Monthly Archives: April 2017

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What is it? Spacebound grand strategy with 4X elements. Or is it a 4X with grand strategy elements? Expect to pay $20/15 Developer Paradox Development Studio Publisher Paradox Interactive Reviewed on Windows 10 64-bit, Core i7-4770K, 16GB RAM, GeForce GTX 1070 Multiplayer Up to 32 Players Online (Steam) Link Official site

When Stellaris launched almost a year ago, its biggest void wasn't space itself, but its relatively challenge-light mid-game, especially regarding internal politics. Utopia attempts to enliven player empires, and force interesting choices in between the initial phase of wonder and exploration and the climactic finale when scripted endgame crises bring it all together. It attacks this problem with new political mechanics, a bunch of exciting late game goals that dont involve waiting for a robot rebellion to happen, and sweeping, feedback-informed reworks of core systems. It may be the studios largest and most transformative expansion yet, which is saying something. Yet some of the additions feel as underdeveloped as areas of Stellaris were at launch.

Alongside the 1.5 patch, Utopia rethinks just about everything relating to building and managing your stellar empire internally. Gone are set government types like Plutocratic Oligarchy and Enlightened Monarchy. In their place is a more versatile and interesting system where you chose an authority type (Democracy, Oligarchy, Dictatorship, or hereditary Empire), and then build on that with two starting civics (a third can later be unlocked with society tech) like Police State and Philosopher King to create a custom government that does exactly what you want it to. The type of government you create will influence how likely the population units ('Pops') scattered across your planets are to adopt certain viewpoints, such as Militarism, Spiritualism, or Xenophobia. As ethics used to be assigned to Pops semi-randomly, this system gives you a lot more of an active role in influencing your people.

This feeds into what I think is Utopias best feature: the new Faction system. Pops that follow a common ethos are now likely to found factions (such as Xenophiles starting an Alien Rights Movement, or Pacifists demanding an end to costly wars), with one of your existing governors, scientists, or military officers becoming the leader. Each faction has a list of agenda items, and depending on how many of them are fulfilled (or blatantly ignored), the faction will establish a happiness value that applies to all Pops who are part of that faction. Not only does displeasing factions potentially tank the happiness of a large base of your citizens, but keeping them very happy will grant you Influence that can be spent on useful edicts across the empire.

If you want to build a giant Dyson sphere around a sun to steal all of its energy and make any planets that depended on it freeze to death, you can do that.

The upshot of all of this is that internal politics actually feel interesting and participatory, which was a major weakness of Stellaris at launch. In one campaign, the two most powerful factions in my empire were the conservative religious bloc and a profit-driven party of business moguls. They usually werent directly at odds, but fulfilling all of the agendas to satisfy both of them required me to do some serious juggling of my usual playstyle. If I started to neglect one or the other, I would see the effects on my bottom line, just as Id bask in the benefits when I managed to keep everyone happy. Its a big, big step towards making Stellaris more interesting in the mid game, and giving you challenges to contend with that dont involve blowing up spaceships.

The flashier, more attention-grabbing new features dont slack either. Using a new resource called Unity, empires can progress down Civ 5-style Tradition trees. The perks in these trees each provide big, thematic bonuses when fully completed, as well as granting you an Ascension Perk, which is where things get really crazy. If you want to upload your entire population into robot bodies, you can do that. If you want to build a giant Dyson sphere around a sun to steal all of its energy and make any planets that depended on it freeze to death, you can do that. If you want to genetically modify your species to have 400 babies, you can do that. Theres nothing stopping you besides earning enough Unity. And while Unity can feel like one too many extra currencies to juggle in a game that already has minerals, energy, food, influence, three types of science, and strategic resources, the perks it provides are an effective way to guide your playstyle through the early and mid game, building towards some exciting, new toys in the late game.

My favorite of these Ive come across so far is The Shroud. A parallel realm accessible by a conclave of psychics once youve unlocked the highest tier of the Psionic ascension path, most interactions are text-based and relegated to the diplomatic menu but its effects in the game world can be quite tangible. At one point, my telepaths were given the chance to manifest a psychic entity of great power into a physical avatar that could fight with my fleets in battle. Some of the other events are worth not spoiling, but suffice to say, galaxy-changing. However, most of these short, choose-your-own-adventure interactions essentially culminate in a dice roll. There doesnt seem to be any way to affect the result, and it often felt underwhelming to be asked to gamble for a tiny, tiny chance of something really cool, or settling for a somewhat higher chance of something significantly less cool.

One other issue with ascension is that you have to progress through all seven of the Tradition trees to unlock all the perk slots. When I was playing a race of killer bugs that quite literally ate everyone they met, I was pretty excited to complete the first few. Heres one that lets me kill people better. Heres one that lets me spread my broods to new worlds faster. But in order to unlock those last few perk slots, I had to spend points on the Diplomatic Tradition tree, which had nothing even remotely useful for genocidal insects shunning friendship and spreading terror through the stars. Part of the appeal is specialization and distinguishing your civilization further, so it seems odd that everyone is going to eventually end up with all the traditions, and it somewhat cheapens the choice you have to make between them initially.

My favorite of these Ive come across so far is The Shroud. A parallel realm accessible by a conclave of psychics.

There are a few other features that give this same impression. For example, you can now play as a hive mind species that doesnt use happiness, doesnt start factions, and is ruled by an immortal consciousness that can be everywhere at once. In theory, it sounds absolutely awesome. In practice, its a little awkward. For one thing, when creating your own single-minded swarm, you can get a refund on some trait points by picking a negative trait that gives you -5% happiness even though hive minds dont use happiness. Very little of the event text has been altered to account for hive minds, so youll still get notifications about how the new aliens you just met are being portrayed in the media. Perhaps most significantly, without happiness or factions, hive mind play is basically electing to turn the best parts of the expansion off. Its a really cool idea, but it doesn't feel totally integrated with all aspects of the game.

When it stumbles, Utopia stumbles in the same way vanilla Stellaris did: introducing new ideas that have a lot of potential, but clearly arent quite ready for prime time. However, where it succeeds is in fleshing out a lot of those areas that felt imperfect at launch. The changes to Pops, governments, and factions have me designing new empires in my head and wanting to sink another hundred-something hours into this universe. I didnt come close to scratching the surface of all the endgame ascension paths in the time Ive had so far, but the ones I have seen make me excited to discover more. Utopia may not deliver on all the promises and expectations Stellaris is tied up in, but it does bring it one, giant leap closer.

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Stellaris: Utopia review | PC Gamer - PC Gamer

This week there are more details on Microsoft's Project Scorpio 4K console, Apple Corps and Universal Music detailed a huge reissue of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band and LG has shown off its home cinema line-up for 2017, including the SJ9 Dolby Atmos capable soundbar.

In reviews, we have Focal's Utopia headphones, a soundbar alternative in Sonos' Playbase and B&W's 805 D3 standmount speakers.

It's also new What Hi-Fi? week, with the May issue now on sale. There's plenty for any home cinema/hi-fi enthusiast with reviews of a Sony 4K TV, Blu-ray players under 100, a set-top box showdown between BT, Sky and Virgin and budget turntable fight between Audio Technica, Dual and Sony.

You can buy the issue from your local newsagent, subscribe or buy the digital versions on Android and iOS.

MORE: May 2017 issue on sale now!

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Best of the Week: Focal Utopia, Sonos Playbase, Sgt. Pepper reissue, new 4K Xbox and more - What Hi-Fi?

The Museum of Art, Architecture and Technology (MAAT) is a new exhibition space created for EDP, a Portuguese foundation in Lisbon. The building opened in October of 2016 and just created its first curated exhibition. I had an opportunity to visit its exhibit Utopia/Dystopia: A Paradigm Shift in Art and Architecture and it provided an opportunity to see how the new structure functions and is being programmed.

Designed by British architect Amanda Levetes firm AL_A, The MAAT operates as a Kunsthalle, with no permanent collection of artifacts, but as a space to promote and stage cross-cultural or interdisciplinary experimentation. The building has several functional exhibition galleries, but its focus is an enormous, 13,000-square-foot, centralized elliptical space, ringed with steep inclined viewing ramps made for theatrical performances and temporary installations. The ramps are meant as viewing platforms but the steepness of the slope propels viewers down and then up and around the central ellipse. This constant movement by viewers can allow themif curated properlyto be part of the action or to become the event itself. Its an interactive public space for an age more familiar with digital and VR images on a screen than in a physical gallery.

(Courtesy MAAT)

The low, long profile of The MAATs exterior appears like a slightly opened oyster shell set in the mud along the facing Tagus river and estuary. If one imagines the shell opened ever so slightly, this is where Levete has placed the entrance into the building. Up a curving set of long, narrow steps, with a hovering deep overhang meant to capture the dappled reflection of the river, the public is pulled in a short entrance into the lobby and then into the grand open performance ellipse. Its facade is covered in 15,000 crackle glazed three-dimensional tiles that give it a fish scale like dimension on the cityscape and honors the citys many tiled facades. When these ceramic rectangles catch beams of natural dappled or artificial light the building magically glows like a light bulb.

But it is not simply the facade of the building that comes alive through refraction. This is a building meant to perform on every surface. It is, in some ways, as much landscape as it is anenclosure and thus a structure meant to perform. The term performative architecture stands for several older and newer ideas in architecture and the design of urban public space. If by the term one means buildings created to encourage active public engagement and themselves actively participate like Roman baroque urban experiments or even worlds fairs, then Levetes building is an unqualified success. It becomes a pedestrian promenade and visitors areg meant to walk along, onto, or over its tiled sloping roofscape like Foreign Office Architects 2003 Yokohama terminal.

(Courtesy MAAT)

Last weeks opening programmed performances to take place on every surface of the structure. It started with a musician playing the ceramic tile facade with a vibraphonists soft mallets and group of musicians dancing and singing on the top step of the covered front entry platform. The central oval space featured an opening night performance by Mexican artist Hector Zamora that featured crews of migrant laborers destroying a fleet of old unusable (but beautiful) fishing boats as a protest against the disappearance of a way of life represented by the small craft. The highlight of the first-day performance featured O Terceiro Paraiso, choreographed by Italian Michelangelo Pistoletto on the sloping roofscape public space. The Italian arte povera and action artist theorized a potential new utopiain accordance with the exhibition opening in the galleries downstairsthat asked several hundred participants to hold hands in three labyrinths made of a single line that would create a new third utopia from the two earlier ones that he theorized as an everyday Gesamtkunstwerk. The performance was pushed along by the large sloping facade of the roof that stands as an open space above the riverside promenade and facing back to the city in the distance.

It should be pointed out that the Levete renderings show the roofscape with a whiplash-like tail flying over the adjacent freeway to the roof of The MAAT. This freeway acts as a wall that cuts off Lisbon from its waterfront as if it were lifted out from any number of American cities. When (and if) this tail ramp is finished it will bring the city across the freeway and onto the roofscape and be the performative space the museums want to be for their home city.

(Courtesy MAAT)

Levette has delivered a potentially valuable new focus and hub for the Portuguese capital but it remains for the MAAT director Pedro Gandhao and his curatorial staff to realize the spatial and performative qualities of the museum. They have the opportunity to make this one the most exciting venues in the world that programs architecture and technology alongside art.

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Portugal's MAAT could become the world's most exciting venue for art and architecture - The Architect's Newspaper

Podcast

Posted By: Peter Parrish April 7, 2017

Step close, and listen, to another hour-or-so of PC gaming dalliance with the PC Invasion Podcast. Episode 72 finds Tim and I wondering how Gearbox had never heard of the notorious G2A, and assessing how Bulletstorm: Full Clip Editionfares on PC.

Then its on to Stellaris (specifically the new Utopia expansion), and what it, and the new free patch, does to address that titles potentially stagnant mid-game period. Psychic bird-people, gazing through the Shroud of existence, Iain M. Banks references, feats of space engineering, and all the rest.

Beyond that, we talk about Creative Assemblys efforts to reassure its historical fans that the company is not just a subsidiary of Games Workshop now. And, along similar lines, go over the additional bits of Warhammer 2 news from earlier today. Theres a bit more about BioWare, Mass Effect: Andromeda, and that whole situation too.

Finally, a bit more Dark Souls 3 Ringed City discussion. You know, just for good measure.

Download, or stream, Podcast Episode 72 below. Prior podcast episodes live in our archives, but beware the deadly curse of poor sound quality that afflicts earlier editions (I think it gets much better around Episode 30 or so).

Oh, and make sure to hear Van Morrisons excellent Ringworm, mentioned (and at first incorrectly attributed) in this weeks episode. Its one hell of a song.

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PC Invasion Podcast #72 - PC Invasion (blog)

You dont have to be a sci-fi wonk to be captivated by All Our Wrong Todays, Elan Mastais inventive tale about time travel.

Mastais debut novel has become a publishing sensation. Translation rights have been sold in 25 countries, while the American rights were auctioned for a seven-figure sum.

All Our Wrong Todays may share several elements with the quintessential time-travel film, Back to the Future, and its sequels, but the futuristic world of the novel goes beyond the flat screen TVs, hover-boards and flying cars that appear in the 1980s blockbusters.

Mastai has created a techno-utopia where everyones material needs can be met and global warming is no longer a threat. The great challenges facing humanity have been resolved though technology in this imagined world of 2016.

There are also the requisite sci-fi lifestyle innovations. New clothing is chemically reconstituted from old clothing, holidays on the moon are weekend jaunts and hover-cars provide door-to door, public transportation.

READ: SIMPLY BARBARAS TORONTO DEBUT

The protagonist, Tom Barren, is a 32-year-old shlemiel without ambition. He cant stick to any career path and hes a great disappointment to his father, Victor Barren, a genius and an acclaimed scientist.

Victor has invented a cutting-edge, time-travel apparatus at his Toronto lab. In this era of 2016, time travel is the new space frontier. Victor is about to realize his lifes work, when Tom inadvertently sabotages the worlds first time-travel mission.

That launch is aborted, but Tom embarks on an unauthorized time-travel mission. His fathers machine was programmed to send the first time-traveller, back to 1965 to witness the greatest event in history the exact moment the engine that generates endless clean energy was turned on. This machine made Toms techno-utopia possible.

The engines inventor, a Danish Holocaust survivor, has become a much-revered hero in that futuristic world of 2016. There are statues of him, books about him and museums showcasing his work.

Through some blundering, Tom accidentally interferes with the historic start-up of the engine. Like Marty McFly in Back to the Future, Tom discovers that his meddling with the past has impacted the future.

When he is teleported back to 2016, he suddenly finds himself in an alternate reality. Hes in the 2016 of our current, less-technically advanced era. He is caught between this world and the one he grew up in. Now Tom must contend with John, his egotistical alter ego, and a different version of his family and love interest.

The first part of book takes place in the futuristic utopia. We meet Toms parents, the women in his life, and we learn about the events that lead up to his ill-fated, time-travel mission. The author has set the stage for a narrative of twists and turns as Tom grapples with his new reality, in the present-day 2016.

He is an unlikely hero, with a daunting inner conflict. He must decide which 2016 he will live in. Should he forge a life in his new imperfect world or should he revisit 1965 and fix the error that irradiated his utopian world?

While the action is punctuated with many humorous moments, the book also has a serious core. Mastai explores the tension between the demands of personal relationships and the drive for professional and/or social status. The question he poses is: what values make life meaningful?

The book can also be viewed as an allegorical tale about the many unexpected directions a life can take and the various paths one may follow in a single lifetime.

Mastai grew up in Vancouver, but he is a Toronto resident. He may be a new novelist, but he is an accomplished screenwriter. He won a Canadian Screen Award for best adapted script for The F Word, a 2013 romantic comedy starring Daniel Radcliffe and Zoe Kazan.

Paramount has bought the film rights for All Our Wrong Todays and Mastai is currently working on the screenplay.

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Threat of global warming eliminated in All Our Wrong Todays - Canadian Jewish News (blog)