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After being released for PowerPoint for the web back in 2019, Microsoft's PowerPoint Presenter Coach is now available on Windows, Mac, iOS and Android. By leveraging AI, Presenter Coach can help anyone improve their presenting skills and become a better public speaker. This means that whether you're working from home or are already back in the office, you can use Microsoft's tool to practice and improve your presentations. Presenter Coach provides users with feedback on their pace, use of monotone pitch, use of filler words, poor grammar, lack of originality and more while they rehearse their presentations. It can even detect sensitive phrases such as swear words to remind you to avoid using them during your presentations. We've built a list of the best online collaboration software available These are the best video conferencing software solutions on the market Also check out our roundup of the best office alternatives At the end of each rehearsal, Presenter Coach creates a Summary Report which highlights key pieces of feedback to help users become better and more confident presenters. PowerPoint Presenter Coach In addition to making PowerPoint Presenter Coach available on more platforms, Microsoft has also expanded the kinds of feedback the service provides to help users further improve their presentations. As a great deal of communication is nonverbal, the software giant has introduced a new capability in Presenter Coach that uses your webcam to give you feedback on your body language. This feature will also launch with feedback in the Summary Report to tell users how well their audience would be able to see them (Clear view), if they were too far or too close to the camera (Distance) and whether they faced the camera (Eye contact). Repetitive language can also be a big problem when giving a presentation which is why Presenter Coach can now help users identify the words and phrases they tend to overuse so that they can keep their audience more engaged throughout their presentations. Microsoft will also provide users with a list of synonyms to help them avoid repetitive language. Finally, Presenter Coach can now advise users about the correct pronunciations of words spoken throughout their rehearsals. When the tool notices that a user may have mispronounced a word, it will display the word or words and provide an exercise to help you learn to pronounce them correctly.

Platforms : PC, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch Developers : Obsidian Entertainment Publishers : Private Division Release Date :March 17, 2021 Obsidian has leaned hard into turning The Outer Worlds into a sci-fi detective game with its two DLC expansions – a direction that plays to the strengths of its characters and writing. That’s smart, considering the combat has pretty much fully run out of gas by this point. The second and final one, Murder on Eridanos, is a more intimate and local whodunnit that has you following a trail of clues around a series of colorful floating islands to interview weird suspects and hold up a high-tech magnifying glass to highlight clues. It’s not a grand sendoff for this upstart RPG, but it’s another good chunk of time spent in its universe. After a brief setup in which the star of an in-universe TV show is murdered, you’re handed a badge and sent off to be an impartial investigator. I only wish we’d gotten to see or at least hear more of these noir-ish Halcyon Helen serials, since the small taste we do see is tons of fun and right up the alley of The Outer Worlds’ dark humor. The crime boss, the jilted lover, the weird self-help guru, the arrogant co-star, and more are on the list of people of interest, and most of them are in fact interesting people to talk to. It’s a bona fide murder mystery, and there’s a lot of dialogue here since so much of the sleuthing is climbing every branch of their conversation trees, and between that and reading emails on terminals, going through every detail for evidence it can take a while. Depending on how thorough you are, that can be over 10 hours – which is not bad at all for an expansion to a 25-hour RPG. As far as I can tell there isn’t a significant effect on the story based on your roleplaying dialogue choices, but there are a couple of big decisions to make once you close in on a suspect: for one, you get to actually guess at who killed the actor, which is a refreshing breath of fresh air when so many detective games are on rails. Sure, no matter who you accuse, the final confrontation is effectively the same, but it feels great to be given the chance to make a call and then find out if you’re right or wrong about it, which is a lot more than Peril on Gorgon did. And of course, then you have to decide what to do when you discover what really happened and the secret Halcyon Helen was killed to protect, and you’re given some justification to go either way. What We Said About The Outer Worlds Share Autoplay setting: On With The Outer Worlds, Obsidian has found its own path in the space between Bethesda and BioWare, and it’s a great one. And considering that new RPGs from either of those influential developers are still years away, this game couldn’t have been timed any better. It’s not as explorable as one big open world but it still packs in a large portion of flexible quests and conflicts within its series of smaller ones. And the combat, character, and companion systems have enough new spins on existing ideas to make it feel like an homage with its own personality rather than a copy. - Dan Stapleton, October 22, 2019 Read the full The Outer Worlds review You never actually leave Eridanos as part of the main quest, or even need to return to your ship – you’re given a temporary base of operations where your whole team hangs out and a billboard is automatically filled out with photos of suspects and crazy-person string connecting them so you can visualize everything without taking too many of your own notes. That makes Murder on Eridanos feel more self-contained than any other adventure; almost like its own game. But since you never leave, it’s a good thing that the map is impressively diverse, with each of the connected floating islands containing one or two distinctive areas. There’s the scene of the crime at an upscale hotel, the distillery Helen was there to promote, a crime boss’s lair, vast fields of purple flowers, weird caves, and more – this doesn’t have the feeling of a map that’s cobbled together from existing parts. The only obnoxious thing about it is the long bridges that connect the islands where you do nothing but walk straight ahead for about 15 seconds at a time, and how eagerly the main quest sends you back and forth across them. This kind of thing is exactly what fast travel was invented for. This kind of thing is exactly what fast travel was invented for. I didn’t feel bad about taking that shortcut in part because by the time you’re at the required level 30, The Outer Worlds’ combat doesn’t hold up and feels obligatory, even on hard difficulty, so skipping it felt inconsequential. Even the handful of new weapons on Eridanos don’t spruce fights up much at all, and the enemies are very much more of the same but with more splash damage. This does mean that it’s a very chatty DLC though, and best suited to players who enjoy hiking through a dialogue forest more than just a dialogue tree. It’s an ambitious story with a huge amount of ground to cover. So much so that it’s boa-constrictor-tight delivery – which sets multiple side-quests sprawling from your discoveries almost from the off – can feel overwhelming at times and make you anxious you’re missing an integral clue in amongst the extras. You’re given plenty of breaks in the pacing to wander off before you report your findings, but the distraction factor is high and thorough searching often rewards you with unmarked clues to the various interwoven mysteries across the resort. It’s a lot to handle, and The Outer Worlds gives you a lot of credit to remember it all. More than a magnifier All of this doesn’t mean you’ll never have to lift a blaster, though. The recommended player level for the DLC is 30, which means this is end-game stuff, with plenty of tough set-piece fights placed at well-paced intervals throughout your investigation. While you start in the relatively sedate surroundings of the hotel, more hostile areas quickly open up and add an urgent edge to the mystery. But despite being equipped as a weapon, the biggest addition in Murder on Eridanos is non-violent. The Discrepancy Amplifier is your partner in solving crime, capable of highlighting clues in the environment to further your deductions. It’s a great in-universe implementation of the classic ‘detective vision’ which surfaces important information with enough input from the player to make you feel like an active participant rather than just having conversations placed under your nose. The sassy back-and-forth with the Amplifier’s AI is just one of the ways that the Murder on Eridanos DLC leans into The Outer Worlds’ goofier and more referential side, where the one-liners and silly player dialogue choices are a laugh-a-minute. There are plenty of unique asides from all of your favorite companions too, including some great set-pieces. The grand reveal Murder on Eridanos feels like The Outer Worlds at its best. Roleplay, diverging quest lines, and carefully balanced absurdity have always been at the heart of the game, and this DLC feels like a freer exploration of that core concept. Without having to juggle the high-stakes of the main story across an extended run-time and multiple planets, there’s more leeway to knit a larger cast of more interconnected characters together for a more engaging mystery. It could talk your ear off, but in true Outer Worlds fashion, it’s up to you whether you want to listen. The Outer Worlds: Murder on Eridanos is out now on PC, PlayStation and Xbox – with Switch assumed to be coming later. In The Outer Worlds’ second and final narrative DLC, Murder on Eridanos, there’s a mystery afoot unlike any other in the game. When superstar actress Halcyon Helen is murdered in the galaxy’s foremost luxury resort, the crew of the Unreliable is once again tasked with stepping into the shoes of a space-age sleuth to crack the case. poster When you think about the best DLC expansions for story-based RPGs, they all have a few things in common. They add meaningfully different areas to explore, deep side-stories to uncover, and interesting new mechanics that subtly subvert and add distinct layers to the way you play. Murder on Eridanos does all of those things, while still sticking true to The Outer Worlds’ tightly written, off-the-wall humor and dedication to enabling different kinds of role play. The Outer Worlds: Murder on Eridanos Review Luxury Living The Grand Colonial Hotel is a steam train short of smooshing just about every Poirot setting into one, where the hovering islands make it quite literally Death in the Clouds. Designed like a spoked wheel with the high-rise hotel at its centre, there’s everything from a not-so-flourishing orchard, wilderness nature reserve, and seedy harbor to sift through – all full of suspects, side-quests, and general intrigue on your way to the ultimate conclusion. Too often in RPGs we’re left picking over the bones of interesting events, sauntering through dilapidated corridors where everything happened long before you arrived. And that’s where I thought The Outer Worlds’ previous DLC, Peril on Gorgon, was at its weakest, as you milled about through abandoned labs on your way to press a button on a computer. One of my favorite things about Murder on Eridanos is its willingness to show us a part of the colony in full swing – where you’re interrogating major players and sniffing out clues as things happen instead of after the fact. ---------------------------------- System Requirments : ---------------------------------- Minimum : CPU: Intel Core i3-3225 or AMD Phenom II X6 1100T CPU SPEED: Info RAM: 4 GB OS: Windows 7 (SP1) 64bit VIDEO CARD: Nvidia GeForce GTX 650 Ti or AMD Radeon HD 7850 PIXEL SHADER: 5.0 VERTEX SHADER: 5.0 FREE DISK SPACE: 40 GB DEDICATED VIDEO RAM: 1024 MB ----------------------------------- Recommended ; CPU: Intel Core i7-7700K or Ryzen 5 1600 CPU SPEED: Info RAM: 8 GB OS: Windows 10 64bit VIDEO CARD: GeForce GTX 1060 6GB or Radeon RX 470 PIXEL SHADER: 5.1 VERTEX SHADER: 5.1 FREE DISK SPACE: 40 GB DEDICATED VIDEO RAM: 6 GB ----------------------------------- Video Trailer :

After a year of sticking closer to home amid the coronavirus pandemic, getting away sure sounds like a dream come true – though some destinations offer a warmer welcome than others. In a new report, Expedia ranked the "friendliest" towns and cities across the U.S. for 2021, with 20 hotspots in 15 states making the cut. To draw the data, the travel planning company scored the highest mentions of "friendly," "friendliest," and "amiable" (among other related phrases) for various locales, based on Expedia’s online traveler reviews from January 2019 to December 2020. Yielding a mix of woodsy, beachy and small-town destinations, Whitefish, Mont. near Glacier National Park was ranked as the friendliest place to be. The village of Sister Bay, Wis. was ranked second, with the resort city of Manitou Springs, Colo. coming in third. Easton, Md., Lihue, Hawaii, Sierra Vista, Ariz., Kennebunkport, Maine, Chincoteague, Va., Ogunquit, Maine and Provincetown, Mass. rounded out the top ten. Though it’s hard to imagine being unhappy in somewhere like the Aloha State, the only true wildcard on the list was Manhattan, N.Y., famous for its restless pace as the city that never sleeps. The harbor at Sister Bay, Wisconsin during the fall. (iStock) Despite the spirit of wanderlust, Expedia urged adventurers to heed stay-at-home orders, quarantine rules and testing requirements before planning a trip this year. Planners can also use the site’s "enhancing cleaning" and "free cancellation" filters for better research, too.

It is being seen as the end of an era - but how is it that a 'new-look' Bayern Munich for next season is already looking like a formidable force? The Bundesliga champions are arguably the best team in Europe, going into Wednesday night's Champions League last-16 second-leg tie against Lazio 4-1 ahead. They are being strongly tipped by many to defend last season's European crown but, behind the scenes, Bayern's management are already working on an overhaul - knowing from painful experience, complacency can lead to a downfall. Bayern made that mistake after the Champions League win in 2013. At the time, they looked as unbeatable as last August but then quickly deteriorated. They do not want to suffer the same fate again. And with players totalling almost 1,000 club appearances between them on their way out of the exit door, Bayern have moved quickly to ensure they remain one step ahead of the rest. When are the Champions League quarter-final and semi-final draws? Bayern wait for Neuer and Coman updates before second leg against Lazio Future back line already in place Determined to keep the wage structure as balanced as possible, the club have ended negotiations with defender David Alaba who reportedly demanded a yearly wage of £17m for a potential contract extension. Another prominent name to leave this summer is 32-year-old Jerome Boateng, as Bayern have decided against extending the contract that has earned him £8.5m per year. Karl-Heinz Rummenigge, Bayern's chairman of the executive board, said in February he thought Boateng was playing a "satisfying campaign", yet it was not enough to commit for any longer to a defender who has made over 350 appearances for the club. The third defensive player that will leave Bayern at the end of the season is Javi Martinez, another 32-year-old, whose contract runs out. Bayern Munich's David Alaba and Lucas Hernandez Bayern have ended contract negotiations with David Alaba (left) but Lucas Hernandez will play a key part in next season's defence Bayern though have already completed their plans for next year's back line. Lucas Hernandez, who, like Alaba, can play as a centre-back and left-back, and Niklas Sule will carry more responsibility than they have done previously. Tanguy Nianzou, who signed from Paris St-Germain last summer, will get the chance to prove himself after being sidelined with injuries this season. And Dayot Upamecano will fill in the role of Boateng as the powerhouse centre-back. Bayern triggered a £36.4m buyout clause in Upamecano's contract with RB Leipzig back in February, crushing the hopes of Premier League clubs that had targeted the Frenchman. Last summer, Bayern made a few last-minute signings as manager Hansi Flick demanded additions to the squad because he felt his team would not be able to handle the tight schedule. Still, it was very atypical for Bayern to make rather hurried decisions. Usually, the club like to get most of their transfer business done before competitors, so they do not have to engage in bidding wars. The signing of Upamecano was textbook Bayern. Instead of negotiating with several candidates for the fourth and remaining centre-back spot, they committed to a proven player with a reasonable buyout clause early. The same can be said about the signing of Omar Richards, the 23-year-old left-back from Reading, who just signed a contract with Bayern and will be Alphonso Davies' backup next season. Life after Lewandowski Bayern have not only been working on their defence, though. They recently extended the contract of Jamal Musiala, reportedly offering the 18-year-old prospect a lucrative five-year deal. The management wanted to make sure that any offers from clubs like Barcelona and Liverpool would be dismissed. Coming back to the mistakes Bayern made in the aftermath of the 2013 Champions League win, they seemingly stuck with their old guard for too long. While Arjen Robben and Franck Ribery were pivotal for their success, they remained starting players past their prime. Bayern Munich's Musiala Jamal Musiala scored his first Champions League goal at the age of 17 years and 363 days Jamal Musiala: Bayern Munich youngster picks Germany over England at international level Bayern have realised that, as good as Thomas Muller or Robert Lewandowski are, there will be a time when they have to be replaced. Musiala, for instance, is deemed Muller's successor. And a world-class centre-forward is set to be the next target on Bayern's transfer list. Manager Flick recently made some ambiguous comments about Borussia Dortmund's Erling Braut Haaland, who has a £65m buyout clause that can be triggered in 2022 - Lewandowski will turn 34 in August of that year. Mix between youth and experience The future Bayern team already look like a formidable force, with the perfect mix of young talents such as Upamecano and Davies and more seasoned players such as Joshua Kimmich and Leon Goretzka. Bayern's style of play has not changed significantly in the past 10 years and there is no reason to believe that it will anytime soon. The German champions sign and develop players to fit into their system. It is a difficult task to stay at the top of European football for more than a few years, but Bayern seem to have the right ingredients and strategic approach to ensure they will not skid down anytime soon.

St. Patrick’s day can mean vastly different things to people around the world; while some see it as a celebration of the life of St. Patrick, others wear green and have a few too many pints of Guinness. Dodge sees it as an opportunity to bring the Gold Rush paint option to its Charger models. While the paint scheme was originally introduced on the 2020 Dodge Challenger for its 50th anniversary, it’s coming back for St. Patty’s day. The pot o’ gold paint is now available on the Charger R/T, Scat Pack, Scat Pack Widebody, SRT Hellcat, and SRT Hellcat Redeye Models – each must be equipped with the Satin Black hand-painted hood, roof, and decklid. For those who want to stick with the Challenger, don’t panic, because the same paint scheme continues to be an option on 2021 Challenger T/A, T/A 392, SRT Hellcat, and SRT Hellcat Redeye vehicles. Aside from the St. Paddy’s promotion, Gold Rush joins the Dodge palette of heritage-inspired paint colors, which includes Frostbite, Hellraisin, Sinamon Stick, TorRed, F8 Green, and Go Mango. “The customer response to the Dodge Challenger Gold Rush exceeded our expectations,” said Tim Kuniskis, Dodge Brand Chief Executive Officer. “We’re sticking to that successful Dodge formula of proliferating our most po[CENSORED]r options across the lineup and giving Charger customers, who want the Gold Rush color, the option to have it on their four-door muscle car.” Along with the paint scheme, the Dodge Charger enjoyed record sales in 2020 – having its best Scat Pack year ever and leading its segment for the eighth year in a row. For prospective buyers who want to join the Gold Rush in 2021, dealers can begin ordering vehicles this spring.

Brazil is experiencing a historic collapse of its health service as intensive care units in hospitals run out of capacity, its leading health institute, Fiocruz, has warned. Covid-19 units in all but two of Brazil's 27 states are at or above 80% capacity, according to Fiocruz. In Rio Grande do Sul state there are no intensive care beds available at all. The warning came as the country registered its highest daily death toll yet with 2,841 dying within 24 hours. That figure constitutes a large jump from the previous high of 2,286 on 10 March. Chart showing the daily deaths in Brazil line Chart showing the cumulative deaths Presentational white space 'Extremely critical' In a statement [in Portuguese], Fiocruz said that the situation was "extremely critical in the entire country". Map showing ICU occupancy across Brazil Presentational white space "The analysis by our researchers suggests it's the biggest collapse of the hospital and health service in Brazil's history." Brazil Covid surge reaches critical new peak Covid vaccines: How fast is worldwide progress? Health officials in Brazil's most populous state, São Paulo, which on Tuesday also registered a record daily death toll, have called on the new health minister to consider imposing a national lockdown. Marcelo Queiroga - who will be formally appointed as health minister later on Wednesday - is the fourth person to hold the office since the pandemic began. Brazilian cardiologist Marcelo Queiroga, who was named by Brazil"s President Jair Bolsonaro as the country"s fourth Health Minister since the coronavirus pandemic began, speaks at the Health Ministry headquarters in Brasilia, Brazil March 16, 2021. IMAGE COPYRIGHTREUTERS image captionMarcelo Queiroga will take over from General Eduardo Pazuello as health minister on Wednesday He was given the job on Monday by President Jair Bolsonaro, who has faced widespread criticism over his handling of the pandemic. President Bolsonaro has consistently opposed quarantine measures introduced by state governors, arguing that the collateral damage to the economy would be worse than the effects of the virus itself. Lockdown ahead? In remarks to the media on Tuesday, Mr Queiroga urged Brazilians to wear masks and wash their hands but stopped short of endorsing a lockdown or even social distancing measures. The cardiologist told CNN Brasil that while "lockdowns were used in extreme situations, they could not be government policy".

One of the first Nvidia CMP 30HX models (via momomo_us) has emerged at Microless, a retailer in Dubai, for $723.84. The graphics card is part of Nvidia's latest Cryptocurrency Mining Processor (CMP) lineup that's suppose to convince cryptocurrency miners to lay off GeForce gaming graphics cards. The Palit Nvidia GeForce CMP 30HX (NE630HX017J9-1160X) arrives with a 1,530 MHz base clock and a 1,785 MHz boost clock. The clock speeds are identical to Palit's GeForce GTX 1660 Super GP gaming graphics card. Although Microless didn't reveal the core count, the CMP 30HX is expected to wield 1,408 CUDA cores since it's derived from TU116 (Turing) silicon, like the GeForce GTX 1660 Super. Similar to its gaming counterpart, the Palit Nvidia GeForce CMP 30HX rocks 6GB of GDDR6 memory that clocks in at 14 Gbps. Leveraging a 192-bit memory interface, the graphics card supplies a memory bandwidth of up to 336 GBps. Built for mining Ethereum, the Palit Nvidia GeForce CMP 30HX doesn't come with any display outputs. Rated for 125W, the Palit Nvidia GeForce CMP 30HX only depends on a single 8-pin PCIe power connector. The graphics card delivers Ethereum mining performance up to 26 MH/s before optimizations. The value added tax (VAT) rate in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) is 5%, so the Palit Nvidia GeForce CMP 30HX should cost around $689.37. Keep in mind that computer hardware is frequently more expensive outside of the U.S., though. Besides, we don't know how much of the price is due to the retailer's markup on the Palit Nvidia GeForce CMP 30HX. Due to the graphics card shortage and cryptocurrency mining craze, graphics cards are obnoxiously expensive right now. Not so long ago, we saw custom GeForce GTX 1660 Super models selling between $599 and $899. A week later, the same graphics cards are starting from $699. It looks like the CMP 30HX isn't completely dead on arrival, but there are certainly cheaper and more effective options out there, such as the GeForce GTX 1060 6GB or Radeon RX 590.

Nord Security, the company behind the po[CENSORED]r NordVPN VPN service, has announced a new feature to streamline user authentication for its various services. Nord Security has a portfolio of a handful of cybersecurity products, as alongside its VPN, there’s the NordPass password manager, and NordLocker for end-to-end file encryption. Now added to that list is the newly announced Nord Account, a multi-factor authentication (MFA) tool that will help users log into all the services using the same credentials. These are the best business VPN solutions on the market Here’s our roundup of the best identity theft protection tools Protect your devices with these best antivirus software Standard practice “Since the Nord suite of cybersecurity services is expanding, the time has come to introduce a new centralized solution that will help our users manage their accounts in a hassle-free way from a single place,” said Vykintas Maknickas, Product Strategist at NordVPN. In addition to unified credentials, Nord Account also gives users a single-pane of view to all their active Nord subscriptions. Users will be able to use the new service to manage their existing subscriptions by extending or cancelling them, and can also access their billing history. The new tool will also enable users to read the latest security reports from the service provider as well as download apps for any of its services, while also giving them a unified interface to change their account preferences. Existing users can use their credentials to log into Nord Account without going through the rigmarole of creating a new account and registering with the service. Maknickas adds that the new service will soon add support for security keys, such as YubiKey, adding that they’ll eventually extend the service to support additional multi-factor authentication mechanisms including biometrics. Secure your entire network with one of the best VPN routers

Platforms : PC Developers : FireFly Studios Publishers : FireFly Studios Features : Online Co-Op Multiplayer Release Date : March 9, 2021 For 20 years now, the Stronghold series has fortified itself in an interesting place somewhere between a city builder and a more traditional real-time strategy. Stronghold Warlords continues this tradition with a new flavor as it takes us, for the first time in the series, to the battlefields of ancient and medieval East Asia. But as an RTS, it feels like it's still living in the mists of the past. And the city building, while it can be an interesting and almost zen little puzzle, often feels at odds with the goal of straightforwardly conquering your enemies. The biggest, often refreshing difference between a Stronghold game and, say, Warcraft or StarCraft, is in how it pushes you to think about space. You're going to be turning an open plot of land into an impressive, thriving walled city... assuming no one razes it to the ground first. And it's not just the availability of natural resources you need to worry about. Decisions like placing your main stockpile close to resource collection areas can have a big effect on the efficiency of your economy, and keeping your people happy later on will partly depend on how many of your buildings are in the radius of temples. You really have to try and picture how everything is going to fit together, on top of building out your defenses to maximize your home field advantage. It does a good job of scratching that Tetris-y itch and making long-term planning pay off. That’s been true of the series as a whole, but Warlords has added a new wrinkle in that you can choose whether to keep your people in line through love or fear. One building chain will let you construct torture racks and other unsubtle symbols of oppression, which make your workers work faster but demoralize your armies and reduce your po[CENSORED]rity. The other offers creature comforts that will inspire the troops and endear you in the hearts of the commoners, but also lowers their resource output since they're spending too much time playing lawn darts or whatever. I enjoyed the tension this created because I could see how much productivity I could squeeze out of my people and also keep each new stronghold from feeling like a repeat of the last. Keeping happiness at least somewhat positive is important because it's the only way your po[CENSORED]tion will grow, and raising taxes to afford higher-tier units is only possible if you're giving something back in return, like more rice rations or fancy new silk duds. This helps your cities feel like a bit more than just a collection of peasants dumping gold in a pile to fund your armies like in a traditional RTS. But once those armies get on the move, that's sort of all it boils down to. Share Autoplay setting: On Combat in Stronghold Warlords is at its best during sieges, whether you're on the attacking or the defending side. All the modular pieces you can construct your walls and towers from allow for some interesting and clever set-ups to maximize your advantages against a larger force, especially if you know a thing or two about how real castles were designed in these eras. And figuring out how to take on an enemy fortress, probing for weak spots and choosing your opportunities carefully, can be exciting as well. Field battles just aren't as interesting, though. Fights are very old-school Age of Empires in their pacing and scale. There is a huge gap in movement speed between lower-tier skirmishers and the tanky imperial troops you can get later in the tech tree, which does allow a savvy commander to outmaneuver a more potent army and win the day. But overall, these fights are very old-school Age of Empires in their pacing and scale. It's not terrible, it just feels very behind the times compared to more recent RTSes like Northgard or Total War. And the art doesn't help. While the grand keeps and shining pagodas are detailed and attractive, these low polygon, flat-looking unit models could be outshone by something like the original Company of Heroes, which came out almost 15 years ago. Each of the six single-player campaigns, which are around six to 10 hours long, take you to a different time and place in history, they only seem like distinct factions because most missions limit what you can build. In multiplayer and skirmish vs AI, on the other hand, that distinction is lost: not only are the unit rosters identical for each army, your Imperial Swordsmen will always speak Chinese even if you're playing as the Vietnamese. Genghis Khan can hire Ninja and Samurai units just as easily as his rival, the shogun, can get Mongol horse archers. There's a little bit of visual variation in architecture, but overall, it's all a weirdly homogenous abstraction of a setting that spans an entire continent and over a thousand years of history. Genghis Khan can hire Ninja and Samurai units just as easily as his rival, the shogun, can get Mongol horse archers. “ Some of the voice acting is definitely pretty iffy, too. The main advisor character in the campaign, especially, sounds like a really cartoonish, potentially offensive stereotype of a fussy Chinese bureaucrat. It's similar in tone to the somewhat over-the-top and playful depictions of historical figures the series has dabbled with previously, but when it's applied to a non-European character, it's hard not to wince any time he opens his mouth. The leaders themselves, while exaggerated, at least don't sound like caricatures. At least the mission objectives have good variety and nod to some interesting historical battles. They definitely play fast and loose with history, but keep it interesting by alternating between more traditional base building, a few that have you trying to take down a castle with a fixed army and no ability to replenish troops, and some that are purely focused on building up your economy while defending a castle. Those last ones are the most fun, especially when combined with the system of militarily or diplomatically vassalizing AI warlords on each map to grant you various bonuses. It made me wish there was some kind of horde mode for skirmish or multiplayer, which could have taken the strongest part of Warlords and made it endlessly replayable. Verdict When I'm laying out a city or defending it from invaders, Stronghold Warlords is satisfying and almost chill. But it's a better castle builder than it is an RTS, and aside from a kind of aimless free build mode, there's not much of a way to ignore those lackluster elements. The dated unit models just aren't at all nice to look at, and make me wonder if a game of this budget wouldn't have gotten more bang for their buck going with a more stylized art direction. The historically-based campaigns have some cool missions, but the fact that every faction boils down to a weird amalgamation of such a broad swathe of history and geography in skirmish and multiplayer feels like a missed opportunity. I don't regret the time spent with Stronghold Warlords, but I wouldn't be devastated to have missed it either. The original Stronghold holds a special place in my heart. You build a medieval barony, surround it with a labyrinth of impassable walls, and stave off waves of attackers while keeping the serfs living within happy, well fed and well taxed. It had real character too, with a lovely soundtrack, snappy unit soundbites and memorable villains. I tend to think that the series’ decades-long endurance despite often lukewarm player and critical reception speaks to an enduring hope that it one day goes back to that simple principle of building and protecting your castle against relentless waves of attackers—that maybe the next Stronghold will finally be the one to both take us back and move us forward. Stronghold: Warlords isn’t that game. In fact, it’s the most sprawling entry in the series yet—largely abandoning the principle of building a feudal gauntlet for waves of enemies in favour of a more traditional RTS setup featuring larger maps and symmetrically placed enemy bases. In other words, it’s more Age of Empires than Stronghold, but without the technological progression, or scouting, or distinct factions, or scuffles over resources. It’s also set in the far east, where you pick from four historical real-life leaders of China, Japan, Vietnam and Mongolia. Stronghold: Warlords (Image credit: Firefly Studios) The titular Warlords system is the twist here. Between your base and the enemy’s, there are several smaller estates on the map held by neutral warlords. Defeat these warlords, and they’ll join your side, sending you resources, letting your troops shelter in their mini-forts, and even launching attacks on your enemies. It’s a decent idea in principle but falters on a couple of levels. Firstly, it means that your main keep which you so meticulously bolster with walls, ballistas, towers, hidden gunpowder traps and fire arrow launchers doesn’t see a ton of action. Most of your time in a skirmish will be spent scuffling over these warlord forts that you don’t have any hand in building or designing except for preset upgrades that you buy with diplomacy points. The climactic sieges do happen eventually, but they’re not at the heart of the game like they used to be. You can use diplomacy points to sweet-talk warlords to your side instead of fighting them. I found that once I was deep into a game, with each remaining team having piled up these points, I’d get embroiled in an endless tug of war on the diplomacy screen with the warlords endlessly flip-flopping between my team and an enemy’s. The diplomacy is both simplistic and fiddly, and the last thing I want to be doing while defending on one front and besieging on another is clicking a big button on a menu to make a number go up. The combat itself feels good for the most part. Siege equipment is varied, ranging from trebuchets that can fire not only rocks, but fire and diseased animals into enemy forts, to laddermen and mantlets that protect your incoming troops from the inevitable arrow barrages. Seeing a city burn and crumble before funnelling troops into it is still a joy, and I had a few highlight reel moments with the gunpowder-loaded oxen that I’d send on kamikaze death-runs into poorly guarded siege equipment. Regular melee, cavalry and ranged troops are joined by far eastern classics like samurai, warrior monks, horse archers and ninjas—who can scale walls without ladders. Fire lancers meanwhile, can burn entire regiments with their medieval flamethrowers. These pyromaniacs shriek maniacally when you select them, making you question whether the least mentally stable soldiers should be wielding the only weapons also capable of damaging your own troops. It’s a solid lineup, offering more tactical variety than past iterations while retaining some of the whimsy that the series at its best had. Back on the homefront, you’ll need to keep the people happy with food, clothing, tea and temples if you want to crank up those taxes. It’s strange that you can only gather resources from within the rather limited building boundaries of your solitary keep, as it means that you need to procure most of your resources through warlords under your command or the market, where you can buy and sell all goods in the game. That means no fighting over resources on the map, which makes games that bit less strategic. Despite the teething awkwardness, I did get into a groove with this economic system, setting surplus resources to auto-sell once they hit a certain point while auto-buying those I lacked so that they always stayed at a minimum threshold. The campaigns fall for that RTS trap of serving as expanded and often mundane tutorials You can choose whether you’re a po[CENSORED]r ruler or a feared one through buildings—a theatre on the one hand; public torture equipment on the other. Each approach grants its own bonuses, and rounds off a pretty satisfying city-builder element that’s a pleasure to watch when working efficiently. Oxen carry iron from mine to stockpile, farmers work the fields, and little people scurry between shacks and pagodas illuminated by ambery hanging lanterns, offering soundbites on the state of things when you click them (so usually whining about taxes, in my case). Managing and designing your fiefdom was always a strongpoint of the series, and Warlords upholds that tradition. It’s taken a while to get round to talking about the campaigns, which no doubt will be on the minds of those who remember the original game’s run of medieval vaudeville villains (medievaudevillains, if you will) and kooky cutscenes. But really there’s not much to tell here, with the campaigns falling for that RTS trap of serving as expanded and often mundane tutorials for the main events: skirmish mode and multiplayer. There are five reasonably lengthy campaigns set across east Asia, each casting you as a real-life historical ruler of the respective region. Each one has a slightly different angle—from galloping around the plains of Mongolia as Genghis Khan to Thuc Phan’s quest to become king of the Au Lac kingdom in the jungles of modern-day Vietnam. There’s plenty of hours here but not much substance—no cutscenes, no big personalities to pit yourself against, and no mid-mission twists. The faction leaders and their rivals are avatars more than characters, only rarely popping up in the corner of the screen to grimace and scowl at you. The campaign missions often restrict the units and buildings you can use, forcing you to really try and make the most of limited resources. These restrictions also give the impression that the factions somehow play differently from one another, but once you start playing skirmish mode—the meat and rice of the game—you find that each one is much the same: identical units and identical buildings except for the bright neon colour banding around them. Even if it was the case that somehow the architecture across several asian nations thousands of miles (and thousands of years, based on the rulers) apart was identical, it doesn’t feel satisfying in a genre that’s most interesting when there’s some asymmetry and distinctions between the combatants. Advertisement Stronghold: Warlords By leaving behind the safety of its castle walls, Stronghold has ventured out into a field where Age of Empires still reigns supreme. It’s a tough ask, especially when at the time of writing it seems that autosave isn’t working and performance unstable and prone to crashes. It doesn’t feel quite ready for the kind of game it wants to be. Stronghold: Warlords still shines during sieges, when piles of enemies collapse beneath swarms of arrows, ladders and ninjas cling to walls, and soldiers fly out of towers toppled by catapult fire. There’s enough customisation in the skirmish mode that you can manufacture these gruelling attritional standoffs, but much of the game between these feels too thin. I’m still waiting for the day when this series reels things in and builds on its sturdy siegecraft foundations, instead of diluting them with generic RTS trappings and other systems that don’t quite click. ----------------------------------------------- Game System Requirments ---------------------------------------------- Minimum : CPU: Intel i5-3330 3.0Ghz or AMD equivalent RAM: 8 GB OS: Windows 7/8/10 VIDEO CARD: nVidia GeForce GTX 680 or AMD Radeon HD7970 (2 GB VRAM) PIXEL SHADER: 5.0 VERTEX SHADER: 5.0 FREE DISK SPACE: 6 GB DEDICATED VIDEO RAM: 2048 MB ----------------------------------------------- Recommended : CPU: Intel Core i7-3770 3.4GHz or AMD equivalent RAM: 16 GB OS: Windows 7/8/10 64-bit VIDEO CARD: nVidia GeForce GTX 970 or AMD Radeon R9 290 PIXEL SHADER: 5.1 VERTEX SHADER: 5.1 FREE DISK SPACE: 6 GB DEDICATED VIDEO RAM: 4096 MB ---------------------------------------- Video Trailer :

Viking plans to test all guests and crew for COVID-19 every day when the company resumes sailing in England in May. The river, ocean and expedition cruise line unveiled the "England’s Scenic Shores" trips on Tuesday, with the new Viking Venus ship setting sail for eight-day ocean itineraries on May 22, May 29 and June 5. At this time, the trips are exclusive to residents of the U.K., and will sail round-trip from Portsmouth. The Venus, the newest ocean-going ship to join Viking's fleet, is currently scheduled to be delivered in April. The Viking Venus, pictured. The cruise line’s newest ocean-going ship is currently scheduled to be delivered in April. In the fight against COVID-19, all guests and crew will receive a saliva PCR test each day they're at sea. According to the cruise line, this requirement is nothing new for crew members, as seafaring employees have taken a PCR test for the viral disease each day for nearly six months. "We are in a position to restart operations quickly and to start sailing again in May because we have kept our ships crewed during warm lay-up throughout the past 12 months," Torstein Hagen, Viking chairman, said in a news release. "We have been implementing our additional protocols, including daily quick and easy non-invasive saliva PCR tests for our crew, for almost six months now. With our new protocol enhancements in place, we feel strongly there will be no safer way to travel the world than on a Viking voyage and we look forward to welcoming U.K. guests back on board very soon." When Viking resumes sailing, the cruise line will continue to enforce its enhanced Viking Health and Safety Program. Protocol of the program includes health checks, increased sanitization and social distancing measures throughout. Stateside, Crystal Cruises recently announced it will resume sailing in Bahamas in July. The trips, set to sail from Nassau and Bimini, mark the first from the Americas since the pandemic began.

Today is the day Kia fans in the States have been waiting for. The mildly refreshed 2022 Kia Stinger is now official, and all the rumors we heard about the car are true. Considering it previously debuted in other markets some time ago it's not exactly a surprise, but still, sometimes things get lost in translation. That's not the case here, especially under the hood where more power greets all Stinger shoppers, regardless of trim level. That's where we'll start this 2022 overview. Gone is the turbocharged 2.0-liter engine that previously powered lower-spec Stingers. The base engine is now a turbocharged 2.5-liter four-cylinder delivering 300 horsepower (224 kilowatts) and 311 pound-feet (422 Newton-meters) of torque for the GT-Line. That's a healthy 45-hp (34 kW) increase over the old model, and as such, Kia says it will reach 60 mph in an estimated 5.2 seconds. Gallery: 2022 Kia Stinger New Kia Stinger 70 Photos That's not the only power bump, however. The twin-turbocharged 3.3-liter V6 in GT models increases ever-so-slightly to 368 hp (274 kW). Regardless of the trim level, all 2022 Stingers shift gears using an eight-speed automatic with paddle-shift capability. Rear-wheel drive or all-wheel drive is also available across the range, but an added bonus for GT buyers is a new electronic variable exhaust system for increased aural pleasure. Visually speaking, the exhaust also gets fresh tips to differentiate new models from old ones. New LED lighting is also distinctive, especially at the rear with a full-width strip illuminating from lens to lens. On GT1 and GT2 models, the rear turn signals are LED as well. At the front, updated LED headlights have a new daytime running lamp signature. Updated wheels in either 18-inch or 19-inch variety are available as well. Moving inside, the noticeable upgrade is a standard-issue 10.25-inch touchscreen. A larger 4.2-inch TFT center cluster is also part of the package, with a 7-inch cluster available. It combines with an expanded set of standard-issue driver assist systems that run the gamut from forward-collision warning and braking assist to blind-spot monitoring, rear cross-traffic alert, and lane-keep assist. More visual punch for the greenhouse comes from black gloss and chrome trim, updated seats with Nappa leather, and cool new LED mood lighting.

Everton goalkeeper Jordan Pickford will miss England's three World Cup qualifiers this month after sustaining an abdominal muscle injury. Pickford, 27, was forced off just before half-time in Saturday's Premier League defeat against Burnley. The Toffees said he will miss their FA Cup quarter-final against Manchester City on Saturday as well as matches against San Marino, Albania and Poland. England boss Gareth Southgate will name his squad on Thursday. Everton said Pickford injured his oblique abdominal muscle attempting to stop a strike from Johann Berg Gudmundsson. Pickford has won 30 caps and played in November's Nations League games. Banner Image Reading Around the BBC - Blue Why are Britons the fattest in Western Europe? BBC Food looks at the UK's problem with obesity Line of Duty Series 6 is coming: Get ready with the brand new trailer

Countries around Europe are seeking further clarification on the safety of the Oxford-AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine, amid criticism of their decision to suspend giving the jab. France, Germany, Spain and Italy have said they are awaiting an investigation by the EU's regulator into reports of clots in a small number of recipients. But other EU members, including Poland and Belgium, are continuing its use. The European Medicines Agency (EMA) will release its findings on Thursday. On Tuesday, the EMA said it was still "firmly convinced" of the benefits of the AstraZeneca drug. Its head, Emer Cooke, pointed out that blood clots highlighted by some countries were relatively common in the general po[CENSORED]tion. "I want to stress at present there is no indication that vaccination has caused these conditions," she said. Meanwhile, experts from the World Health Organization (WHO) were also meeting on Tuesday but a spokesman stressed there was "no evidence" that the reported blood clots were linked to the vaccine. Experts assess AstraZeneca blood clot reports Is Europe's Oxford jab decision-making flawed? How will we know Covid vaccines are safe? The WHO has urged countries not to pause their vaccinations. The suspensions come as much of Europe struggles to control rising cases. In the UK, more than 11 million people have already received at least one dose of the AstraZeneca vaccine and there has been no sign of excess deaths or blood clots occurring. What action are countries taking? Some 13 European countries have paused their use of the vaccine. Denmark was first, followed by Norway and Iceland. Germany, France, Italy, Cyprus, Spain, Latvia and Sweden are the latest to follow suit. On Monday, the three largest EU members - Germany, France and Italy - said they were awaiting the results of the EMA investigation before deciding whether to resume their rollout of the jab. They said they had opted to pause their use of the drug as a "precautionary measure". Chart showing coronavirus doses by po[CENSORED]tion in various European countries. 1px transparent line "We expect some kind of verdict from the European scientific community by Thursday afternoon, allowing us to resume the campaign," French Health minister Olivier Véran said on Tuesday. "There were a few very unusual and troubling cases which justify this pause and the analysis," French immunologist Alain Fischer, who heads a government advisory board, told France Inter radio. "It's not lost time." In Germany, the health ministry also pointed to a small number of rare blood clots in vaccinated people when justifying its decision. It has postponed a summit on extending the vaccine rollout ahead of the EMA's expected announcement on Thursday. There is as yet no evidence that the specified clots were linked to the vaccine, and the EMA has said other factors are likely behind the incidents. Other countries, including Austria, have halted the use of certain batches of the AstraZeneca drug, while Belgium, Poland, the Czech Republic and Ukraine said they would continue to administer the vaccine. 'Benefits outweigh risks' The decision to halt rollouts of the AstraZeneca vaccine has been criticised by some politicians and doctors. Karl Lauterbach, a German epidemiologist and health spokesman for the centre-left Social Democrats, said while the pause was justifiable, it was also political. "I would even now get vaccinated with the AstraZeneca. Based on the incidents we now know, the benefits of vaccination significantly outweigh the risks, particularly for the elderly," he told Deutschlandfunk radio.

Shenzhen Longsys Electronics Co. Ltd, a Chinese NAND flash memory manufacturer, has demonstrated the power of its DDR5-6400 memory with one of Intel's Alder Lake-S processors. The company's results show that DDR5 will be an absolute delight for next-generation hardware. Longsys currently has two DDR5-6400 memory modules in development. The 16GB variant follows a single-rank design, while the 32GB variant conforms to a dual-rank design. Both memory modules feature an eight-layer PCB, CAS Latency (CL) of 40, and a 1.1V DRAM voltage. Longsys' offerings aren't even the pinnacle of what DDR5 has to offer, though. DDR5 will eventually arrive with data rates up to DDR5-8400 and capacities that scale up to 128GB per module. Longsys demonstrated the company's DDR5-6400 (ES1) memory module in its 32GB version with a CL40. For comparison, JEDEC's "A" specification for DDR4-6400 is rated for CL46. There aren't many processors that support DDR5 memory, and we haven't heard anything conclusive from the AMD camp. Alder Lake is the closest processor on the horizon that will support DDR5. In fact, Longsys' test platform is based on an Alder Lake-S chip with eight cores that operate with an 800 MHz base clock speed. DDR5-6400 Benchmarks It's uncertain if Longsys compared its DDR5-6400 or DDR5-4800 memory module to one of the brand's DDR4 memory modules. The company refers to DDR5-6400 in its results, but the BIOS screenshots show DDR5-4800. The data rate of the DDR4 memory is unknown as well. But judging by the CL22 value, the DDR4 memory module most likely conforms to JEDEC's DDR4-3200 speed bin. In any event, we've reached out to Longsys for clarification.

You wouldn’t be alone in being suspicious of free antivirus, or concerned that somehow it might not properly protect the device you’ve installed it on - whether that’s your PC or smartphone. After all, a commonly held belief is that anything free must come with a catch or maybe even multiple caveats. In some cases of course, cynicism around free antivirus apps may not be entirely misplaced. But not all freebies can be tarred with the same brush, as we’re about to see. We’ll also address concerns about antivirus software for phones being ineffectual in particular, and the truth behind this. So without further ado, let’s explore the capabilities of cost-free antivirus apps, and what they can realistically accomplish in terms of being a guard dog for your various devices. A clear point of concern for some folks is that a free antivirus may provide some defenses for any given system, but that it won’t be as good as a paid-for app – leading to the conclusion that surely free software won’t protect as well as a premium offering. The truth is that there are good and bad antivirus apps out there in both the free and premium categories. Whatever antivirus you’re looking at, whether forking out money or not, you should always choose an app from a reputable and well-reviewed software maker. The crucial point to remember here is that there is no difference in the core protection afforded by a free or premium app from the same software maker, or at least apps from a good firm like the ones listed in our best free antivirus roundup. So, for example, our current top-rated free antivirus, Avira Free, has the exact same antivirus engine as its premium counterpart, Avira Antivirus Pro. In other words, when it comes to this first-line of defense against malware, both products give your PC the same fundamental protection against viruses or other nastiness potentially wreaking havoc on your system. Added app extras Your next question might be: why purchase a paid-for product, then? Mainly because premium offerings give you a lot more extras that can provide additional online security in different ways - maybe for the whole family, with parental controls for example. The best premium software will also give you more flexibility around scheduling scans and receiving real-time virus protection to ensure that you're system is watertight at all times. Just don’t forget that good free virus-protection still gives you the same antivirus engine as the premium product, and this can more than ably defend your device against being compromised. Further note that free antivirus apps can come with extras too, like anti-ransomware protection or even a (limited) integrated VPN. In short, a free antivirus app really can protect your computer – and your phone for that matter. On the latter point, you may have additional concerns, so let’s address those next. Read more: How to choose the best antivirus for you Android smartphone (Image credit: Bhubeth Bhajanavorakul / Shutterstock.com) Phony apps? Antivirus for smartphones is a slightly thornier matter than software on the PC, mainly because the Android market has a lot of antivirus apps, some of which are poor quality. The advice we’ve just given remains true – indeed, even more pertinent here – and that’s to install an app from a well-known and reputable antivirus company. Unheard of third-party antivirus are likely to be of variable quality at best, or indeed verging on useless and perhaps even malicious in a worst-case scenario. It is true that if you follow good security practice with your smartphone, and stick to curated stores – namely Google Play for Android – to get your apps, then you’re at minimal risk of encountering any malware anyway (the mobile threat landscape isn’t as hazardous as with the PC, where malware is much more prevalent). A good free Android antivirus app, however, can still be useful to have on hand to defend against that admittedly small danger of a malware infection – and it can ably protect your system in this manner, just like a free PC antivirus app. There are additional protective measures that a mobile antivirus can provide, though, in terms of protecting your data if your phone is lost or stolen. In truth, that’s probably the biggest danger to your smartphone – more so than a potential malware infection – and you can get anti-theft features with a good free antivirus. The latter can include functionality such as remotely wiping the device, or tracking it to find the handset. These additional capabilities could prove vital in protecting the sensitive data on your smartphone if it’s stolen, or in retrieving the device. Note that we’ve focused on Android applications here, but there are also iPhone antivirus apps of sorts, though you’ll notice they’re not generally called antivirus products, but rather ‘security’ apps. That’s because they don’t offer traditional antivirus protection – which isn’t possible due to the way iOS works and sandboxes apps, giving the operating system its own inherent security – but they do provide protective countermeasures like anti-phishing or anti-theft features (or perhaps extras like an integrated VPN for additional security in a convenient form). While Apple’s ecosystem is even more locked down and secure than Android – assuming you haven’t gone rogue and jail-broken your device – you still shouldn’t take your phone’s security for granted, and these iOS security apps can provide useful defenses. Can free antivirus really help protect my computer and phone? The short answer is yes, no matter if we’re talking about a PC or smartphone, a free antivirus can be very helpful for defending against malware. While it can certainly be argued that antivirus software is less important on phones, there are (admittedly slim) malware dangers on Android, and you should never take your online safety for granted. Even on iOS devices, there are security apps (if not actual antivirus products as such) which are worth considering as extra layers of protection to underscore Apple’s already stringent policing of its mobile OS and ecosystem. While these aren’t necessary, they can be helpful – just remember to stick to reputable security software vendors in all cases, whatever the device in question.

Platforms : PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, Stadia, Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 5 Developers : Behaviour Interactive Publishers : Behaviour Interactive Features : Online Versus Multiplayer, Asymmetrical Multiplayer, Cross-Platform Play Release Date : June 14, 2016 The rumors of its demise on the early morning of June 15, 2016 have been greatly exaggerated: Dead by Daylight has spent the last five years coming into its own as one of the best takes on asymmetrical multiplayer out there. Its very distinctive premise – a multiplayer horror game where one person is a monstrous killer who stalks, slashes, and attempts to capture a team of four survivors before they can accomplish objectives and escape – has been copied many times since, but never surpassed. Intricate but intuitive checks and balances and thoughtfully designed characters create an escalating back-and-forth that naturally recreates the tense arc of a horror movie, often ending in close calls. Part of what makes Dead by Daylight so unpredictable and deep is that it is, in a sense, two separate game modes happening at the same time. For the four survivors, it is an exercise in stealth and teamwork: at the start of each match, they must find and activate five of seven semi-randomly distributed power generators, then open and walk through one of two procedurally generated exits without being murdered. Fixing a generator is a simple task, you simply hold a button, but comes with the risk of triggering an attention-grabbing noise if you miss your timing on randomly occurring skill-check minigames. Skill checks come with little warning and require focus, but you also need to keep an eye out for the killer while you’re doing them, and that split in attention creates some very palpable tension. The killer, meanwhile, is out to incapacitate the survivors, then pick them up and put them on hooks, where they need to stay until they are “sacrificed” and die. In theory, you have all the power in this scenario: You can attack and the survivors can’t fight back. You even know where the generators are, thanks to their red glowing silhouettes appearing in the distance. But there are still four of them and one of you, so it’s a game of spinning plates: you need to hunt while watching the generators and keeping an eye on your hooked survivors, who can be freed by their teammates. What’s more, the killer plays in first-person while the survivors can use their third-person cameras to check their surroundings and peer around corners. There are lots of nuances that create a give-and-take relationship between the two sides. “ The difference in perspective is the first and most obvious distinction between the killer and survivors, but there are lots of nuances that create a give-and-take relationship between the two sides. For example, most killer characters walk faster than the survivors, so they will win a plain old chase. They are less agile, though, and survivors can use environmental obstacles like windows to put some distance between them, or stun the killer by knocking over a large wooden palette at the right moment. Killers also have to stop for a moment after swinging their weapon, giving a survivor some time to get away. Since a killer has to hit someone twice to knock them down, a chase can easily become a protracted engagement, and the other survivors can use that time to make valuable progress. That’s one of many ways Dead by Daylight encourages cooperation. When the killer hits a survivor they need to heal, and if they don’t have a medkit (one of five types of gear they can bring into a match) they’ll need a teammate to help them out. When a survivor gets captured, they have a small chance to escape themselves, but stand a much better chance of getting free if someone comes to help. http://static1.gamespot.com/uploads/original/172/1720905/3088931-0001.jpg And there are a lot of nuances that can only work when you’re coordinating with your team (so even though you can play by matchmaking with random groups, it’s not as fun that way). Here’s a big one they don’t tell you at the start: When a killer sacrifices three of the four survivors, a randomly generated escape hatch opens somewhere in the level, allowing the last survivor to escape immediately without opening an exit. If the killer finds the hatch first they can close it, forcing the survivor to run to an exit. BUT… If a survivor has a specific rare item, they can open the hatch early for a short time. (With coordination, all four players can escape through the hatch). It feels like every aspect of Dead by Daylight is built on this kind of rapport: every point has a counterpoint, and every counterpoint has an obscure clause that allows for a fluke situation where something crazy and memorable happens. And while it can be a lot to learn, it injects a tremendous amount of variation into what should be a fairly repetitive game on paper. Every point has a counterpoint, and every counterpoint has an obscure clause that allows for a fluke situation where something crazy and memorable happens. The ping-ponging systems hit back and forth even harder when you factor the characters’ individual abilities. Everybody – survivors and killers alike – gets three unique perks. As you level up, you earn the ability to equip up to four; the starters, plus a set of universal perks you can purchase over time. Many of these are very cleverly designed and allow you to subvert Dead By Daylight’s basic mechanics. One of my go-to survivors, Feng Min, can hide the fact that you missed a generator skill check at the cost of losing a little more progress toward restarting it. Some characters are meant to distract the killer, while others make for natural healers or scouts. For all the potential possibilities that perks and abilities create, every match I’ve played has still felt balanced. No advantage is insurmountable, and even the most powerful perks only work well in specific situations. For survivors, though, these distinctive playstyles start to lose their character-building quality as you level up multiple characters toward the level 50 cap: As you level up, you can earn the ability to teach each survivor’s unique perks to other characters, which makes them feel interchangeable. As the survivors lose their personas, however, you gain the ability to truly cultivate your own character, mixing different perks with the more subtle characteristics of the survivors’ design. This includes factors like clothing color and even breathing patterns (which can clue a killer into who he’s hunting even before he can see you) can have material consequences in a match, so the perfect character is the one that works exactly as you expect them to. The wide range of killers, on the other hand, feel mechanically unique regardless of what perks you use. Though they have transferable perks like the survivors, each killer has a weapon and core abilities that are unique to them. They’re built to be played in specific ways and that cultivate different styles, both for the killers and the survivors. There’s a killer who can turn invisible, a killer who can teleport over long distances. One character, the Doctor, can infect survivors with madness, making them randomly see things that aren’t there. Every ability comes with drawbacks, too: The Wraith, who turns invisible, has to ring their bell to reappear before attacking. After teleporting, the Nurse has a short window to attack before getting “exhausted,” which forces her to stop in her tracks for a few seconds. These abilities – the good and the bad – create a set of rules within each match, not unlike the interior mythology for killers in a slasher movie. http://switchplayer.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/2019100119571700-A8F689A4F1F4B13D795ABCBD615FFD9A-700x393.jpg Truly, one of the most effective things about Dead by Daylight is the way its systems channel the classic horror films that inspired (and are now a part of) it. The maps are each an archetypal killer’s lair, and while many seem generic at a glance — abandoned old houses, scrap yards, and a dried-out lake with broken-down boats — they all feel very specific and well-articulated. (And, of course, there are now a few famous horror movie haunts as well). After five years, you can see details that seem dated even in the PS5 and PC versions, but the graphics have been updated over time and still look pretty sharp overall. Some things have flagged as the years have gone on, though. The wait time to get into a match almost always lasts at least a few minutes even though there seem to be a good number of people playing. The waits vary from day to day, and things seem to move faster when playing a killer, suggesting there may not be enough killers to go around. It’s always longer than you’d like on both sides, though, and makes it hard to pop in for just one quick game. Despite all their differences, the two modes of play share a common feeling. Both the killers and survivors face incredible time pressure: For the survivors, finishing generators quickly and efficiently is the best defense against a killer who wants to get in your way. For the killer, a strong team will inevitably finish the generators unchecked, so it’s on you to move fast and disrupt as many actions as possible. That pressure, whether it's achieved by a looming killer or the need to pin down scrambling survivors, is enough to make simple, often mundane mechanics feel extraordinarily intense. It also creates real, gameplay-based reasons for some of those confounding moments in a horror movie, like when a killer might simply give up on a chase, and ensures that a given match rarely lasts much longer than 15 minutes. Over the years, Dead by Daylight has steadily added characters on both sides, including a murderer’s row of famous monsters from horror movies and games, including Michael Myers, Freddy Kruger, Pyramid Head from Silent Hill, and the Demogorgon from Stranger Things. Many of the cameo killers have perks and abilities that strongly reinforce ideas from the stories that inspired them. Take Amanda Young, AKA “The Pig” from the Saw franchise: She has the ability to install bear traps on the heads of downed players, who must then find a way to remove them before the trap kills them even if they haven’t been put on a hook. The idea of capturing a victim, putting them in peril, then letting them flail until they kill themselves captures the spirit of the Saw films, while making for an interesting twist on the standard match “arc.” Microtransaction Reaction Dead by Daylight sells access to DLC characters — both killers and survivors — as well as cosmetics for every character. You can also purchase the ability to share a rotating selection of individual perks with all of your characters, some of which may be from DLC you may not own. It also features a cosmetics-only battle pass-style system called the rift, which offers two tiers of additional customization options — one free and one for paid ($9.99).Purchases are made with two currencies: a real-money analog called Auric Cells which you purchase for roughly one penny each, and Iridescent Shards, which you earn in small batches as you play matches and increase your overall level. Big-ticket items are also available as DLC packs which range from $4.99 for a single character to $11.99 for a bundle like the Stranger things pack, which gives you a killer and two survivors. They certainly aren’t cheap, but not wildly expensive either. Share Autoplay setting: On While you can purchase every type of original Dead By Daylight content available on the store with the earned currency, licensed killers and survivors can only be purchased with real money. However, even when you’re looking at only roughly half the DLC roster, earning the original DLC characters isn’t actually feasible: After playing 106 hours on PS5, I’ve only earned enough Iridescent Shards to purchase 1.5 characters without paying. At best, the Shards operate as a rewards system for the most dedicated players. Your customization is also guided by Dead by Daylight’s unique progression systems. Based on your performance in each match, you earn a currency called bloodpoints, which you use to purchase and upgrade character perks, plus an unceasing flow of disposable equipment and modifiers in a randomized tree called the bloodweb. Like perks, choosing the gear that enhances your playstyle can drastically improve your chances. The number of bloodpoints you earn in a match also determines whether or not you’ll gain or lose progress towards your survivor or killer matchmaking rank, which does a surprisingly great job at bringing together killers and survivor teams of comparable skill. (At least until you reach the upper ranks, where there are equally skilled players). Honing your killers’ and survivors’ perks and finding what equipment lends itself to your playstyle can be a quick process of matching bonuses to what you do most often, or an endlessly deep pursuit of navigating and tweaking cooldowns and statistics related to your actions. I found poring over the systems too much offered diminishing returns, though, especially since many skill descriptions allude to statistics without actually presenting numbers. (You can find a lot of this information online if you want it, of course.) Verdict Dead by Daylight’s inventive concept for a competitive horror game strikes an incredible balance between two very different styles of play, and makes both compelling. Channeling the slasher movie spirit, each match feels like a mini horror movie on both sides. Whether you’re the efficient and unpredictable killer, or one of the strategically elusive survivors, the thrill of the chase and the ever-present threat that even the best-laid plans can go awry keep Dead by Daylight feeling timely, even after five years of thrill kills. ---------------------------------- System Requirments ---------------------------------- Minimum : CPU: Intel Core i3-4170 or AMD FX-8120 CPU SPEED: Info RAM: 8 GB OS: 64-bit Operating Systems (Windows 7, Windows 8 & Windows 8.1) VIDEO CARD: DX11 Compatible GeForce GTX 460 1GB or AMD HD 6850 1GB PIXEL SHADER: 5.0 VERTEX SHADER: 5.0 SOUND CARD: DX11 compatible FREE DISK SPACE: 15 GB DEDICATED VIDEO RAM: 1 GB ----------------------------------- Recommended : CPU: Intel Core i3-4170 or AMD FX-8300 or higher CPU SPEED: Info RAM: 8 GB OS: 64-bit Operating Systems (Windows 7, Windows 8 & Windows 8.1 or above) VIDEO CARD: DX11 Compatible GeForce 760 or AMD HD 8800 or higher with 4GB of RAM PIXEL SHADER: 5.0 VERTEX SHADER: 5.0 SOUND CARD: DX11 compatible FREE DISK SPACE: 15 GB DEDICATED VIDEO RAM: 4 GB -------------------------------------- Video Trailer :

That’s according to a new study published in the journal "Food Quality and Preference" that suggests people are more likely to say they enjoy wine if they’re told it's expensive — no matter how much it really costs. A new study found taste testers were more likely to enjoy cheap wine when told it was more expensive. (iStock) In the study, psychologists mani[CENSORED]ted the price of wine during a tasting held at the University of Basel in Switzerland, where 140 blind tasters were given three versions of Italian wine. Each was labeled "low-, mid-, or high-price," with costs ranging between $10 and $70 per bottle. Other wines featured in the mix had no price tag, while some accurately listed their price. Participants were asked to rate the intensity of the wines as well as how good they perceived the tastes to be. But, perhaps not surprisingly, their palates correlated with the price tags instead. When participants were unknowingly given a cheaper wine — told that its price was actually four times greater that its actual cost — they rated the wine as more "pleasant" than the genuinely expensive bottle. But when the more expensive wine was served, and participants were told it was much cheaper than it really was, the taste ratings remained the same. "The cheapest wine was rated as more pleasant when presented as fourfold of its actual retail price," the researchers outlined in the study. "No effect was found when decreasing the price label of the expensive wine by a fourfold," they explained. "Thus, in wine may lay the truth, but its subjective experience may also lie in the price," concluded the study's astract. It’s not the first time accessibly-priced wine was perceived as great-tasting. A $13 bottle of wine sold at Aldi's Australian supermarkets won the top prize at Australia’s Royal Adelaide Wine Show in October, beating out some bottles that were five times more expensive. And last March, a $10 bottle of the grocer’s Quarter Cut Bourbon Barrel-Aged Cabernet Sauvignon was ranked the best wine of 2020 by Product of the Year USA, the world's largest consumer award for product innovation in packaged goods.

A new Ford Authority report indicates that the new 2022 Ford Maverick pickup will offer a hybrid powertrain. The publication caught wind of the rumor that the small pickup would have some electric assist last year, though now it has confirmed that fact through “sources familiar with Ford’s product plans.” However, specific details about the powertrain remain elusive. The Maverick will slot below the Ranger in Ford’s expanding line of pickups. The bite-sized offering rides on the same platform as the Ford Bronco Sport and the Ford Escape, the latter of which also offers a hybrid powertrain. The Escape Hybrid sports a 2.5-liter four-cylinder engine paired with two electric motors. The combined output is 200 horsepower (149 kilowatts), with power routing to all four wheels. There’s also a plug-in hybrid Escape coming, too, though it’s doubtful that’ll be the Maverick’s hybrid powertrain. Gallery: Ford Maverick Spy Photos Ford Maverick Spy Photos 22 Photos The hybrid powertrain will likely complement the others that the platform offers. The base mill will likely be the 1.5-liter turbocharged three-cylinder, which makes 181 hp (134 kW) in the Bronco Sport. The available turbocharged 2.0-liter that produces 245 hp (182 kW) will be the optional engine choice. All-wheel drive will likely be the norm, with front-wheel drive reserved for the entry-level models. The 2022 Ford Maverick should debut in the coming months as it’s expected to go on sale before the end of the year. Pre-production models began rolling off the assembly line earlier this year, indicating the truck’s ongoing development. Leaked pictures and spy shots show a pickup that borrows many of its styling cues from the rugged Bronco Sport, including sporting similar grille styling. The small pickup should come with a small price tag. Reports suggest it’ll start below $20,000, well under the $25,000 needed for a Ranger, though how far under the $20k mark remains to be seen.

The family homes of Paris St-Germain players Angel di Maria and Marquinhos were burgled while the French champions played Nantes on Sunday. Argentina midfielder Di Maria was substituted in the 62nd minute of the 2-1 defeat after being told about the incident. His family were only aware their home had been burgled after it happened. Brazil defender Marquinhos said his parents' home had also been burgled, adding that "nobody was hurt". The public prosecutor in Nanterre said the Banditry Repression Brigade (BRB), a French anti-organised crime squad, had been tasked with the investigation into the incident at Di Maria's home. It looked into burglaries of the homes of PSG striker Mauro Icardi and goalkeeper Sergio Rico earlier this year. The Versailles prosecutor will be involved in the Marquinhos case. PSG suffer shock defeat by Nantes Former Manchester United player Di Maria was the victim of an attempted burglary while at his home in Cheshire in 2015.

Two men have been charged for using bear spray on a Capitol Police officer who later died after responding to the 6 January riot. Brian Sicknick was one of five people killed during the riot, but it is not clear whether he died from exposure to the spray. Julian Elie Khater, 32, and George Pierre Tanios, 39, were arrested for assaulting several officers. They were charged with nine counts and face up to 20 years in prison. Brian Sicknick: Officer killed in Capitol riot to lie in honour US Capitol riot 'inspiration' for extremists - FBI Capitol riots timeline: How the day unfolded The pair were "working in concert and had a plan to use the toxic spray against law enforcement", according to court documents. Officer Sicknick, 42, was injured while "physically engaging with protesters" and later died in hospital. Sicknick lay in honour in the Capitol Rotunda in January - a rare distinction reserved for those who are not government or military officials. Results from Sicknick's post-mortem examination are expected on Monday - the same day that Mr Khater and Mr Tanios are expected to appear in federal court. Investigators used video of the riots to identify the men, allegedly caught on camera discussing the assaults. media captionWhen a mob stormed the US capitol According to court documents, Mr Khater was recorded on video asking Mr Tanios for the bear spray at 14:14 local time near the Lower West Terrace of the Capitol, where Sicknick and other officers were standing guard. Minutes later, Mr Khater is seen on video discharging a canister of the spray into the faces of Sicknick and the other officers, according to the arrest papers. All three officers were temporarily blinded and incapacitated for more than 20 minutes, investigators said. Mr Tanios and Mr Khater are charged with nine counts including assaulting three officers with a deadly weapon, civil disorder and obstruction of a congressional proceeding. Hundreds of people have been arrested in connection with the 6 January siege of the Capitol so far, which led to the second impeachment of former President Donald Trump. President Joe Biden's newly confirmed Attorney General Merrick Garland has pledged to make the Capitol riot investigation his top priority.

Early reports are piling up that cryptominers have deciphered Nvidia's anti-mining algorithm on the GeForce RTX 3060. Theoretically, it's one of the best graphics cards, if you could find one for anything close to the official $329 MSRP. The Ampere graphics card was also supposed to be less attractive to miners, but it appears that the chipmaker shot itself in the foot and inadvertently posted a driver that unlocks mining performance on the RTX 3060. Meaning, anyone can unlock full mining performance with a minimum of effort. Nvidia was pretty confident that its anti-mining algorithm is unhackable, which naturally put out an invitation for cryptominers to try to crack it. The chipmaker even affirmed that "End users cannot remove the hash limiter from the driver. There is a secure handshake between the driver, the RTX 3060 silicon, and the BIOS (firmware) that prevents removal of the hash rate limiter." While the verification sounds like an intricate process, someone inadvertently released a workaround for it. The simple hack reportedly requires a clean driver install with Nvidia's latest GeForce 370.05 Beta driver — some report the need to flash the GeForce RTX 3060 graphics card with a hacked vBIOS, though in our testing that's not required. Nvidia apparently messed up something in this particular driver that renders its anti-mining algorithm completely useless. Above, you can see Ethereum mining performance using the 461.81 drivers, topping out at around 28MH/s after tuning. (We set the power limit to 75% and boosted the memory clock by 1250MHz using MSI Afterburner.) With the 470.05 drivers, using the same power and clock settings, we're now getting a consistent 48MH/s. It's also interesting that power use didn't change between the drivers, coming in at around 118W in both cases. Now that the cat is out of the bag, Nvidia will likely remove the driver and pretend that it never existed. Sadly, the news is everywhere, meaning that cryptominers will be back on the hunt for GeForce RTX 3060 graphics cards. Not that they weren't already, considering what we're seeing in our GPU pricing index.

Additionally, it should bring together all cyber security and privacy controls for business PCs into a single management dashboard. This means everything from a standard firewall to antivirus software with malware removal and ransomware protection for multiple devices. The advantage here is that endpoint security saves on having to individually install software on every single computer in the computer, so it immediately comes with management benefits from an IT and productivity perspective. However, it also means there's a single place from which you can update company security policy across all machines on your IT network, as well as set up filters, options, and features customized to required needs. The result is the ability to protect desktops and laptops, inclusive of Windows and Macs, as well as mobile devices such as smartphones. Some providers may also offer a rescue disk feature to rollback any existing attack, or encryption software. Additional features might include a data shredder, password manager, or business VPN. Here are the best endpoint security software suites currently on the market. We've also featured the best identity management software. Divider Avast Business Antivirus Pro Plus -Some features not available on certain platforms Avast Business Antivirus Pro Plus is an excellent business endpoint security software suite, giving you various tools such as antivirus, firewall, email protection, anti-spam and the ability to sandbox applications for complete security. Avast Business Antivirus Pro (as opposed to the standard Avast Business Antivirus) also includes Sharepoint and Exchange protection, as well as a number of tools for your servers. The AV protection you get is generally rated as good by independent testing, with Avast's engine blocking 99.7 per cent of threats in AV-Comparative's Real-World Protection report. The free version of this security package has long been considered one of the best, but If value for money and simplicity are key factors, Avast Business Antivirus Pro could be a sensible choice.

Platforms:Stadia Developers:Q-Games Publishers:Q-Games Release Date:March 1, 2021 In an era when Hades can win IGN’s Game of The Year award for reinventing the roguelike wheel, and more straightforward games like Dead Cells remain fun after countless runs, PixelJunk Raiders is a major disappointment. Despite a distinct visual style reminiscent of trippy synthwave albums or Moebius paintings, PixelJunk Raiders (perhaps the final Google Stadia exclusive) fails to distinguish itself from the competition in any meaningful way. It does put forth some inventive ideas, but at the same time stumbles over the basics too much for them to matter. As a fresh-faced bounty hunter, it’s your job to rescue a bunch of desert-dwelling aliens from squid-faced baddies. But beaming down there in the flesh would be stupid, so you’ve got a limited number of digital avatars to complete your mission. It’s a thin setup, but certainly a familiar one. Unfortunately, it doesn’t really go anywhere, and you’ll often hear the same lines from your swarthy mentor congratulating you on nabbing some treasure. At first glance, PixelJunk Raiders (which bears no meaningful connection to the long-running PixelJunk franchise other than that it’s from the same development team) makes a great first impression. The randomly generated alien worlds you beam down to are awash in a mix of brightly colored, clearly defined landscapes that practically pop off the screen when bathed in moon or sunlight. Massive deserts give way to lush forests and strange alien architecture, and I was intrigued when I first discovered an underground bunker buried among the sand. A solid synth soundtrack helps keep things feeling “alien.” Giant stone pillars draw your attention skyward, where the faint outlines of other planets and moons remind you of just how small you are. Though each map is pretty massive, giant space cubes and plumes of smoke above each major location help to keep you from getting too lost. Once you get a bit closer to the action, things fall apart. Each town you come across looks almost identical, save for the layout of the buildings. Raiders wants to give you the impression these kind aliens had a somewhat bustling community, but the drab exteriors and cookie-cutter market stalls, pottery, and interiors do anything but. It doesn’t help that the rooftops of most towns – where a lot of powerups and other important items end up – are just barely out of reach of your triple-jump, requiring you to either find a small ladder on the side of a wall or use the wildly inaccurate super jump while ducking and weaving around enemies. Finding enough survivors to rescue can be a chore unto itself. Though Raiders makes it clear how many survivors are in each location and highlights survivors you’ve already seen while being busy fighting aliens, I often found myself having to circle settlements multiple times and dig through various identical buildings to find the last one I was missing. And if you were expecting the act of rescuing these kindly folks to be interesting, witnessing the same animation of grateful relief each time makes it feel like you’re rescuing a bunch of Chuck E Cheese animatronic characters. That’s if you can even rescue them in the first place, since having even one enemy nearby will block you from completing the interaction, and you’ll be forced to search around for that little jerk in the same laborious way. The same sense of repetition applies to all of PixelJunk Raiders’ other locations, including forests and alien cities that climb a hundred yards into the sky. From afar, they’re initially tantalizing, but once you get deeper in and realize how repetitious the scenery is (and how enemies might get stuck between trees or within a force field, making them harder to find and kill), it quickly loses its luster. The same goes for underground bunkers that follow a painfully similar layout and offer relatively meager rewards. The only bright spot of exploration was when a plume of smoke occasionally led not to another flat, dull town but what appeared to be the deadly aftermath of a battle between a few other bounty hunters like myself and three giant humanoid enemies. While the prospect of a mysterious encounter fueled my imagination, and stumbling upon it felt like a truly one-of-a-kind chance, it ultimately never led to anything meaningful. Combat misses the mark as well: your battles with enemy aliens big and small feel a mile wide and an inch deep, and it’s where most of PixelJunk Raiders’ issues rear their ugly heads. Given its roguelike nature, I was willing to forgive Raiders for being remarkably punishing right out of the gate. At the start of a mission your bounty hunter is equipped with little more than their fists, three lives, and a health bar that gets wiped out in about as many hits. In theory, this encourages you to explore the desert wastes and open up ancient vases or loot enemy bodies for swords, daggers, hammers, or shields. In practice, you're more often just collecting gems that don’t immediately serve any purpose. Actual weapons are notably harder to find, and unless you select a specific perk, you end up losing everything upon your painfully sudden death. The weapons themselves are hardly distinguishable from one another. All swords, no matter how fancy, result in the same flurry of strikes, and two-handed hammers seem to stun enemies a little better but aren’t much more useful. When you add in the fact that they’re so fragile that they lose 1% durability for every strike, it’s even worse. If you weren’t into weapons breaking in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, you’re going to absolutely hate it here. space rescue adventure from Kyoto’s inimitable Q-Games, PixelJunk Raiders has the bones of a great action game. Its mix of planetary exploration, scavenging and alien-killing is unusual enough to make an impression; the art style, which lands somewhere between a 90s anime and the cover of an old science-fiction novel, is glorious; its planets are beautiful; the retro-futuristic vibe is refreshing and colourful. Unfortunately I just haven’t had any fun playing it. Dropped on to a planet where you must rescue disappointingly static alien civilians from squid-like invaders who’ve taken over their citadels, the first thing to do is forage for weapons and blueprints for useful gadgets. Scanning the horizon for the telltale smoke-plume of a crashed ship, buildings or ruins leads to loot and currency – but if you die, as I often did, you lose it all. Several times I respawned on a planet stripped bare of resources; faced with the prospect of trying to pummel aliens to death with my bare fists to grind out enough currency to open a locked door, it was usually easier to just restart the whole mission. Raiders’ combat is fun and bouncy but a little imprecise, which would be excusable if the penalties for failure weren’t so harsh. It looks like an arcade game, and it’s structured that way, with randomly generated missions that give you a fresh challenge each time, but it is oddly sluggish in the hands. Getting around its planetary microcosms takes too long, despite a cool rocket-jump that propels you across the surface. Enemies respawn unpredictably. Everything is slowed down by having to trawl around looking for weapons or collecting gems that you need to open doors and chests. These ought to be snappy 10-minute rescue missions, not drawn-out ordeals. PixelJunk Raiders’ combat is not exactly a tower defense, and not quite aggressive Dark Souls swordplay, but a poor mishmash of the two that combines fairly standard melee fighting with setting traps for enemies. You can lock onto a target, although I found doing so to be stifling due to how it restricts your movement, and you’ll trade swings with them before their obvious wind up finishes and they slash you. One on one, it’s relatively mundane stuff, rushing to deplete their health bar before they can take a sizeable chunk of yours. When contending with groups it’s far more difficult, especially once long-range and bigger enemies get added to the mix. It’s a decent variety (my favorite being the Wild Wild West saw blades that pop up out of the sand and try to mow you down) but once you figure out their one or two tricks, combat rarely manages to surprise. A floaty sense of movement (which is only aggravated if your internet connection stutters) kept it from ever feeling like I was growing as a fighter. I found setting traps to be a slightly more effective, yet equally frustrating approach. Mines are effective at wiping out groups of smaller enemies, or putting a serious dent in larger ones, but kiting enemies into them is a dull and frustrating experience, made even worse by the fact that it’s hard to gauge how far away you need to be to avoid getting caught in your own blast. Also, once they’re gone, they’re gone, including a mistakenly placed mine you dropped in the heat of battle. Imprints – digital clones of various enemy types that fight for you – are similarly useless. They’re okay at distracting a few enemy grunts with physical or elemental damage, but it’s rarely enough to thin out the larger horde that’s constantly, relentlessly chasing you down. Other items let you jump high into the air or launch a giant area-of-effect attack after defeating enough enemies. It gives combat a little bit of an extra flair, letting you ground-pound downwards into an enemy’s skull or fully banish a giant back to its dimension, but only when it works as intended... which isn’t often enough. Traversing Pixeljunk Raiders without a weapon is teeth-clenchingly frustrating, not least because our nameless avatar has all the CQC talents of a dead goldfish. An enemy you can slice down in two whacks of a sword may require five or six punches from your bare fists, and those blows aren't easy to get in when there's five or six - often more - other foes all swarming to your position and hoping to take you down. Worse still, it's very possible that some worlds have no weapons in them whatsoever; after all, them's the breaks when you play roguelikes. This means that to complete a level and retain the gear and treasures you've gathered once your weapon has been destroyed, battles dissolve into slow, meandering rounds of strafe-punch-strafe-ouch-strafe-run-aways that don't feel challenging as much as they feel grossly unfair. To balance this, developer Q-Games employs Stadia's incredibly neat State Share feature. Players can snap a screenshot, share it, and invite other players to hop in and play it, too (well, providing they own the game, of course). The more generous souls may even take it a step further and drop down a load of weapons or Imprints - one-use special abilities that are like the Merc's Perks but can be carried around with you - about the place to help you out. And that's great, right? Community spirit and cooperation is baked right in. Only trouble is, there's no way of loading up one of these State Shares from within the game - I've only found them via a fantastic spreadsheet shared by the fine folks at Reddit - and beyond a cursory mention early on, the game does nothing to remind you, either. This means that in the opening hours when your inventory is sparse - or whenever there's a precipitous difficulty hike - players are going to struggle to get through each mission intact, possibly because the game needs you to collaborate with others in a way it hasn't clearly communicated to you nor implemented in-game. There's more; Alien DNA that can be spliced with your own. Unlockable skills and upgrades that let you permanently upgrade your life and stamina meters. It's all window-dressing, though, and adds little extra flavour to Raiders' bland bones. Yes, it's a game that demands you explore before you charge head-first into a fight, and yes, when you find your rhythm - not to mention build up a decent weapon cache - the gameplay loop can be curiously hypnotic. Right now, though, it's simply not enough to redress the repetitive gameplay and brutal learning curve. ---------------- There Is Not System For The Game She Work & Run Only in Nintendo Switch & Ps4 ---------------- Video :

Spring breakers are flocking to Florida this year amid a prolonged coronavirus pandemic to take advantage of its sunny beaches and rapid reopening guidelines, photos and videos show. It comes as some colleges are cutting back or canceling their spring breaks amid fears that vacation partying could lead to subsequent outbreaks on their campuses. People walk on the beach on March 04, 2021 in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. College students have begun to arrive in the South Florida area for the annual spring break ritual. City officials are anticipating a large spring break crowd as the coronavirus pandemic continues. They are advising people to wear masks if they cannot social distance. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images) People walk on the beach on March 04, 2021 in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. College students have begun to arrive in the South Florida area for the annual spring break ritual. City officials are anticipating a large spring break crowd as the coronavirus pandemic continues. They are advising people to wear masks if they cannot social distance. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images) (Getty Images) University of California, Davis is offering students $75 to choose a "staycation" instead of traveling. Texas A&M University scaled down to just a three-day weekend. And the University of Alabama canceled spring break altogether. But many students, eager to get outside after nearly a year of pandemic lockdowns, are packing up and heading to the beach. "Life is normal – with a mask," said a health care worker from Palm Beach, where there is still a county-level mask mandate. People walk near the beach on March 04, 2021 in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. College students have begun to arrive in the South Florida area for the annual spring break ritual. City officials are anticipating a large spring break crowd as the coronavirus pandemic continues. They are advising people to wear masks if they cannot social distance. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images) People walk near the beach on March 04, 2021 in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. College students have begun to arrive in the South Florida area for the annual spring break ritual. City officials are anticipating a large spring break crowd as the coronavirus pandemic continues. They are advising people to wear masks if they cannot social distance. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images) (Getty Images) Andrew Cohen, co-owner of a party boat charter service, said he was nearly booked for the rest of the month in both Tampa and Fort Lauderdale. "A lot of them are coming down from the colder states," he told the Associated Press. "And they were just sick of being cooped up for the year." Despite the Sunshine State’s relaxed health guidelines and aggressive reopening plan, Centers for Disease Control of Prevention reports indicate coronavirus cases and deaths have declined between Jan. 1 and March 10. The state has also vaccinated more than 4 million residents, including more than 2.6 million senior citizens, according to state officials. The state’s po[CENSORED]tion is about 21.5 million. Still, the CDC lists the majority of Florida counties as having a "high" risk for community transmission. The rest are either "substantial" or "moderate." None of the state’s counties carry a "low" risk rating. And it remains a hotspot for coronavirus infection, with the fourth-highest death toll of any state, behind California, New York and Texas.

Is the new Land Rover Defender 110 simply too small for your family? Well, Land Rover is working hard on a solution to bring us the three-row Defender 130 which will have seating up to eight. Now you can bring most of the team to soccer practice while driving through the woods to get there with ease. Until we see the real thing next year this render is our best look at the Defender 130. The new Land Rover Defender has taken the world by storm making friends and impressing doubters around the world. Due to current demand, the Defender 110 is the only Defender model you can reliably purchase at a Land Rover dealership with the more niche three-door Defender 90 following soon. For customers looking for even more passenger space, Land Rover will soon debut the Defender 130 to round out their off-road capable SUV lineup. Based on internal documents from Land Rover we can expect a Defender 130 to hit dealerships early next year. With the recent addition of a V8 Defender and plug-in hybrid variant, we expect even more niche models to diversify the appeal of the Defender. There are even rumors of a pick-up truck version of the Defender and based on the growing demand for trucks it seems like a great idea to us. Gallery: Upcoming Land Rover Defender 130 Rendered As Family Friendly Off-Roader Upcoming Land Rover Defender 130 Rendered As Family Friendly Off-Roader 2 Photos The upcoming Defender 130 will be based on the current Defender 110 frame and add length to the rear of the SUV after the back axel rather than expand the SUVs wheelbase. This will allow Land Rover to cut the development and tooling costs required to build this new model. We expect the Defender 130 to offer all of the same drivetrains found on smaller Defenders. This means you can have everything from a supercharged V8 to a hybrid 4-cylinder. Thanks to this variety Lander Rover can build the perfect Defender for your needs.