve Digital Released: September 10, 2020 MSRP: $19.99 The racing game scene was once a far more colorful place. At any time you could be driving a Volkswagen Beetle through Jurassic Park or going up impossible climbs in your futuristic turbo bike. The early 3D era was, after all, a time of experimentation, but as the market progressed, and all the acids and bases were boiled down, we were left with a pretty monotone genre. No, I don’t know anything about chemistry. Today’s racing market is dominated by racing simulators; your Gran Turismos, Project Cars, Need for Speeds. Arcade-style racing games still exist, but even high-profile franchises have waned out of existence, such as Burnout and Motorstorm. It’s a bleak time to be an arcade racer, stuck somewhere between the success of Mario Kart and Forza. It’s times like these we turn to the indie market to deliver us back to an era where we struggled to pass those checkpoints. It’s time for games like Hotshot Racing. With a developer that has had its hands in games like Burnout and Midnight Club and assistance from Sumo Digital, the people behind the recent Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing games, Hotshot Racing certainly has pedigree papers. It’s inspired by classic Sega arcade racers like Virtua Racing, Sega Rally, and Daytona USA with drifting mechanics similar to games like Ridge Racer. Hotshot Racing looks the part. Its chunky, low-polygon models and bright colors hearken back to a time when standing out meant more than just having the most simulation features. The level of detail has not been sacrificed either, with every vehicle having its own gorgeous cockpit view with optional knickknacks for your dashboard. Drivers demonstrate unique personalities with exaggerated animations and expressiveness. It’s an infectiously cheerful game. The retro aesthetic carries through to the sound design. You’re treated to the disembodied voice of an enthusiastic announcer who merrily shouts out every checkpoint you pass and gives you a brief introduction to every track. Drivers are also quite talkative too, expressing their personality at every turn and criticizing every bump you take. The music will also take you back to the ‘90s with its chirpy, lighthearted energy. I didn’t find any of the driving tracks stood out, exactly, but they blended well into the racing. Tracks also demonstrate the exaggerated features of ‘90s racers. I made a reference to Beetle Adventure Racing at the start of this review, and that’s because a lot of the track dressing reminded me of it, straight down to having you drive through a dinosaur park. Some will have you drive through the interior of a casino, while others simply treat you to visuals of rolling waterfalls. If you can take your vision off the track for a moment, you’ll always have something to delight your eyes. On the other hand, the track design itself left me a little wanting. Each one is basically a simple circuit; some mutation of an oval. There are no figure-8’s or overpasses, no impossible jumps across hazardous terrain, no shortcuts for those daring enough to attempt them. This may be more realistic in design, but I thought we abandoned realism when we put a stegosaurus next to the track. There are four grand prix to participate in, each containing four tracks for a total of sixteen. I can do math. You can race them at three difficulties. I tore through normal and hard, but have barely managed to scratch expert. It’s not a bad career mode, but when a lot of the tracks feel overly similar, it weighs in a little light. You’re given money as a reward for your successes that you can then spend on cosmetic items, but the money is a bit much. There’s eight drivers, each with their own garage of four cars, but are you really going to go to the effort of unlocking everything for each one, or are you just going to pick a few favorites and make them look pretty? After you’ve done that, cash just kind of piles up. Alongside grand prix, you’ve also got your additional modes. Time trial is sort of a given, but there are a couple flavorful additions. Cops & Robbers mode has you make a getaway from the police as they try to damage your car and deputize you like they’re carrying some sort of law enforcement disease. There’s also Drive Or Explode in which you have to do exactly that; make all the checkpoints and keep your speed up or your car will abruptly disintegrate. They’re fun little modes, especially if you have someone to split screens with. As for the driving, it works how you’d expect it to. Any turn tighter than a curve and you’ll want to throw your back tires out into a drift. Tapping the break button is all it takes to kick up some smoke, and the drifting feels nicely tuned. Each car has its own drifting stat and you can really feel its variance between cars. I found myself able to play just fine in both third-person and cockpit view without much difficulty. The other racers feel a bit rubber-bandy. I’m always wary about bringing this up, because I’m quicker to blame myself for my failures than any game facet. However, even on normal mode where I dominated the track, my opponents were never far behind. They stay nestled in a tight pack at all times and getting sucked into it can mean getting banged around. On the other hand, they won’t slow down for you if they get too far ahead, the jerks. Speaking of which, the other drivers seem to have no regard for the vehicle they’re piloting. They will bash into you unapologetically. Most of the time when I fell behind in normal and hard difficulties, it was because I was spun out by one of my opponents. It lends to the arcade feeling, but can be a bit maddening. I should also mention that the online mode seems unfortunately empty. I queued a few times, and we always struggled to accumulate the required four players to start a race. Once I was in there, I didn’t have any issues, but finding people was a problem. I have to admit, I found Hotshot Racing to be quite enamoring. I don’t have much nostalgia for the early days of 3D racing games, but I do appreciate a good arcade racer, and that’s exactly what this is. Its cheery sound design and visuals are endlessly charming and the driving feels exactly as it should. If you feel the need to go back to the simpler days of racing games, this certainly fits the bill. This likely won’t be the last time I take it for a lap around the track. Hotshot Racing System Requirements Memory:4 GB. Graphics Card:AMD Radeon HD 7870. CPU:Intel Core i3-4130T. Hotshot Racing File Size:8 GB. OS:Windows 7 64 Bit or newer.

TechRadar Pro has learned that Google Workspace will not be available immediately to all existing G Suite customers, with Education and Nonprofit users facing an additional wait. "While the new integrated workspace is now generally available for consumer and business users, the rebrand will not apply to education and nonprofit customers right away (it will be rolled out in the coming months)," said a Google spokesperson. "For the foreseeable future, G Suite for Education and G Suite for Nonprofits will remain as offerings until Google updates." For example, users will be able to create and collaborate on documents from within a Chat room and preview a file sent over by a colleague without needing to open it in full. Another upgrade brings Google Meet picture-in-picture mode to Docs, Sheets and Slides (on top of existing support in Gmail and Chats). This means workers can both see and hear colleagues while working collectively on a document, spreadsheet or presentation deck. The process of tagging co-workers in documents has also become more feature-rich; @mentioning someone will now throw up a menu that contains contact details, suggests actions and provides further context. Google Workspace is available immediately to all existing G Suite customers, although not all new features will land at launch. The company has also introduced a new service tier, called Business Plus, which features “enhanced security and management controls”. G Suite is dead, long live Google Workspace The transition to a less siloed model, according to Google, is the product of years of incremental evolution, now codified under the new Google Workspace branding. The shift will also be marked with a shiny new set of multi-colored icons (in keeping with the Google logo color scheme), consistent across the product range. “10 years ago, when many of our products were first developed, they were created as individual apps that solved distinct challenges. Over time, our products have become more integrated, so much so that the lines between our apps have started to disappear,” wrote Javier Soltero, VP and GM, Google Workspace. “Our new Google Workspace brand reflects this more connected, helpful and flexible experience, and our icons will reflect the same.” The change also coincides with a fundamental shift in the way staff collaborate with one another, catalysed (if not caused) by the global pandemic. “This is the end of the ‘office’ as we know it. From here on out, teams need to thrive without meeting in person, protect their time to focus on the most impactful work, and build human connection in new ways,” Soltero added. “Google Workspace gives people a familiar, fully integrated user experience that helps everyone succeed in this new reality - whether you’re in an office, working from home, on the frontlines, or engaging with customers.” Here's our list of the best small business software right now Original story: Google has unveiled a major overhaul to G Suite, which has been rebranded as Google Workspace. The new suite features all the old favorites - Gmail, Calendar, Drive, Docs, Sheets, Slides, Meet etc. - but offers, according to Google, a more “deeply integrated user experience”. In essence, Google has improved the interoperability of its various productivity services, blurring the lines between each product for a more fluid feel. Check out our list of the best Microsoft Office alternatives around Office 365 vs G Suite: What's the best office software? Here's our list of the best productivity tools on the market

It seems that individual consumers aren’t the only ones having difficulty buying RTX 3080, 3090 and 3070 cards. Yesterday, major Danish retailer Proshop posted detailed metrics on just how many RTX 3000 series cards it’s ordered and how many it’s received. The result? Manufacturers have only sent the company 344 out of its 8,400 GeForce RTX 3080 orders. And it doesn’t get much better for the other models. While Proshop confirmed that it’s got another 123 RTX 3080 cards on the way, 344 cards is still not nearly enough to satisfy the 3,435 units that customers have ordered from its would-be stock of 8,400. In fact, it’s just 10% of what Proshop needs. The RTX 3090 data only shows a marginally brighter picture, but more so due to lower customer demand than greater supply. Here, Proshop has received 78 of its 1,905 total orders, which means it’s currently able to fill 27% of its 283 customer orders. It’s also got another 55 units on the way. As for the RTX 3070, which hasn’t yet launched, Proshop is still facing a supply shortage. It’s currently only got 25 out of its 3,580 ordered units, with 196 more on the way. Still, as the card has yet to become available for purchase, it doesn’t have to worry about meeting any customer orders quite yet. Here's hoping that the RTX 3070 launch delay helps give the retailer the time it needs to be more prepared when the card releases. “Our category manager is in daily contact with both Nvidia and card manufacturers,” Proshop wrote about the shortage. “Asus, Gigabyte, MSI and Inno3d.” It’s great to see a retailer being so open with its data, but we wish it painted a better picture. As things stand, it seems like even if you’ve been able to successfully order an RTX 3000 series card, you might not be seeing it any time soon. “Unfortunately, we cannot state your place in the order queue” Proshop added. This also places greater scrutiny on the secondary market, as we've recently learned that an MSI subsidiary was caught selling RTX 3000 series cards at marked-up prices on eBay. And yet, MSI is far from having fulfilled all of Proshop's orders. Proshop only has enough RTX 3080s to fill 10% of customer orders. It seems that individual consumers aren’t the only ones having difficulty buying RTX 3080, 3090 and 3070 cards. Yesterday, major Danish retailer Proshop posted detailed metrics on just how many RTX 3000 series cards it’s ordered and how many it’s received. The result? Manufacturers have only sent the company 344 out of its 8,400 GeForce RTX 3080 orders. And it doesn’t get much better for the other models.

Until now, prototype cars had only been seen sporting heavy vinyl camouflage, but these latest images provide a closer look at what is believed to be the production-ready car. Minor changes from the concept can be seen, including a front bumper tweaked to accommodate ADAS safety systems and slightly redesigned headlight and tail-light clusters. The prototype appears to be riding on smaller wheels than the 24in alloys used for the concept and it remains unclear whether the full-length glass roof has been retained, but few other concessions appear to have been made in readying the car for production. The concept featured a plug-in hybrid powertrain closely related to those seen in the Renegade and Wrangler 4xe PHEVs, although exact technical details remain unknown. The final car is expected to be sold with a variety of four-wheel drive systems, independent front and rear suspension and Jeep’s Quadra-Lift air suspension - implying that despite a shift towards the more luxurious end of the market, off-road ability will remain a key selling point. The seven-seat Grand Wagoneer is set to supersede the Grand Cherokee as the flagship Jeep model in the US, although the company is unlikely to bring the new model to Europe. The upcoming Jeep Grand Wagoneer luxury SUV has been spotted testing ahead of an expected 2021 launch. Previously revealed in concept form, the new model will revive Jeep's Wagoneer badge as part of the marque's bid to better compete with premium European SUVs such as the BMW X5 and Range Rover.

On the last day of September, India woke up to the disturbing news that authorities had forcibly cremated the body of a 19-year-old Dalit (formerly untouchable) woman who had alleged gang rape and died a day earlier. The news caused global outrage, leading to accusations that the young woman - who was allegedly raped by four upper-caste men and had fought for her life for two weeks - was treated as shabbily in death as in life. The police in Hathras district in Uttar Pradesh state, where the attack took place, said the family had consented to her cremation. But her family and local journalists, who were present in the village when her funeral pyre was lit at around 2:30am, have contested the claim in interviews with the BBC. I travelled to Bhulgarhi village in Hathras district to find out what exactly happened on the night of 29 September. What emerges is a story of an unequal balance of power between the might of the state and some of its most disadvantaged citizens, officials' disregard for protocol, and their seeming unconcern for a grieving family trying to come to terms with a tragedy. Where's the body? "My sister died at 6:55am on Tuesday [29 September] in Delhi's Safdarjung hospital. Around 9am, they asked us to sign some papers so the body could be taken for a post-mortem," says the victim's younger brother. "That was the last time we saw her body," he adds as we sit chatting on the floor, our backs to the wall in the outer area of his home. The courtyard is overrun with dozens of journalists and politicians of all hues, who are visiting the family one by one to offer condolences. The victim's brother, his father and two other male relatives had accompanied the victim when she was moved a day before her death to Delhi from the hospital in Aligarh city where she had been treated since 14 September - the day she was attacked. A few hours after he death, when they went to the forensic department to check when they could collect the body, he says they received conflicting replies from the policemen and officials. "One said the body had already been released, another said it had reached Noida [a town on the Delhi-Uttar Pradesh border], yet another said it was in Hathras. "I asked them how can you take the body without our permission?" Soon, their relatives arrived and began a protest outside the hospital, demanding the body be handed over to them. They were joined by activists of the Bhim Army, a party that fights for the rights of Dalits who are at the bottom of the unforgiving Hindu caste hierarchy. Back in the village, the family had already begun mourning. "They called in the morning to say she had died," says the victim's sister-in-law. "They were crying on the phone. Everyone began crying here too. "We asked when will you bring the body home?" The drive back to the village At around 9:30pm, the teen's brother says the police forced him into a black SUV along with his father and began driving them back to their village 200km (125 miles) away. "On the way, our car was stopped and senior police and administration officials came to talk to us. Among them was Hathras district magistrate Praveen Kumar Laxkar who told us that we would be taken directly to the cremation ground." He says they had no idea where the body was or what time the ambulance carrying it had left the hospital. Hathras superintendent of police Vikrant Vir told my BBC Hindi colleague Dilnawaz Pasha last week that the post-mortem was completed by 1pm. "But for some reason her body couldn't be brought back immediately. It was late night by the time the body arrived in the village. Her father and brother had travelled with the body." Last Friday, the state government suspended Mr Vir for "negligence and lax supervision". Four other policemen were removed too. Calls have also been growing to remove the district magistrate, Mr Laxkar. Preparations for funeral While the family was waiting for the body to arrive, police and administration officials had already begun preparations for a late-night funeral. "They had brought in a generator, lights were installed, logs and fuel were brought in," the teenager's sister-in-law says. Journalists present in the village say barricades were erected on the roads leading to the family home and the dirt track that led to a small patch of the field where the funeral was to happen. A white ambulance carrying the body arrived in the village at around midnight. "Besides the driver, there was a policeman and a policewoman in the ambulance. There was no family member in it," says the victim's aunt. "It was parked nearby for an hour. We asked them to let us at least see her face," she tells me, tears streaming down her face. The black SUV, carrying the victim's bother and father, reached the village at around 1am and was driven straight to the cremation ground. Attempts to claim the body "Hindus don't cremate at night," the brother says. "I told them we can't have the cremation without rituals and in the absence of our family. When we went home, we heard that the ambulance carrying her body had already arrived in the village." Officials followed them home and tried to persuade them to go light the pyre. "The women of the family fell at their feet, begging them to hand over the body so they could perform the rituals. But they were unmoved," he says. Videos shared widely on news TV channels and social media show the dead woman's female relatives making several attempts to claim her body. In one video, her mother is seen weeping with her head on the bonnet of the car. In another, she's sitting on the road in front of the ambulance, wailing and beating her chest. She's heard repeatedly pleading with officials to hand over the body to her so she could take it home one last time - and perform some rituals. "We wanted to put turmeric and sandalwood paste on her arms and legs, dress her in new clothes, adorn her with flowers. She wouldn't have seen it, but by doing the rituals we would have been able to say a proper farewell to her," says the teenager's sister-in-law, fighting back tears. Her aunt shows me bruises on her elbows, "They flung us aside and drove away with the body. Many of us fell down. I fell into a field." The funeral pyre is lit Even though the family had refused to cremate the body, the 19-year-old was still consigned to flames that night. "We didn't want them to take us forcibly and light her pyre so we locked ourselves in," says the young woman's brother. "We had no idea what was happening outside." Local journalists, who witnessed the cremation from a distance, said the funeral pyre was lit around 2:30am. The police formed a human chain to keep the villagers and journalists from getting close. "Why did the police cremate her? Was hers an unclaimed body?" her mother asks. "I carried her in my womb for nine months. Do I not have the right to see her face one last time? Do I not have the right to grieve? Do I not feel pain?" The hasty cremation has caused outrage in India and abroad. Opposition parties have called it "a gross violation of human rights", "illegal" and "immoral". Protests have been held across India and by Indians in several American cities. The UN, too, has weighed in, expressing "profound sadness and concern at the continuing cases of sexual violence against women and girls in India". On Tuesday, the Uttar Pradesh government told the Supreme Court that they had cremated the body at night due to "extraordinary circumstances and a sequence of unlawful incidents". They said there was an "international plot" to cause caste and religious riots in the state and topple the government of Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, one of India's most controversial right-wing politicians. They also claimed that the victim's family was present for the cremation and had "agreed to attend to avoid further violence". Earlier, too, the police in Hathras had shared a video showing three men throwing wood into the pyre as it burnt. But the family told the BBC that those in the video were neighbours and distant relatives and the authorities were trying to pass them off as immediate family. A pile of ash Three days later, anti-rape activist Yogita Bhayana visited the family and persuaded the 19-year-old's brother to visit the site and collect her remains. "I'm picking them up because in case these are really my sister's remains, they won't be defiled by stray dogs," he told a news channel. "She had to go through a lot of torture while alive. I want to ensure it doesn't happen to her in death."

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➥Age: 19 ➥Contact(Steam, TS3, Discord etc): Ts3 / Forum ➥Experience in Adobe Photoshop(Months or years): I had experience for 9 months, stopped it and started again. ➥Obligatory attach your Gallery link (If you have one): Click Here ➥Any other editing program you use?: Cs6, and sometimes when i have a problem with it, I open Photopea ➥What version of Photoshop do you mostly use?:Cs6 ➥In what section you have your most contribution?: Requests / Aotw etc.... ➥Have you read all the sections' rules?: Yes ➥Have you read the community rules?: Yes ➥What/Who inspired you to work in Photoshop or/and to want to be a Designer here?: @King_of_lion i saw his designs and thought i should start designing again 🙂 ➥What can you say about you that will make us interested about your Photoshop skills & experience?(Minimum 10 words): Well, firstly before i put the image, or resize it, I think what text / Gradients / Brush etc.... i should use. And after my designing work of an image is completed, I check it again to make sure all things are right 🙂

Even now that a few weeks have passed since the RTX 3080 and RTX 3090 launches, availability is still a huge issue. Per Nvidia's own admission, supply problems are likely to persist into 2021, and that isn't good news -- especially with the bots grabbing every purchase the moment cards are available. But, EVGA has come up with a creative workaround to give everyone a fair chance: classic british queueing. Published by Jacob Freeman on EVGA's website is the following text: "We have made some changes to the checkout process for EVGA.com 30 Series orders. Now we are using a queue based notification system. To sign up, use the notification button on the product you would like to be notified for. For everyone who already used the notify button previously, you are already entered. Once product is available (and it is your turn to purchase), you will receive a secure email that will allow you to purchase the product that you received a notification for. Please note that you have 5 hours to place your order, if your order is not complete within 5 hours, the product will be released back into queue system. Also note that your email address that was used for the notify system MUST MATCH an email that has a registered EVGA account, if an account is not available with that email, you will need to create one before you can purchase. Also note that this system will be available for US store first and evaluating for other regions." EVGA's product management director, Jacob Freeman has also been actively keeping the community updated about RTX 30-series orders through their Twitter account, and credit where credit is due, they are doing a stellar job managing expectations. Of course, when you receive the email that it's your turn to order an RTX 30-series card, you still only have 5 hours to actually place the order -- so you better pray that it comes at a time when your boss isn't watching. However, EVGA comes to an end regarding all these circumstances and concocted an inventive way to give everybody a reasonable possibility. The product managing director at EVGA @Jacob Freeman cited on the EVGA website and mentioned that, “We have made some changes to the checkout process forEVGA.com 30 Series orders. Now we are using a queue-based notification system. To sign up, use the notification button on the product you would like to be notified of. For everyone who already used the notify button previously, you are already entered. Once the product is available (and it is your turn to purchase), you will receive a secure email that will allow you to purchase the product that you received a notification for. Please note that you have 5 hours to place your order, if your order is not complete within 5 hours, the product will be released back into the queue system. Also note that your email address that was used for the notify system MUST MATCH an email that has a registered EVGA account, if an account is not available with that email, you will need to create one before you can purchase. Also, note that this system will be available for US stores first and evaluating for other regions”. In my opinion, they have created the best way to give everyone a fair chance to buy their desired products. As the only thing you need to keep in mind is that you should place your order within 5 hours after receiving an email. The EVGA GeForce® RTXᐪᔿ 3090 is colossally powerful in every way imaginable, giving you a whole new tier of performance at 8K resolution. It's powered by the NVIDIA Ampere architecture, which doubles down on ray tracing and AI performance with enhanced RT Cores, Tensor Cores, and new streaming multiprocessors. Combined with the next generation of design, cooling, and overclocking with EVGA Precision X1, the EVGA GeForce® RTXᐪᔿ 3090 Series redefines the definition of ultimate performance.

McLaren has confirmed that its first series production hybrid, labelled a High-Performance Hybrid (HPH) supercar, will be launched next year as a replacement for its long-running Sports Series line. Described by the Woking firm as a ‘next-generation’ supercar, the forthcoming machine will arrive in the first half of 2021 with a hybrid powertrain based on a new V6 petrol engine. McLaren has only previously used hybrid powertrains on range-topping machines such as the P1 and Speedtail. McLaren says the new HPH supercar has entered the final stages of testing ahead of its launch. While technical details have yet to be revealed, McLaren claims it will deliver “astonishing levels of performance and a uniquely intense driving experience”. It will also offer “medium-range” electric-only running, which Autocar understands will be around 20 miles. Autocar also understands that the system in the new car, which has previously been spied testing, will be a plug-in hybrid, with the power from both the turbocharged V6 and electric motors sent to the car’s rear axle. The new HPH machine will be built on the new McLaren Carbon Lightweight Architecture (MCLA) platform, which McLaren says has been optimised for the hybrid powertrain. It added that the new architecture takes the firm’s lightweight chassis technology “to new heights”, which will be key to McLaren’s intention to minimise the added weight due to the heavy batteries required for the electrified powertrain. McLaren Automotive boss Mike Flewitt described the new McLaren HPH model, which has yet to be given an official designation, as “a new kind of McLaren for a new era, an extraordinary driver’s car that offers blistering performance as well as an all-electric range capable of covering most urban journeys”. The HPH supercar is designed to sit between the recently launched GT and the Super Series 720S, the positioning that has traditionally been filled by the Sports Series line. McLaren has confirmed the Sports Series designation, introduced for the 570S in 2015, will be dropped for the new hybrid model. That makes the limited-run 620R the final model in the Sports Series line.

Hades (PC [reviewed], Nintendo Switch) Developer: Supergiant Games Publisher: Supergiant Games Released: September 17, 2020 MSRP: $24.99 I've put something like 20 hours into Hades' final release, and I have no regrets – which is good considering I'm bound to double that tally. I keep trying to get Hades "out of my system," but it's unshakable. This is the culmination of everything Supergiant Games has been working toward. The secret sauce – aside from stellar action-RPG combat – is character-driven storytelling. As Zagreus, the defiant son of Hades, you'll make a mad dash through Tartarus, Asphodel, and Elysium with hopes of reaching Greece and gaining insight. Along the way – during runs and also back home at your "base" of sorts – you'll converse with legendary mythological figures, all of whom are voiced and full of personality in thoughtful ways. Rather than tell a linear story, Hades is dished out through morsels of conversation that fit the context of a world in which death is an inevitable inconvenience. It's a perfectly-conceived setting for a roguelike, one that often feels alive by reacting to what you, the player, are up to – without coming across as artificial or "game-y." These character interactions are wonderful. Supergiant's carrot-on-a-stick story and repeatable game loop go hand in hand, and that takes the sting out of defeat. After mastering the default half-hour-or-so run, I feel motivated to keep playing, in large part, for more incremental story bits. At the same time, I'm still loving the flexible combat system and I'm pushing myself by toggling on some of the many endgame difficulty modifiers. There's a lot of minutia in the background initially, to the point where Hades' first few hours run the risk of overwhelming players who are (understandably) curious about permanent upgrades. Several meta currencies can be used to improve your odds of breaking out of the underworld, and if you fixate up front – if you're too concerned with "winning" as early as possible – you'll be doing yourself a disservice. Win or lose, ultimately, you'll be pulled back to the House of Hades. Zagreus is stuck in an endless loop, but life goes on. At home, you'll run into bosses (even the Big Guy himself) that you potentially fought and slayed on your last run, with no hard feelings – chances are they'll have something interesting to say about it. You might chat up Achilles, pet Cerberus, or train with Skelly, and be on your way again. In other words, Hades rewards every attempt. The main narrative concerning Zagreus, Hades, and Persephone will start coming into focus as you continuously teach your old man a lesson, but the personal stories – including friendships and romances – can and will play out in spite of botched runs. What if you don't care to engage with that side of Hades outside of the bare minimum? The good news is that it's still a ridiculously fun, well-balanced action-RPG experience, and you won't be bogged down by dialogue. After 20 hours, I still enjoy beating up the most basic creeps. That says something. CPU: Info. CPU SPEED: Dual Core 3.40ghz. OS: Windows 7 SP1. VIDEO CARD: 1GB VRAM / OpenGL 2.1+ support. FREE DISK SPACE: 10 GB. DEDICATED VIDEO RAM: 1 GB. There are three full biomes, the first two of which are an eternal pleasure to burn through and the third of which sometimes has slight pacing issues depending on your build and how equipped you are to handle waves of enemies that need to be killed twice to truly die. A fourth zone, the Temple of Styx, serves as a smaller choose-your-own-adventure "time to stock up for the final boss" buffer. It's all right. Within these biomes, you'll fight monsters or chat with friendly faces on a room-by-room basis rather than explore a continuous stretch of land. In most cases, there are two choices – you can pick which room to enter next and you'll plainly see what reward is going to be up for grabs (once you learn what each symbol means). Later, with an upgrade, you can even re-roll rewards if you don't like the selection. Speaking of which, expect to die a lot until you've made permanent purchases with the Mirror of Night in your bedroom. These unlocks can give you benefits like an extra dash, more longevity – including, at most, three "extra lives" on each run – and also boost your odds of seeing higher-tier boons pop up. Boons are frequently doled out as a reward for clearing rooms, and they're your chance to hear a message from the gods of Olympus, each of whom has a gameplay-specific area of expertise. Athena can help you deflect projectiles back at their source, Zeus has lightning chains, and Chaos will offer a range of powerful perks in exchange for a harsh temporary debuff. Boons are used to create and modify your build on the fly for the duration of your current run; they're my favorite part of Hades by far. Each boon can branch off in a few different initial directions, and those directions can further mix and match and be upgraded as your run progresses. I can't oversell how satisfying these abilities become. There's rarely a clear-cut best choice – everything has potential, and I never quite know where my character build will take me. I can't say the same for most other action-leaning roguelike games. Going a step further, every weapon – from the Eternal Spear to the Adamant Rail (gun) to the Shield of Chaos – has hidden "aspects" that you can permanently unlock to specialize your playstyle. I'm obsessed with the Heart-Seeking Bow and its ability to "tag" a target with my main arrow and then fire off a spread of homing shots from a safe distance. I love powering that up with assists from uncle Zeus. Zagreus also has a metered ability (based on the different gods) that you can charge up throughout battles and there are finite spell-like projectiles that you can "stick" in enemies, recover, and fire off again. Without breaking down every mechanic, let's just say combat is fluid, dynamic, and full of life. Discovering synergies just doesn't seem to get old. Effects stack up in delightfully powerful ways. For those of us who adore a capital-g Grind, this one delivers. Supergiant gives ample opportunities to accumulate meta currencies during dungeon runs, and you can even trade them (to get precisely what you need) back home. I was able to easily prioritize and work toward the specific unlocks I wanted. If anything bummed me out in Hades, I'd probably point to unevenness in the latter two zones, which sometimes feel like I'm going through the motions, and an arguable missed opportunity for a larger boss roster. Supergiant designed several genuinely memorable (and highly replayable) fights, but it leaned a bit too heavily on variants. They don't all shake things up as much as I would've liked. At the same time, those criticisms stand out to me mostly because everything else is so excellent. If you've enjoyed this studio's other games, for what it's worth, I'd call Hades the best of the bunch. And if you're worried about hitting a brick wall and potentially missing the big-picture story moments, don't be afraid to turn on the "God Mode" toggle for a guilt-free defensive boost to help you defeat dear dad. Hades had the unenviable task of bridging a well-established action-roguelike format with impactful character-driven storytelling, and neither element feels like an afterthought. They lift each other to new heights. The finer details – all those little artistic touches that add up over time – really seal the deal. It's hard to imagine anyone other than Supergiant pulling off this Herculean feat with such style.

Japanese IT giant NEC is moving into the digital payments arena after agreeing to acquire Swiss financial concern Avaloq. Formed initially as an IT solutions company, Avaloq has built up a thriving business based around software as a service (SaaS) cloud solutions and business process as a service (BPaaS). NEC will pay 2.05 billion Swiss francs for the company, which equates to around US$2.33 billion. With plans to boost its business in the digital government field, the move will allow NEC to develop its digital finance software and domain knowledge. However, Avaloq will to continue to operate as a standalone company. With NEC’s existing expertise in biometric and AI technologies the acquisition will see the Japanese tech company move its business towards innovative SaaS business models. Take a look at the best credit card processing services Check out the best money transfer apps and services The best tax software around today Since launching in 1985 Avaloq has grown its customer base significantly and now numbers 150 clients across 30 countries around the globe. The Zurich-based company is well known for its work with Fintech startups and specialisms in AI, blockchain and other emerging areas of financial tech. SaaS products "NEC will be placing great importance on building long-term relationships with Avaloq and its customers, and aims to create new solutions that combine Avaloq's software with NEC's cutting-edge technologies, such as its brand of biometric authentication solutions, "Bio-Idiom," the company's AI technology brand, "NEC the WISE," and its innovative blockchain technologies," said Takashi Niino, President and CEO, NEC Corporation. With the financial industry moving away from conventional practices and heading towards a more open banking-based setup NEC hopes that its purchase of Avaloq will give it the capacity to grow its digital finance capability by developing a more expansive range of SAAS products. "The Avaloq team is delighted to be joining the NEC Group, a highly trusted and well-respected company with a long heritage, which will help further enlarge our geographical footprint across the globe," said Juerg Hunziker, CEO of Avaloq on the acquisition, which should complete by April next year. Japan’s NEC Corp said on Monday it will buy Swiss financial software company Avaloq Group AG for 2.05 billion Swiss francs ($2.2 billion), a move that will spearhead its entry globally into finance software. NEC will acquire unlisted Avaloq, Europe’s top provider of financial asset management software, from Avaloq’s founder and employees and private equity firm Warburg Pincus, which has a 45% stake and engineered the sale. Avaloq, whose customers include Deutsche Bank and HSBC, reported sales of 610 million Swiss francs ($664 million) last year, 70% of which came from Europe. The deal will allow NEC to offer cloud services acquired through the merger combined with its own biometrics and data analysis products to financial institutions and governments as digitalization gathers pace. It has spent the last decade restructuring unprofitable units that lost business to price-competitive Asian rivals, selling its semiconductor, personal computer and smartphone units. NEC said it will target Japan, where financial institutions have been slow to move online and new Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga has pledged to modernize outdated government systems. “Japan is lagging in financial digitalization and this will be a big trend,” Chief Executive Takashi Niino told a news briefing. The deal follows NEC’s 2018 acquisition of British IT services company Northgate Public Services, whose customers include London’s Metropolitan Police, and 2019 purchase of Danish e-government services firm KMD for more than $1 billion. NEC “share my ambition for Avaloq to continue to shape the future of the financial industry by continuing to invest heavily in R&D,” Avaloq founder Francisco Fernandez said in a statement. Warburg Pincus had been targeting a 2020 sale or listing of Avaloq, Reuters reported last year. NEC recently received a 64.5 billion yen ($560 million) investment from Japanese telecoms company Nippon Telegraph and Telephone (NTT) to beef up its efforts to develop fifth-generation (5G) wireless technologies. NEC held around 400 billion yen ($3.8 billion) in cash and cash equivalents at the end of June. The deal is expected to be completed by April 2021 after necessary approvals.

Coming hot off the heels of a potential RTX 3070 mobile GPU, a new post from twitter user @Avery78 (via Videocardz) shows a picture of Nvidia's desktop GA104-300 Ampere GPUs being validated for production. The picture originated from a user on the Baidu forums, but it has since been removed. As with all leaked info, though, we have to approach this with some caution, but it does appear to be legitimate. The GA104-300 is assumed to be a cut-down version of the GA104 die, with 5888 CUDA cores, 184 TMUs, and 96 ROPS. This would be the RTX 3070 GPU, which features the same specifications. However, it could also be a different configuration for RTX 3060 or RTX 3060 Ti. Two or possibly all three (3060 Ti) of those GPUs are expected to launch in the next two months, to compete with future RDNA2 products. The actual maximum core counts for GA104 is 48 SMs, according to the Nvidia GA10x whitepaper. (Page 40 says GA104 Full GPU with 48 SMs.) If there's going to be a faster RTX 3070 Ti, Nvidia would almost certainly need to move to GA102, perhaps with fewer GPCs and SMs enabled compared to RTX 3080. But the full or nearly-full configuration for Nvidia GPUs is normally labeled xxx-400 (i.e., RTX 2080 was TU104-400-A1), while trimmed configurations are xxx-300 (RTX 2080 Ti was TU102-300-K1-A1, while Titan RTX was TU102-400-A1). The pictured image could thus be something other than RTX 3070. Regardless, having RTX 3070 in full production comes as no surprise, as the RTX 3070 launches on October 29th. RTX 3060 and/or RTX 3060 Ti are likewise rumored to arrive by Black Friday, though Nvidia hasn't officially announced either part. Performance for the RTX 3070 should be somewhere around the RTX 2080 Ti as indicated by Nvidia's latest slide showcasing RTX 3070 performance vs the Turing generation. Let's hope the delayed launch will allow supply to surpass demand at least for a little while. Some images of a purported Nvidia RTX 3000 series GPU validation line have been shared online. Originally the images were available on the Chinese Baidu social media platform but were taken down quite quickly. However, thanks to Avery on Twitter and VideoCardz we can still ponder over these images and the various details revealed. Above you can see a tray of GA104-300 GPUs waiting to pass through their validation phase. Passing through the tests the result will be 'excellent', 'qualified' or 'unqualified', with the latter samples being re-tested before being judged to have failed to make the grade. The 'GA104-300' is a GA104 GPU being validated to the 300 spec which will be used for GeForce RTX 3070 graphics cards. VideoCardz reports that the "GA104-300 GPU is a cut-down variant of the GA104-400." According to the factory validation images source, the testing line pictured is used to validate approximately a thousand GPUs per day. We already have official confirmation that the GeForce RTX 3070 features 5,888 CUDA cores, a boost clock of 1.73GHz, and 8GB of GDDR6 VRAM. Last week Nvidia announced that the RTX 3070 was delayed by a fortnight, in order to have a better stock situation at launch. On the news blog post Nvidia shared an illuminating performance chart comparing the new RTX 3070 directly against the previous gen RTX 2070 and RTX 2080 Ti. Nvidia will launch the Nvidia GeForce RTX 3070 on Thursday 29th October.