Daily Archives: June 21, 2020

You may be excited by the prospect of firing up Horizon Forbidden West on your PS5 by this Christmas, but lockdown has had me yearning for the nostalgic comforts of games a little more retro.

Im talking about a simpler time, where epic games came on floppy discs and your favorite multiplayer sessions required a pocketful of coins at your local arcade. Short of firing up an emulator and hunting for romsets, these games (especially the more obscure ones) can be hard to play on modern systems. Enter Antstream, a game streaming service specifically tailored to delivering retro computer games and arcade classics to all manner of devices.

To call something the Netflix of is a bit trite at this point, but the sheer size of the Antstream catalogue makes that an apt description for once. With over 1,000 games to play, its the largest game streaming library were aware of at the moment, dwarfing Google Stadia, GeForce Now and PlayStation Now (though of course going nowhere near the flashy new titles they offer). Streaming early arcade classics right through gaming history, up to and including a handful of Mega Drive/ Genesis titles, Antstream is available on Android, Android TV devices like the Nvidia Shield, Amazon Fire TV devices, Mac OS, Linux and Windows, for a 9.99 / $9.99 monthly charge.

Game streaming maybe isnt the most obvious way to serve retro and arcade games a sustained streaming session could use several hundred megabytes of data, and considering many of the games on offer were originally just kilobytes in size, youd be on your way to downloading the whole available catalogue in a matter or hours were they served up as traditional downloads.

But game streaming has its advantages. For starters, once the app is installed, youve got instant access to the complete Antstream library, which now numbers more than 1,000 titles. Your highscores and saves are synced across devices, as are challenges in games set by your friends. And, as anyone who has attempted to play retro games through emulation will know, set-up and compatibility across emulators and romsets over multiple devices can be a real pain. Antstream takes all the hassle out of it.

Antstreams library is one of the most diverse and esoteric of any subscription service out there. Of course, it doesnt have the modern bells and whistles of something like Game Pass or PS Now, but thats courting an entirely different audience. Antstreams games can be just plain weird, and thats what makes it special, from a game-history point of view as much as from a gameplay standpoint.

Take cult-classic Amiga game Wizball for instance. Youre a wizard, whos been turned into a green bouncing gremlin ball thing with a face. You have to bounce around what seems to be the surface of the moon, collecting paint droplets that drop from the enemies you defeat, to fill a cauldron that will cast a spell to return you to your former self. It. Is. Weird. You wont see something like that at next months Xbox Series X game reveal.

But from Bubble Bobble to Metal Slug X, there are stone cold classics nestled in between the deep cuts. As with Wizball, its one of the few services to shine a light on the Amiga system too the discerning gamers alternative to 16-bit consoles in the 90s, bringing games like Magic Pockets and Alien Breed to an all new audience.

Antstream doesnt just serve up the original games either in some cases, it builds upon them too. Having licensed all titles from their original owners, Antstream has been given the blessing to include new asynchronous multiplayer challenges to games. This could be anything from one-shotting the quick-moving UFOs in Space Invaders to making hyperspace jumps in Asteroids without dying. The service uses a free-to-earn currency with which to gamble and challenge friends though aside from entering tournaments and laying down the gauntlet to your friends and foes, theres not much else currently to do with the gems you hoard.

There are a few things missing and bugs that need addressing before Anstream can be fully recommended. Theres a major hole in its mobile offering in the shape of iOS support, which has been proposed but is still currently missing, as are console apps (an Xbox One app has been intermittently available, but has suffered from legacy retro game interface issues preventing it from running full screen). Beyond challenges theres no synchronous multiplayer support over the internet, and the overall calibre of the library may lean a little too far into curio than classic territory to justify the 9.99 / $9.99 a month subscription required to play. Weve also on occasion ran into control bugs where certain titles fail to work with a gamepad, and side-scrolling arcade titles become unplayable as a second player enters the fray without a human to guide them being present.

But Antstream is unique in its proposition. Its taking cult favourites and lost gems from the archive of gamings history and making them accessible to all, where previously theyve been the preserve of retro collectors of emulator dabblers. Its a great trip down memory lane in a year where the future of gaming draws ever closer.

Follow this link:

Antstream is Netflix for retro gamers but is it good enough to take on the AAA game streaming competition? - Techradar

This is not the first time that a video game has reckoned with the inhumane acts around which so much of the mediums output is based, but never has it been done with such lavish production values. In this, the sequel to 2013s divisive, post-apocalyptic The Last of Us, you play as Ellie, a young woman immune to the virus that has during the past 25 years devastated North America, turning most of the population into zombies. Only pockets of survivors are left, living in fractious scavenger communities.

This adventure game, which mostly takes place in Seattle, is a revenge story that charts, in preposterously high definition, Ellies physical and psychological descent into violence. Its brutal stuff (offset by odd moments of guitar-twanging downtime): you hear the gurgling death rattles, see the puddling blood, survey images of the kind of brutality and its aftermath that usually exist only in police files and on the dark web.

It's a profound and thoughtful attempt to cause the player to dwell on what it means to aim a gun at another human being

The game sets various new high-water marks in terms of its spectacular production. The crumbling vistas, exquisitely rendered faces and memorable action set pieces all dazzle, while the poised dialogue casts a lingering spell. But the central message, which hinges on the kind of structural conceit of a boldness and invention almost never seen in this category of big budget crowd-pleasers, is less readily convincing. During the course of the game Ellie kills hundreds of zombies and humans from different hostile factions a particularly American conception of human survival: gun-toting and ravenously dog-eat-dog. As she does so, you witness and become inveigled by the corrupting influence of her chosen behaviours.

Later, during a flashback, Ellie must use a sniper rifle to take potshots at zombies shuffling on a hill across a sunlit valley. Once you get your eye in, compensating for each bullets gravitational drop, the thrill of guiltless cause and effect is shared between character and player. The games violence is designed, through years of iteration, to be deeply enjoyable, a fact that threatens to undercut its message that violence is a corrupting, abhorrent cycle.

There is virtue in interrogating the gun violence around which the video game blockbuster has become orientated, and The Last of Us Part 2 offers a profound and thoughtful attempt to cause the player to dwell on what it means to aim a gun at another human being and pull the trigger. But it cannot wholly shake off the fact that its core message conflicts with its fundamental pleasures.

Continued here:

The Last of Us Part 2 review Ellie's brutal revenge - The Guardian

Among Trees is a gorgeous survival game, but it's also very buggy and a little boring. In the hour or so I've played, it's crashed several times, and all I've really done is wander aimlessly through the forest around my cabin, picking up resources and avoiding the occasional bear. It's pretty but, at this stage, there's little else that makes it worth playing. That's not unusual for unfinished sandbox games; already the developers have a roadmap of cool ideas and interesting features.

My problem is that the Epic Games Store communicates almost nothing about the state of the project. Looking at the store page for Among Trees, you can't easily tell that it's an early access game at all. The only mention is under the logo just below the trailer. It's not mentioned in the overview of the game or its features, its hardware specifications, or the 'About Game' section, or during the checkout process.

For a comparison, take a look at any one of Steam's Early Access games, like the recently released Satisfactory (which is also on the Epic Store). Aside from the trailer and screenshots, one of the biggest elements on the page is a big blue banner informing customers that this game is Early Access. More importantly, though, it explains what Steam's Early Access program is and then reveals a questionnaire filled out by the developers that explains why they chose to release their game on Early Access, how long it'll take to finish the game, what the differences may be at release, what the game looks like now, how the community is involved, and whether the price will change once the full version is released.

All of that is information I'd like to know before buying a game before its official 'release.' To be fair, some of the early access games on the Epic Store do share that informationit's just so hidden that it might as well not exist. For example, Satisfactory and Hades have early access FAQs similar to what you'd find on Steam, but they can only be accessed by clicking a tiny link in the menu at the top of the screen. Given that each of these questionnaires is formatted differently and half of Epic's early access games don't have one, it's clear this isn't a uniform requirement. It should be, though.

If the Epic Games Store is going to continue selling early access games like Among Trees, it needs to offer buyers way more information.

Part of what makes Steam's Early Access program work is that it's standardized and made a prominent feature on each game's store page. By requiring every Early Access developer to explain its vision, capabilities, and intentions, Steam is upfront about the risks and implies that things can go awry. And aside from what the developers have to say about their game, user reviews and forums can be helpful in determining if a game's stint in Steam Early Access is going poorly.

Epic Games doesn't even explain what early access means. That's a big problem when, as of March of last year, 85 million people were using the Epic Store and 40 percent of them didn't have Steam. That's roughly 34 million people who might not be familiar with what early access is and why it's a risk. I wouldn't be surprised if a less-informed customer mistook an "early access" banner as some kind of promotion or missed it altogether. If that happened, they'd have no idea that Among Trees is incredibly early in development until they hit the in-game disclaimer. They can request a refund if it's not what they expected, but why make it confusing?

It's great that a few developers have gone the extra mile to add an early access FAQ, but Epic shouldn't place the burden of explaining how early access works on them. There should be mandatory and prominently displayed notices that explain what early access is and how the developers intend to use it.

Early access games like Among Trees have become a basic part of PC gaming. Steam's Early Access program has helped birth some cherished classics like Don't Starve, Subnautica, and Kerbal Space Program. It's also created just as many controversies. Early Access games have been abandoned altogether, developers have sold expansions before the base game was even done, or games have pivoted wildly from the original, promised vision.

Expectations are different when you buy an early access game, and the label can be applied very differently by different developers. If the Epic Games Store is going to continue selling early access games like Among Trees, it needs to offer buyers way more information about the particular situation of each of its unfinished games.

Go here to read the rest:

The Epic Games Store isn't clear enough about early access games - PC Gamer

If youre looking for some fighting games to start brawling in this weekend, NetherRealm and Warner Bros. have a heck of a deal. Injustice: Gods Among Us, 2013s DC Comics fighter, is completely free to keep on Steam for a limited time. This is the Ultimate Edition with all the major DLC included, too, so youre getting a heck of a package here.

You can head to the Steam page to pick up Injustice: Gods Among Us Ultimate Edition for free through June 25. While theres a limited amount of time to claim the offer, the game will remain in your library forever once youve grabbed it. The promotion is also available on PlayStation 4 and Xbox 360 (backward compatible with X1), if youd like digital copies for your console libraries, too.

Injustice takes the modern Mortal Kombat formula and applies it to the DC universe, with a roster encompassing everyone from Superman and Batman to Killer Frost and Black Adam. The Ultimate Edition of Injustice includes six additional characters Batgirl, Lobo, Zod, Martian Manhunter, Zatanna, and MKs Scorpion as well as a host of additional skins and single-player STAR Labs missions.

There are more rumours than we can possibly recount here about the WB Games lineup, and theres a part of me that hopes this freebie is part of a tease for something major but the tweet announcing the giveaway simply suggests its part of a COVID-19-inspired Play at Home promotion.

If youre looking for more free PC games, you can follow that link for a big list of stuff worth checking out.

See the article here:

Free games: DC Comics fighter Injustice is free-to-keep on Steam - PCGamesN

Blizzard has just banned over 74,000 World of Warcraft Classic accounts, with the "majority" of those accounts guilty of botting. In other words, the accounts were found to be using automation tools to gather resources and kill enemies without an actual player being present.

While the use of automation tools is unambiguously in violation of the WoW Classic's End-User License Agreement, there exists an online trade in software that can expedite the grind. Bots have been the source of much consternation on the Blizzard forums lately, and it was probably inevitable, given how grindy the 'classic' experience is.

Blizzard is determined to address the problem on an ongoing basis, but warns that the trade in automation software probably isn't going anywhere soon. "Real money trading drives third parties to put an enormous amount of effort into circumventing our detection systems," a Blizzard spokesperson wrote. "As much as this is a very high priority for us, it is the only priority for profit-driven botting organizations. The bans we issue are simply a cost of doing business for them."

The studio also notes that while its own detection processes are strong and evolving, there's still a lot of manual evidence gathering to be done. Indeed, some players especially keen on the grind might even resemble an automated account, which makes things trickier.

"Yes, there have been cases where a legitimate player appeared (to another player) to be botting," the spokesperson wrote. "In those cases, where a legitimate player is reported and then cleared of wrongdoing, it can be very frustrating to the reporting player to again see what they think is a bot. Weve also seen examples where the reported player was caught exploiting the game, and was removed from the game, and then quickly returned to doing the same thing on a new account with the same character name. Thats an infuriating sight for the players who initially reported it. We greatly appreciate your reports, and we understand how you feel about this."

You can read Blizzard's full statement over here.

See more here:

Blizzard has banned over 74,000 World of Warcraft Classic accounts - PC Gamer

Among the mandatory rules are:

Only intra-club/team scrimmages are permitted for contact sports and practices/open gyms should be limited in the same way wherever possible. Competitive games and tournaments are permitted for non-contact sports only.

RELATED: Former Wright State runner racing to save lives

Physical contact is only permitted within the rules of the game during competitive practice. Players, coaches, and officials are not to physically contact each other before or after competitive practice (i.e. greetings, team huddles, high-fives, congregating, etc.

Limit time spent on activities where players are in close proximity for extended periods of time (e.g. repeatedly practicing corner or penalty kicks in soccer or rebounding drills in basketball).

RELATED:Local youth football league changes mind after cancelling season

Athletic trainers must wear a face mask when treating injured athletes, though there are exceptions to the rule.

Among the recommendations are:

Traveling outside the local community may increase the changes of exposing players, coaches, and fans to COVID-19, or unknowingly spreading it to others. Consider competing only against teams in your local area.

Limit use of carpools. Encourage players to only ride with others in their household if possible.

Masks are recommended for coaches, officials, and spectators.

Thank you for reading the Dayton Daily News and for supporting local journalism. Subscribers: log in for access to your daily ePaper and premium newsletters.

Thank you for supporting in-depth local journalism with your subscription to the Dayton Daily News. Get more news when you want it with email newsletters just for subscribers. Sign up here.

See more here:

Competitive games and tournaments still not permitted for contact sports in Ohio - Dayton Daily News

Communities across Scotland may be reeling after this years Highland Games calendar was completely wiped out, but the Games are nothing if not resilient.

Thats the view of Scottish Highland Games Association (SHGA) secretary Ian Grieve, who has insisted the showpiece events will be back in 2021.

The calendar of Highland Games this year may now be empty, but that doesnt mean were sitting back.

We have a few surprises already and more on the way.

With all their 60-plus member Highland Games now confirmed as cancelled, 2020 will have none of the traditional events, some of which have been running for centuries.

It also leaves many small communities without their only gathering of townsfolk, often the only place locals can participate in sports in front of a crowd.

The impact on local economies, tourism and small traders who bring their crafts to the games is keenly felt.

However, the SHGA says some members around the country have tackled the situation with surprising responses.

Ian said: Strathmore has shown online how to make a fun caber for kids, Aboyne has an online solo piping competition, Ballater will be raising the standard and inviting supporters to send in clips, Stirling is lining up some virtual activities which people can participate in, and we have others looking to do more with online resources to deliver something that will interest, excite and entertain.

Meanwhile, the athletes, dancers and pipers arent resting on their laurels: many continue to practice with virtual demonstration and competition events showcasing their skills.

Theres a great podcast Life Behind the Trig which has athletes in heavyweight disciplines sharing experiences, and our partner governing bodies for Piping and Dancing are also rising to the challenge.

While Ian admits the loss of events in 2020 is dreadful, with wide impacts, he believes the Games are being positive about the future.

Were already planning for next year, to come back stronger, better: welcoming back all our supporters and friends, hopefully some new ones too, people who havent attended a Highland games before.

I would urge you to think about helping your local games, come and make a difference.

Much more about the SHGA and activities this year and next is available on the SHGA website http://www.shga.co.uk.

Read the original:

Highland Games chiefs say events will be back in 2021 after total wipeout - The Courier

If youre looking for an in-depth, story-driven RPG to get wrapped up in this weekend, then youll be happy to know that Kingdom Come: Deliverance is getting a free-play weekend on Steam.

For a couple of days, you can experience the Holy Roman Empire like never before and not have to pay a thing. Since this game has been out, it has gone on to receive mostly positive feedback on multiple platforms.

Its not surprising why considering the epic story, detailed RPG elements, and competent combat system. It pretty much has everything you would want in a historically accurate RPG.

You get to play as Henry, a blacksmith whos forced to watch an invading force kill his beloved parents. That sets this games events in motion and gives you plenty of reasons to continue forward for justice.

The game takes place in Bohemia, a beautiful part of Europe featuring rich culture and amazing architecture. Unfortunately, these lands have been ravaged by war and corruptness ever since the death of Emperor Charles IV.

Now the kingdom is under the rule of Charles son, Wenceslas. Hes not as competent as his father, though, and is later pushed out by his half-brother and King of Hungary, Sigismund. Hes the one responsible for ordering the attack against Henrys family.

As Henry, youll embark on a quest to seek revenge and hopefully restore order to Bohemia, which is currently going through civil war.

Its a pretty gripping story with plenty of plot twists along the way. The decisions you make will ripple into larger consequences, thus giving weight to everything you do. There are plenty of quests that grab your attention right out of the gate and have meaningful content.

Throughout your journey fighting for all that is good and holy, youll get to progress your characters skills and earn new equipment. Youll also have plenty of ways to approach gameplay, whether its fighting your way through every obstacle or letting your words do the fighting for you.

Do you take the honest path or let deceit and deception consume you? Thats what youll get to find out for a couple of days starting this weekend.

If the characters, open-ended environments, and combat dont win you over, maybe the historical accuracy will. It will be as if youre there during the Holy Roman Empire, giving you a new appreciation for past events that took place.

More here:

Kingdom Come: Deliverance Can Be Played For Free On Steam This Weekend - Happy Gamer