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Mathematicians Uncover a ‘Reset Button’ to Reverse Rotation

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Can I put the top back on?

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Picture a spinning top coming to a halt. Is it possible to make it spin again and return to its original position, as if no movement had occurred? Surprisingly, mathematicians affirm that there is a universal method to revert the rotation of nearly any object.

It seems that the sole method to reverse a complicated rotation sequence is to meticulously execute the exact reverse motion, one step at a time. However, Jean Pierre Eckmann from the University of Geneva, alongside Tzvi Trusty and a research team from South Korea’s Ulsan Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST), discovered a concealed reset mechanism that modifies the initial rotation by a common scaling factor and applies this process twice.

For a spinning top, if it makes three-quarters of a turn during its first spin, you can apply an eighth scaling to retrace your steps back to the start and repeat that sequence again to achieve another quarter turn. Yet, Eckmann and Trusty have shown that this principle applies to much more intricate scenarios.

“Essentially, this property extends to nearly any rotating object, including spins, qubits, gyroscopes, and robotic arms,” Trusty explains. “You merely need to scale all rotation angles by the same factor and replicate this complex pathway twice, navigating through an intricate trajectory in space before returning to the origin.”

Their mathematical proof stems from a comprehensive catalog of all potential rotations in three-dimensional space, known as SO(3), which follows specific rules. This can be visualized as an abstract mathematical space resembling a ball. Transporting an object through various rotations in physical space translates to moving from one point to another within this ball, akin to a bug tunneling through an apple.

When a piece undergoes a complicated rotation, its corresponding trajectory in SO(3) may initiate at the center of the ball and terminate at different points within, depending on the intricacies of the rotation. The objective of reversing this rotation is akin to discovering a route back to the center, yet given that there is only one center within the ball, randomly accomplishing this is improbable.

Some of the many paths that can be taken through the mathematical space SO(3). Corresponds to rotation sequences in real space.

Tzvi Trusty

Eckmann and Trusty realized that due to the structure of SO(3), halting a rotation midway is analogous to finding a path that ends on any point on the ball’s surface. Because the surface comprises numerous points, Trusty notes that this approach is significantly more straightforward than directly targeting the center. This insight led to a new proof.

Eckmann mentioned that they invested considerable time unraveling mathematical tensions that yielded no results. The breakthrough came from a 19th-century formula that merged the two successive rotations, known as Rodriguez’s formula, along with an 1889 theorem in number theory. Ultimately, the researchers concluded that a scaling factor is nearly always necessary for resetting.

For Eckmann, this latest research exemplifies the richness of mathematics, even in seemingly familiar domains like rotation studies. Trusty pointed out potential practical outcomes, such as in nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), which underpins magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Researchers assess material and tissue properties by examining the behavior of internal quantum spins under the influence of external magnetic fields. The new proof could pave the way for strategies to negate unwanted spin rotations that disrupt the imaging process.

The findings could also spur advancements in robotics, says Josie Hughes at the Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne, Switzerland. For instance, a rolling robot may be developed to navigate a path comprising repetitive segments, featuring a reliable roll-reset-roll motion that could theoretically continue indefinitely. “Visualize a robot that could transition between any solid form and subsequently follow any desired trajectory through shape transformation,” she envisions.

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Source: www.newscientist.com

Discovering Why the Belly Button Turns Into an “Innie”

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Why do most people have the “Innie” belly button?

Tatiana Gorbunova / Alamy

The belly button, often overlooked, is both well-researched and under-researched. A recent study may have uncovered the reason most individuals have “innie” belly buttons, potentially linked to a previously unknown structure that pulls the belly button inward.

Researchers made this discovery while investigating optimal techniques for abdominal and hernia repair surgery.

The team’s goal was to minimize occurrences of what is known as an “uncised hernia of the umbilical,” a condition where muscle weakness from prior surgeries allows abdominal tissue to push outward, causing bulging around the belly button.

Satori Muro from the Japanese Institute of Science mentions that this issue often arises, despite the fact that the anatomical details of the umbilical area have not been extensively reported. The researchers conducted a meticulous microscopic analysis of the ventral buttons from five donated human bodies and subsequently created a 3D model of the structure.

The belly button is essentially the remnant of the fetal umbilical cord, which connects to the placenta until birth. Approximately 90% of people show a concave depression where the umbilical scar has healed. However, Muro’s team identified a “fibrous tunnel-like structure” just beneath the skin of the umbilical tissue, seamlessly extending into the deeper layers of tissue. This underlying tissue, known as the abdominal fascia, plays a critical role in stabilizing the abdomen and securing the organs.

This structure is composed of densely packed collagen fibers oriented circumferentially, resembling the umbilical cord. “This sheath seems to anchor the inward curl of the belly button to the deep fascia in multiple directions,” Muro explains, helping to maintain the unique inward shape of the belly button.

However, the team was unable to include individuals with “outie” belly buttons in their study, indicating that further research is necessary to explore the variations in umbilical cord structures among individuals.

“Differences in umbilical cord development or strength may contribute to whether someone’s belly button protrudes outward,” Muro adds.

Kat Sanders from the University of Sydney emphasizes that belly buttons are indeed vital anatomical features, but more extensive research is needed, as five subjects cannot provide a comprehensive understanding for all variations of belly buttons.

“This study reveals aspects of anatomy that are infrequently examined. Given that this area is frequently accessed during laparoscopic procedures, there’s substantial surgical interest,” Sanders states.

Michelle Moscova from the University of New South Wales believes this research will enhance understanding of the structural integrity of the abdomen.

“Umbilical hernias are a common complication after abdominal surgery, where contents such as intestines protrude through a weaker area in the abdomen, leading to inflating around the belly button,” Moscova notes.

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Source: www.newscientist.com

No “Undo” Button for Extinct Species

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Elimination presents a distinctly modern fantasy. It’s a captivating notion that, with merely a pipette or a computer, we can reverse the damage that continues to afflict the natural world. The first creature featured by Colossal is a forlorn wolf, an entity primarily born from imagination, fitting seamlessly into the realm of fantasy. Colossal’s advisory team included notable figures like George R.R. Martin, author of “Game of Thrones,” along with the HBO series adaptation, with promotional images depicting these creatures perched on the show’s Iron Throne. Many observers were taken aback upon learning that these forlorn wolves once roamed the earth as real animals, rather than being products of advanced genetic engineering.

For over 200,000 years, these forlorn wolves thrived across America, carving out a rich ecological niche; their remains have been found from Alaska to Peru. Over 4,000 wolves have been excavated from the La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles alone. They were among the large mammal hunters who roamed America before humans arrived and are believed to have significantly impacted the continent’s ecology. Eventually, they vanished along with their prey, becoming early victims of the ongoing crisis of human-induced extinction.

Romulus, Remus, and Khaleesi were edited and cultivated into embryos, originating from grey wolf cells implanted in the uterus of a surrogate dog. This genetic modification involved 20 alterations across 14 genes (a minor segment of the 19,000 genes that constitute the Grey Wolf genome), guided by a comparison between the Grey Wolf genome and DNA extracted from ancient tooth and bone fragments. While grey wolves and forlorn wolves share superficial skeletal similarities, scientists have determined that they are fundamentally distinct, with their evolutionary paths diverging millions of years ago. Beth Shapiro, the company’s chief science officer, argues that subscribing to the “concept of morphological species” suffices to categorize them as forlorn wolves if defined by appearance. “The notion of species is merely a human classification system,” she stated to New Scientist.

Many individuals voiced their disagreement. Referring to a puppy as a forlorn wolf is akin to suggesting that by donning a hat, a short Frenchman could resurrect Napoleon. Experts in canids from the International Union for Conservation of Nature, which monitors biodiversity and maintains a list of endangered species, responded to Colossal’s announcement with their own statement, asserting that “the three animals created by Colossal are not forlorn wolves.” They noted that there’s no real way to ascertain if these wolves accurately represent animals that have been absent for 12,000 years. Furthermore, reducing them to mere physicality overlooks the ecology, behavior, and culture of the original forlorn wolves.

Even if Colossal could replicate the Kree-Wolf genome, it would vastly differ from reinstating a world where such an extraordinary creature could thrive. It also fails to encompass the various ways these beings once influenced their environment. Shapiro refers to Colossal’s research as “functional detension,” a term borrowed from the rewilding movement. This ties into the ecological concept of “functional extinction.” These animals technically exist but, with their drastically reduced numbers, they can no longer play a role in eating, pollinating, or impacting their ecosystems meaningfully. This term has gained urgency in light of the 73% decline in global wildlife populations from 1970 to 2020.

Source: www.nytimes.com

Apple introduces iPhone 16E with a redesigned home button configuration

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Apple is saying goodbye to the home button after 18 years with the launch of the new iPhone 16E.

The budget-friendly iPhone 16E replaces the 2022 iPhone SE, marking the end of Apple products with Touch ID buttons that started with the iPhone X in 2017.

Priced at £599 (709 Euros/$599/$999), the iPhone 16E offers a modern experience similar to the regular iPhone 15 and the latest iPhone 16. To achieve a lower price, some features have been omitted. This new model replaces the £599 iPhone 14 and £429 iPhone SE, representing a significant price increase for the cheapest new iPhone when it ships on February 28th.

The iPhone 16E is similar to the iPhone 14, but comes with the latest A18 chip. Photo: Apple

The iPhone 16E features an aluminum frame, glass front and back, and a 15.4cm (6.1 inch) OLED screen with slim bezels. It is available in black or white only and retains the notch design from the iPhone 14, housing the Face ID sensor for unlocking the phone and authorizing payments.

Starting with 128GB of storage, the iPhone 16E is powered by Apple’s latest A18 chip, enabling access to the company’s AI tools. It includes 5G, Apple’s first new modem, satellite emergency messaging, USB-C charging, and action buttons instead of a mute switch.

Unlike other models, the iPhone 16E has a single 48-megapixel camera and does not include the newly added camera control button.

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With the introduction of the iPhone 16E, Apple aims to capture market share in countries like China and attract more users to its intelligent features. This move positions the company to compete with rivals like Google Pixel and Samsung devices.

Source: www.theguardian.com

League of Legends finals: A showcase of unmatched talent and pure joy captured in a button push

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GGiven the influx of bad news from the gaming industry over the past 10 months, it’s no surprise that this weekend, sitting in a crowd of 20,000 happy and passionate fans, the biggest event on the esports calendar, The League Being able to watch the Of Legends World Championship was somewhat reassuring. Finals. The event, held at London’s O2 Arena, was the culmination of a five-week global competition to discover the world’s best teams. Having never been to one before, I had no idea what to expect, mainly because the finals are usually held in Asia, where the best players usually gather. Can we track what’s going on? Would you care? The answers to these questions were “fairly well” and “well, yeah.”


For the uninitiated, League of Legends is a multiplayer online battle arena game (Moba for short) in which two teams of five players choose a warrior from a pool of 170 warriors to destroy their opponent’s home base. Fight to control the fantasy-themed map. . The arena is divided into three lanes, with an area known as the jungle in the middle, and similar to traditional team sports, each team member patrols their own specific section. Adding to the complexity is the fact that every champion character has unique skills, weapons, and magical attacks, and throughout the game you must defeat monsters and dragons to earn experience points that make you more powerful. Masu. It’s both a deep strategy game and a tremendous riot of stomping warriors, galloping horsemen, and hovering wizards.

This year’s final was between experienced Korean team T1 and Chinese newcomer team Bilibili Gaming (abbreviated as BLG). The latter had gained momentum by defeating local rival Weibo Gaming in the semi-finals, but T1 was the firm favorite to win the tournament having already won four times. They were almost eliminated from the competition early on, but they seem to have a habit of getting back into it the moment everyone quits. At the arena, I managed to get a seat next to James Lynch of the esports news site dexerto volunteer to tell me about the action. He describes T1 as the League of Legends equivalent of the 1974 Netherlands World Cup team. Free-spirited, unconventional, and full of neurotic genius. Lee “Faker” Sang-hyuk is widely considered to be the greatest player in league history, and at the center of it all is the master Johan Cruyff. “His movements are very strange and unpredictable,” Lynch says. “It’s very difficult to kill him.”




South Korea’s T1 team celebrates their victory over China’s Bilibili Gaming in the League of Legends world finals. Photo: Benjamin Kremer/AFP/Getty Images

Before the finals begin, there will be a 10-minute mini-concert featuring American rappers Ashnikko and Linkin Park, complete with fireworks, giant LED displays and incredible art direction from dozens of dancers. The whole thing has the feel of a major sporting event mixed with live K-Pop, a riot of color, passion, and performing arts. In the hours leading up to the finals, fans flocked to the venue to purchase original merchandise, meet friends from the community and, of course, dress up as their favorite League of Legends characters.

It turns out I was extremely lucky that this was my debut watching League of Legends. It’s an exciting encounter. Once the showdown begins, the best-of-five format is pushed to its limits, with the two teams taking turns killing each other for the first four games. Throughout the finals, Faker is a formidable playmaker, continually jumping into skirmishes, taking out opponents, and managing to escape with only a millimeter of health left. In the arena, 10 young players can be seen competing on a giant screen suspended above the stage. These displays draw us in rather than taking us out of the game. The crowd of mostly 20 fans loudly applauds the smart move and chants as their team gains the upper hand.

The showdown was a deliberate affair, with warriors gingerly roaming the map, poking and prodding at each other. Eventually, the whole thing explodes into a massive clash, making the battle between the Bastards look like a mini-brawl outside a kebab shop.




During the battle between Bilibili Gaming and T1. Photo: Benjamin Kremer/AFP/Getty Images

T1 was victorious, but it was also a victory for the entire concept of esports. The scene has struggled to live up to its 2010s hype, at least financially. At the time, the team’s overestimated global value attracted large investors and sponsors, which led to a bloated team organization and soaring salaries for star players. Last year saw many organizations, events, and tournaments shut down, including Activision Blizzard’s much-hyped Overwatch League. But this weekend’s event drew a peak audience of 6.94 million viewers, most of whom watched from home on streaming platforms like Twitch and YouTube, setting a new record for esports.

It’s easy to think of video games as an industry rather than a culture that brings joy to people. Sometimes it’s more than just sales or viewership, it’s about sitting in an arena with 20,000 adoring fans. Outside the O2 Megaplex, I spoke to Morgan, an attendee perfectly dressed as Aphelios (or, more accurately, in his Heartsteel costume). He explained the appeal as follows: But he’s very friendly. Also, there are so many different communities in the league, and it’s great to see them come together and bond over something they have in common and one thing they’re really passionate about. That’s what’s really beautiful about this work.

Source: www.theguardian.com

Should Parents be Concerned About Roblox Safety? Exploring the Risks of Pushing the Button

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RJust before last week's newsletter was published, a short selling firm called Hindenburg Research issued the following report. Highly critical report on Roblox. In it, they accuse public companies of inflating their metrics (and thus their valuations), and even more worryingly for the parents of the millions of children who use Roblox. He also called it a “pedophile's hellscape.'’ The report claims that there were some gruesome discoveries within the game. Researchers found chat rooms of people purporting to exchange images and videos of children, and users claiming to be children or teens offering such material in exchange for Robux, an in-game currency. I discovered it. roblox I strongly refuse The claims made by Hindenburg in his report.

For those unfamiliar with the title, Roblox is more of a platform than a game (or, as corporate communicators like to think of it, a metaverse). It claims 80 million daily users (though Hindenburg says this figure is inflated). Log in, customize your avatar, and from there you can dive into thousands of different “experiences” created by other users. From role-playing cities to pizza delivery mini-games to cops-and-robbers games to cops-and-robbers games and, unfortunately, much less, Public Bathroom Simulator (which the creators say was 12 years old before they realized bad people existed) It is a delicious dish that looks like the one that he made at the time of his death. Roblox games are created by players, so the site must be constantly moderated. The company's moderation team handles a huge amount of content every day.

It's important to recognize that Hindenburg has a vested interest in making Roblox a stock tank. Hindenburg has a short position in the company (meaning it stands to profit if the stock price falls). Several other companies I've seen their stocks crater after releasing a report on them. However, it is also possible to independently verify some of the claims made in the report. A very quick search of the platform reveals that these in-game chat groups that appear to be soliciting and trading images do indeed exist and are active. And the accounts with questionable usernames that reference child abuse and Jeffrey Epstein are genuine. Some of the specific games and accounts mentioned in Hindenburg's report last week have been removed by the company.

Roblox defended itself in a statement posted online, saying, “Every day, tens of millions of users of all ages have safe and positive experiences on Roblox, and we adhere to our community standards.” said. But any safety incident is terrifying. We take content and conduct that does not adhere to our standards on our platform very seriously. ” The company further added: “We are continually evolving and enhancing our safety approach to catch and prevent malicious and harmful activity, including text chat filters that block inappropriate words and phrases; , which includes disallowing image sharing between users on Roblox” (as further reported in this article in the Guardian).

If your kids are playing on a platform like Roblox, triple-check their settings. Photo: Phil Noble/Reuters

Of course, this isn't the first sensational report about Roblox. In recent years, articles in CNN, the Observer, Wired, and many other publications have found that there is a large amount of inappropriate content on the platform, and that child predators are There are also some proven cases of using Roblox for crafting. Last July, More from Bloomberg In one such case, a man was sentenced to 15 years in prison for grooming a minor and having her cross state lines to perform sex acts as part of a broader investigation into the platform's apparent flaws in moderation and child safety. He was sentenced in 2018.

Many parents are worried about what to do. Roblox is part of the daily online lives of millions of children, even if the figure of around 80 million daily users is inflated, as Hindenberg claims. Anyone who has children of school age knows that it is very widely used. Is Roblox dangerous for kids? Should they stop playing it immediately?

Despite everything presented in this and other reports over the past few years, I believe it is entirely possible for children to play Roblox safely. Appropriate parental controls are in place to limit or eliminate the extent to which strangers can contact your child. When used correctly. If I had kids playing Roblox, I'd be checking all of these settings over and over again to make sure the “friends list” feature was set to include only real-life friends. We also recommend supervising young children to minimize the likelihood that they will encounter or actually seek out the many inappropriate games that seem to regularly elude Roblox's management efforts. I'm very reluctant to let you play this game without it.

Basic online safety education is critical for all children who use the Internet. Given the multiple convictions of child predators who used Roblox to access children, it is impossible to deny the presence of pedophiles on the platform, but it is difficult to objectively assess the extent of it. It's difficult. Some of what Hindenburg highlights in his report seems to me more likely to be the product of an adolescent fringe master than an actual child predator. Roblox is full of teenagers who have grown up with the game. When you see 900 variations of the username Jeffrey Epstein, you don't necessarily see 900 active child abusers, you see 900 stupid 14-year-olds trying to be funny. .

Full disclosure: I don't let my kids play Roblox, and I have no intention of starting them. I don't believe that a publicly traded company can be trusted to put the interests and safety of children ahead of profits. Moderation is expensive and difficult. No one in the big tech industry is any closer to building a system to prevent harmful material from appearing on these types of open platforms, or to prevent people from exploiting harmful material for their own purposes. No. Legitimate safety concerns aside, rather than trying to squeeze money out of kids to pay for endless in-game cosmetics and “experiences,” it's simply better to serve kids' imaginations and curiosity. There are hundreds of great games.

Only offline games can completely eliminate this risk of children being exposed to inappropriate content. After just a few hours of exploring Roblox, one thing is abundantly clear. It's not hard to find something very problematic.

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The wolf in the game Neva grows into a magnificent creature crowned with horns that protects you.

Neva, a game about a warrior and a she-wolf, surprised me. I've played so many beautiful, artistic indie platformers that it’s hard to find one that really makes me feel something. But there I was ugly crying in front of the TV after a few nights with Neva. It takes place over four seasons. The wolf starts out as a cub that you have to protect, but later grows into a magnificent creature with horns that can protect you. Use an elegant combination of jumps, double jumps, dashes, and strikes to explore an incredibly beautiful but horribly corrupt natural world and make multiple attempts to conquer the demons that poison it. Worth a few hours of anyone's life.

Available: PC, PS5, Nintendo Switch, Xbox
Approximate play time: 3-4 hours

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The cause of the Alamo…Nintendo's new clock. Photo: Nintendo

  • On Friday, a group of people who worked on highly acclaimed psychology and political science research RPG Disco Elysium announced the creation of a new studio to work on the game's spiritual successor. Then, confusingly, another new studio was announced same thingThis time it comes with a trailer. And on the same day, a third group announced another spiritual successor. as one viral tweet “Disco Elysium splitting into three unions claiming succession is more of a commentary on communism than the game wanted.”

  • A premium book/magazine hybrid about video games. above, Released today. Guardian games correspondent Keith Stuart and I feature in issue one. Naturally, his article is about Sega arcade boards and mine is about Nintendo details.

  • game freakThe developer of Pokemon suffered a hack of almost unprecedented scale.: Details about unreleased Pokemon game and movie projects, employee information, source code, and details about the series' development. decades I'm there now.

  • To cap off a truly bizarre week of video game news: nintendo We have announced an alarm clock that watches over you while you are sleeping. It's called “Alarmo,” and it wakes you up with the not-so-gentle sounds of Mario, Splatoon, or Zelda, synchronized with your groggy morning movements. the available now For those willing to jump through a few hoops (and pay £90).

What to clickwww.theguardian.com

Broadband provider leaves blind father without panic button

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My father, who is 101 years old, was left without a landline or panic button when BT switched his phone service from analogue to digital without warning. BT told me his contract was ending and to contact them about renewing it. I did, but was not informed to contact the panic button provider or that I needed an adapter for his analogue phone to work with the new service. After spending 4 hours on the phone with BT, they finally told me I needed a digital adapter for the phone to function. However, 4 days later, the adapter had not arrived and BT could not expedite delivery. My father, who is blind and has limited hearing, was unable to use his panic button for 5 days until the Careline team helped him.tuberculosis, Birmingham

This incident highlights the difficulties faced by vulnerable individuals when analogue phone lines are transitioned to digital services. Since September, customers renewing or starting contracts have been moved to digital voice, which requires a broadband router. However, digital landlines do not work during power outages and some panic buttons are incompatible, posing risks to vulnerable users.

Critics have raised concerns about the slow rollout of this service, originally set to complete by the end of next year. Following reports of “serious incidents” due to faulty panic buttons, the government has urged providers to extend the deadline. BT has pledged not to switch panic button users unless their equipment is compatible and to provide battery back-up solutions for power outages.

Despite these assurances, your father’s situation suggests that these promises were not fulfilled, potentially putting him at risk. You had to be by his side for five days in case of an emergency.

The Observer contacted BT about your father’s case and, although he was not eligible for their priority repair scheme, they expressed regret for the situation and offered a goodwill gesture to acknowledge his experience.

Email us at your.problems@observer.co.uk including your address and phone number. All submissions and publications are subject to our terms and conditions.

Source: www.theguardian.com

Press the button: The Fallout series is a true gamer’s creation in both appearance and gameplay | Games

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I I've been watching the last few episodes of the Fallout series on Prime Video. It's funny and gory, sometimes sentimental, and sometimes silly. In other words, it's exactly the kind of game that oscillates between quiet, tragic moments in which you explore traces of America and scenes in which you run out of ammunition and are chased down a hill by an irradiated scorpion.

Fallout's ensemble cast – highlighted by Walton Goggins' near-immortal ghoul and Ella Purnell's wide-eyed vault-dweller – deftly compartmentalize the different facets of the game's personality. As director Jonathan Nolan pointed out in an interview last week with Bethesda's Todd Howard, game director, this is a common device in television storytelling, but rare in games. Grand Theft Auto V does it well. Each of the three main characters represents a different part of his DNA in GTA (Trevor of violent chaos, Michael of authoritative crime drama, and Franklin of Compton realism).But in most games we play One Or we shape the character so that it becomes unique to us.

It makes it difficult to adapt the game to the screen. But instead of trying to convey the experience of playing a game, Fallout takes a step back to let the broken yet strangely optimistic world of Fallout take center stage, with each character exploring different aspects of that world. is showing.

“Even if you say you're adapting Fallout 3, whose Fallout 3 are you talking about? Because the way you play that game is very different from the way I play it. Because it could have been different,” Nolan told me. “That's the beauty of this kind of game.” [Bethesda] I'm drawn to the types of games that make the most of the medium and decide who your character will be within that world. Obviously, it doesn't lead directly to the series. ”

I was interested: how did Will Nolan play Fallout 3? “I always play as a Boy Scout first because I think my parents are watching,” he said. “So I'm going to make the smart decision and try again and play as a complete heel. But then I get weird, I get uncomfortable, I end up falling into a morally compromised middle ground.” It's a little pitiful.




Aaron Moten, right, one of the stars of Fallout. Photo: Jojo Wilden/Prime Video

I can relate. chaotic good In most games where it's allowed, I'm willing to cause chaos wherever I go, and happily align myself with characters and factions in power, but I’d never do anything to hurt people. I know it’s a game, but Assumption I want it to be a no-consequences place where I can experiment with morality, but I can’t bring myself to play the villain. This is in contrast to many players I know. They immediately start causing chaos in the game world just to see what happens. The kind of person who shoots horses in Red Dead Redemption.

“Every time I get a game and test it, I immediately think, “What will this game be able to do?” No matter what we do, every time we hand the player a weapon, the first thing they see is I’m going to shoot anyone who does,” Todd Howard said with a laugh. “It could be their mother. They’ll shoot whoever it is. Then they’ll be like, ‘Well, I’ll reload.’ ”

Trying to design a choice-based game based on the random whims of the players must be a nightmare, but Howard and Bethesda have decades of experience with it. When I interviewed him over the years, he talked about how players and systems interact to create new stories, and how games make what they do in-game real and meaningful. He spoke eloquently about the unique mechanism that makes you feel as though you are in the dark. You can’t do that with TV or movies. But as the Fallout show proves, if it’s made by people who really understand it, can We tell unique stories that still capture the essence of the games people love.

Fallout is great because, while this is also true of other successful game-to-movie adaptations in recent years, Appearance Yes, the sets are perfect, and they nail the game’s retro-future, nostalgic aesthetic. That’s because Nolan and screenwriters Geneva Robertson-Dworet and Graham Wagner actually played Fallout, understood it, and felt the power of its storytelling for themselves. Rather than trying to clumsily adapt the game’s story into a TV script, they wrote an amazing game expansion fan fiction on a very high budget. I’m all for this approach. Now that we have a generation of TV producers and filmmakers who grew up with games and truly understand them, I would like to see more of them.

Source: www.theguardian.com

Press the Button: Exploring the Exciting Gameplay of Dragon’s Dogma 2 | Games

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I love how games keep me so occupied that I think about them all day long while living my real life. This doesn’t happen a lot these days because I’ve played so many games over the past 30 years. It happens when a game does something I’ve never seen before. For example, last year’s The Legend of Zelda: Kingdom of Tears featured a reckless gimmick. Or sometimes it’s because of something I do, like Dragon’s Dogma 2, which I’m still playing after reviewing last week. We’ve seen it before, but not for very long.

In the 12 years between the original Dragon’s Dogma and this sequel, Elden Ring is the only game that has come close to recapturing that brand of fantasy action role-playing with its chaotic, stubborn idiosyncrasies. This is a game where you can ruin a quest by fooling around for too long before pursuing the next objective. On an otherwise empty journey through the countryside, a griffin can appear and run you over to death almost instantly. The multidimensional beings who act as your companions on your journey contract a mysterious disease that unleashes the apocalypse when you save the game. You only have one save slot, so every decision counts. If you make a mistake, you have to accept it.

While some players have had disappointing reactions to the game’s inflexibility, I respect Dragon’s Dogma 2’s willingness to ruin your day at times. It will not bend to your will. You need to work around the rules, even if you don’t necessarily know what they are at first. At first, you might be annoyed that characters often tell you about interesting legends and rumors, but the game also marks them on the map to show you where they are likely to be found. And over time, when you are left out in the wilderness at night, without camping gear, and try to take shelter in a cave which leads to a crumbling mountain shrine, you may find a real Sphinx there. You realized that even if someone had marked the location on your map, you would never have done that. You must have been in awe the first time you saw those glowing eyes in the dark.

Conventional wisdom in open-world games has long held that games are structured like to-do lists. A character with an icon above their head will appear, they will give you something to do, and the game will conveniently mark the location and start checking boxes before receiving the reward. The map is full of small icons that show you where to find things you might need to upgrade your equipment or further your objectives. In recent years, games like Zelda: Breath of the Wild and Elden Ring have ditched these conventions, making their worlds feel once again mystical, realistic, and dangerous, but not Dragon’s Dogma 2.

The appeal of Dragon’s Dogma 2 is that it is less susceptible to external influences. Dragon’s Dogma 2 feels like the development team has spent the last decade or more playing only their own games. It’s appealingly free from outside influences and doesn’t adopt any of the ideas that other games have become standard for since 2012. For example, you cannot use menus to fast-traverse the map, except in a few rare cases. If you want to go somewhere, you have to walk. For many years.

You follow that path and if you stray from it, you’re very likely to run into something that will kill you. But you’ll also have adventures like when I found a haunted castle full of skeletons. By the time you and your team reach your next town as the night draws on, exhausted and full of trinkets you picked up along the way, you’ll feel like you’ve actually accomplished something. One way to get around on foot is by riding an oxcart. This takes even more time than incredible walking, unless the character falls asleep and wakes up at the destination. Also, during your journey, you may be attacked by monsters, destroy your entire cart, and end up stranded in a strange land in the middle of the night. It’s like a cruel joke.

What all of this gives the player is what I would describe as a feeling of being fully awake. You can’t switch off your brain when playing games like this. With no minimap or quest markers to tell you where to go, you have to remember what people say, use your eyes to read your way, and find things in the distance. You must be ready to fight when called upon, and be ready to run for your life when cornered. I keep seeing things I’ve never seen before.

Games like this have periodically pulled me out of my funk over the decades, reminding me that they can still be exciting and unpredictable. Regular reader Iain wrote the question last week that was part of the impetus for this issue. “As a gamer in my late 70s, I’ve been playing games since 1985. I think I’ve reached a point where I’ve seen it all before. Are there truly innovative titles, or do they stick to the ongoing series (some of which reach double digits)?” Well, Ian, for me Dragon’s Dogma 2 is one of those games that restores my faith. It may be a sequel, but it hasn’t been this great yet.

Source: www.theguardian.com

Putting an end to the toxic rivalry between Xbox and PlayStation: The button to push

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MLast week's big Xbox announcement from Microsoft turned out to be somewhat anticlimactic. Just four games, none particularly shocking, will be coming to PlayStation and Nintendo Switch in the near future. (Annoyingly, Microsoft executives declined to be named, but it was later reported by Famitsu and The Verge that the games in question were Sea of ​​Thieves, Grounded, Pentiment, and Hi-Fi Rush.) (This matches the game I have in mind; I've heard it from other sources.)

Microsoft has no intention of exiting the console market or making all its games multi-platform, as the Whiplash rumormongers have hotly speculated. And the (very valuable) Xbox Game Pass subscription service remains exclusive to Xbox and PC.

This is not essentially news. Microsoft is already one of the biggest publishers of PlayStation, especially now that it owns both Bethesda and Activision-Blizzard. So everything from Skyrim to Call of Duty to Minecraft is technically a Microsoft game. If Microsoft's head of games, Phil Spencer, announced last year that Starfield would be developed for the PlayStation 5, or if Xbox head Sarah Bond announced that Microsoft would develop an Xbox-only game, for example. If they had said they were abandoning the idea completely, well, that would have been the case. This is a big change worth reporting home (or, in my case, writing to you). Rather, it's a small extension of a strategy Microsoft has pursued for years. Every time I've talked to Microsoft executives over the years, they've always offered some variation of the line, “Play the games you want, with the people you want, wherever you want.” Last week's Xbox broadcast.

Instead, the announcement highlighted how harmful and outdated the idea of ​​console wars is.Adults are still overly invested in the idea of ​​a console identity, and some of the products Microsoft has spent billions of dollars developing or acquiring on other, far more popular gaming consoles. The very prospect of releasing it was enough to cause excitement. tantrums and emotional outbursts;. The Xbox community has been in an uproar over the issue for weeks, with X people posting wartime memes and YouTubers posting videos with titles like: “Xbox…it's over!”.

No doubt some of this anger is designed to get more clicks, but most of it is misplaced passion. Fans care a lot about Xbox and the games that Xbox Studios has brought us over the years, but fundamentally they care about which machine the video game is played on, Steam deck or Switch, Xbox or PlayStation. . Microsoft's own management has been saying this for years, and anyone who hasn't heard it hasn't.

Sea of ​​Thieves on Xbox One. Photo: Rare

The console wars were never anything more than a marketing strategy. Like when Sega vs. Nintendo created one of the great business rivalries of the 1990s (remember the catchphrase “What does Sega do that Nintendo doesn't do?”) and when Microsoft , there were times over the years when it was still very entertaining. ™'s continued fumbling with his Xbox One announcement in 2013 gave Sony ample opportunity. playful piss.

But that's no longer fun, now that the culture wars have turned every aspect of modern life, from politics to parkruns, into a hostile nightmare. It's ridiculous to see people arguing over video game consoles as if it were a matter of life and death.

But even if what we're discussing doesn't matter, how we discuss it does. Toxic fandom is a problem everywhere from football to video games to Star Wars, and its loud, illogical, and mean-spirited nature reflects trends in public discourse since 2016. doing. Bad actors have tried to use video game fandom as a weapon to direct their anger. If you set goals that align with their purpose, they will try again.

Getting back to Xbox, to me, the problem with Microsoft's presence in the gaming world is that it's a huge company focused on continued growth. Unlike Sony or Nintendo, the company has nearly limitless resources, as recent acquisition activity shows. We're still working on changing our history of acquiring great studios. crush them Through corporate intervention. I wonder if some companies have the power to buy out competitors in creative industries where competition is key to the diversity, innovation, and creative value of work. Microsoft has started bringing Xbox games to rival consoles, which actually suggests do not have It's desperate to dominate this space and allow more players to benefit from the fruits of its many studio efforts. This is safe.

This isn't the end of Xbox consoles, but let's take this opportunity to call for an end to the manufactured console wars. They really make us all look bad.

what to play

pacific drive. Photo: Ironwood Studio

I understand that pacific drive It's inspired by Jeff VanderMeer's bizarre novel, and playing it is like driving a beat-up car into the exclusion zone of Annihilation. There, strange and frightening things await you under eerie hues and thunderous skies. And your poor vehicle is the only thing standing between you and them. You ride into the zone over and over again, never knowing what you're going to see. Repair the car in the garage with what you found and try to further investigate what is going on.

Everything is very peaceful until it suddenly isn't so peaceful and you fumble to manually turn the lights and wipers on and off while running away from the storm.

Available on: PC, PS5
Estimated play time: Still do not know…

what to read

Stroke Tthe Animals video game by TJ Gardner. Photo: TJ Gardner

  • If you've ever absentmindedly looked at the PlayStation Store, you may have seen it. pet the animal Game – A basic, eyebrow-raising game where you press a button and pet an animal (i.e. a JPEG of an animal) for a few minutes to earn a simple trophy. When Ellie Gibson looked into the contents of these games, he discovered an unexpected story.

  • Peripheral device manufacturers PDP It is coming out as new guitar controller Used in the festival music game component of Fornite (and Rock Band 4 for those still playing). Fun fact: Fortnite Festival was developed by Harmonix, the developer of the original Guitar Hero and Rock Band games.

  • If you can get to Asda, you might be able to buy a copy of last year's ill-fated Wizard FPS Immortals of Aveum On PS5 for 1 pound. It's not a bad game, but it was released in one of the busiest gaming years on record and sadly sank without a trace.

  • Embracer grouphas gone on a wild acquisition spree funded by Saudi speculative funds that suddenly disappeared last year, laying off 1,400 people, canceling 29 games and shuttering several of the studios it acquired. Therefore, the company's CEO Definitely a popular statement Layoffs are “something everyone has to overcome.”

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Skull and Bones Review – Yo Ho Ho and some fun

Ever wanted to play Mario Kart to the accompaniment of a live jazz band? In Oklahoma, you can:

Report finds LGBTQ+ representation in video games lags behind movies and TV

Tomb Raider 1-3 Remastered Edition Review – A great remaster of Lara Croft’s Lost Ark

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sunset overdrive. Photo: Microsoft

This week's question from reader Paul:

“What game would you like to go back and re-score (if you could)? Were you too harsh or too lenient on the game back then?”

So, Paul, it's clear that I was right from beginning to end. Except when I'm not. Most of my early critical gaffes are thankfully hidden in the pages of his 10-20 year old magazines, but some remain in the public domain. Dear reader, may I humbly declare that I was wrong about Assassin's Creed 3? should have been more strict towards.

Source: www.theguardian.com

Why Does Pressing the Button in Palworld Make You Feel Cold? Understanding the Game’s Effects on Emotions

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TThe biggest story in the gaming world so far this year is Palworld, the Pokémon-with-guns early access game that broke and broke concurrent player records on PC.It's showing some signs that it's unsustainable, as these player numbers show dropout In recent weeks, developers have revealed: eye-watering cost Although it requires keeping servers online for so many people (about $600,000 a year), it still has the potential to be the biggest game of 2024 in terms of pure revenue.

There's something a little off-putting about Palworld that makes other developers and critics wrinkle their noses. Unlike Minecraft's blocky animals, it's not just unpleasant to point a gun at a creature that's designed to look cute.The character design became a hot topic because it was too similar to Pokemon. suspicion of plagiarism, the 3D models of some of the game's creatures are incredibly closely matched to those from recent Pokemon games. (The Pokémon Company is currently investigating, but Pocketpair CEO Takuro Mizobe said: palworld said The studio says it has “cleared legal review” and that it has “absolutely no intention to infringe on any other company's intellectual property.” ) Lead developers are also actively outspoken about the use of AI tools, which is a very unpopular opinion among all users. Everyone except a few executives is working on the 2024 game.

Pokemon Scarlet and Violet, from 2022. Photo provided by: Pokemon Co., Ltd.

This game borrows ideas from several other games without incorporating many of its own ideas. When you play Palworld, what comes to mind is not Pokemon, but Ark: Survival Evolved. This is his 9 year old survival game where you tame dinosaurs in addition to the usual collecting, building and crafting. Once you capture a creature, it will either be forced into indentured servitude within your base, or it will come to fight alongside you in the wilderness.

It's nothing we haven't seen in some other survival games, but Palworld makes it completely smooth and takes a lot of the hectic work out between you and the next great upgrade. Like fellow smash hit Genshin, this game employs familiar gaming tropes and is so easy and engaging that it's hard to put down.

It helps that other players aren't trying to ruin your fun like Ark and Rust do. In another survival game, there's always someone trying to smash you with rocks and take your stuff. There is currently no player vs player competition in Palworld (planned for a later version). Instead, you collaborate with other players on the server. The game's attitude towards creatures is cruel, they exist to be killed, enslaved, or eaten. However, the attitude towards players is very welcoming. There's a reason it's popular.

Despite this, I don't like Palworld. It's soulless, and anecdotally it seems like there are a lot of kids in the 19 million player base, even though this is not a game made with kids in mind. It's violent and immoral, especially when compared to the Pokemon games from which its creature design is clearly inspired. In Pokémon, a children's classic that has evolved over 25 years, your creatures aren't just pets, they're companions. You fight them for sport, sure, which Peta won't approve of, but they don't get hurt, they don't have weapons, and of course you don't either. eat they.

Massacre on a farm…Palworld. Photo: pocket pair

Palworld is more like what panicked parents and reactionary preachers of the late 1990s had in mind. Pokemon was like when Time magazine featured fear-mongering headlines. Be careful of pokemoniacs And Christian groups claimed that Pikachu was literally a manifestation of the devil. “Monsters make disturbing playmates. No matter how toylike and frivolous they may seem, they are unnatural and ultimately deal with unresolved fears,” Time magazine wrote in 1999. Stated. Consider the dubious fascination with the creature called Pokémon… The 4- to 12-year-old set may exhibit the most troubling enthusiasm about Pokémon. ” It's funny to read that line now, but I remember when video games were always talked about in mainstream media in this tone, as a symptom of serious mental illness among kids in the '90s.

Anyway, I'm not here to create a moral panic about Palworld. It's ironic, but it's also mostly harmless and undeniably compelling. I wouldn't let her 7 year old play, but anyone over 12 would have had a much worse experience with her YouTube. There's probably nothing new under the sun, and most of the upcoming breakout games will be repackaged ideas he's seen ten times before. But we keep hoping that the next unexpected hit we'll play this year will leave us with a smile instead of a nasty taste in our mouths.

what to play

Dream Daddy: Daddy dating simulator. Photo: Game Gramps

Since it's Valentine's Day, I have to recommend a game about love that many games don't tackle with confidence. dream daddy is a dating game where you play a single father looking for love with one of seven other eligible single fathers in a new neighborhood. Many thought it was an over-the-top joke until it was released in 2017, but it remains one of the most sincere and unexpectedly touching dating games of all time. Teenage daughters often muster up the courage to talk to the father of your choice. It also often leads to mildly surreal mini-games, where you try to wow your date with competitive pride in your child's achievements, for example. The game turns out to be about the love between parents and children, and the budding romance between you and the sexy singles in your neighborhood. They all have their own problems and are stories that are handled with humor and compassion.

Available on: Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PC, smartphone,
Estimated play time: 2-10 hours depending on how many dads you want to date

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Star Wars x Fortnite, anyone? Disney invested $1.5 billion in Fortnite maker Epic. Photo: PictureLux/Hollywood Archive/Alamy

  • We're still waiting for Microsoft to outline its vision for the future of Xbox. It will take place tomorrow evening UK time. via podcast Featuring Xbox executives Sarah Bond, Phil Spencer, and Matt Booty. This is according to a recent study from 2K Games, which suggests that the PS5 is outperforming the Xbox Series X two to one.

  • I loved Gene Park's feature on the Yakuza series in the Washington Post. “Japan's crime game series captures hearts with its gentle and heroic masculinity.”. Even if you don't have time to play for dozens of hours, you'll get to the heart of what makes these games so appealing.

  • British maker of Jagex, the developer of Runescape; Acquired for £900m By two private equity firms.

  • Disney is Invested $1.5 billion (!) in Epic Games As part of a deal to create a “new permanent universe” [that] It provides numerous opportunities for consumers to play, watch, shop and engage with content, characters and stories from Disney, Pixar, Marvel, Star Wars, Avatar and more. ” That sounds like it could mean some more Star Wars skins will be added to Fortnite.

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