Nuclear Monster

  • Unfortunately they aren’t licensing this incredible song by the Idle Thumbs, but the re-animated husk of THQ Nordic is continuing this fine year of remasters by releasing a “re-Mars-tered” edition (ugh) of Volition’s classic, Red Faction: Guerrilla.

    This is one of my favorite games, and I’m glad that anyone who hasn’t played it before will get a new chance to experience Guerrilla, although I’m not sure what is going on with the protagonist’s legs in this screenshot they’ve provided:

    Red Faction Guerilla ReMarstered Edition 8

    Red Faction Guerilla ReMarstered Edition legs

    The press release only mentions graphical enhancements to this version of the game, and it’s a free upgrade for Steam users on Windows who already have the game. Otherwise, it’ll be $30 when Red Faction Guerrilla Re-Mars-tered is released in “Q2 2018” on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Windows via Steam.

    Here’s an excerpt from the draft to an unfinished review I wrote of the game in 2009:

    It is an open-world kind of game, with missions given to you by the Red Faction, a terrorist insurgency on Mars.

    Developed by the same folks who’ve brought you Saints Row, the Freespace series, and a variety of other critically acclaimed titles they’ve titled Guerrilla accurately as well; the protagonist is a thoughtfully armed and excitable guerrilla.

    Some hostages have been taken by the fascist group running Mars?
    BLOW UP THE EDF!
    Afterwards, give the hostages a ride home.

    There is a side-mission where they want you to a destroy some industrial equipment with only a running start, a sledgehammer, and some exploding barrels?
    Swing at the barrels, realize you can’t hit them easily, then get frustrated so you can RUN UP AND BEAT THE SHIT OUTTA THAT INDUSTRIAL EQUIPMENT WITH YOUR SLEDGEHAMMER!

    Your buddy wants to hang out with his new 70s popular-mechanics sci-fi car and you don’t know what to do?
    Sure you do!
    Strap a turret on to it, and start BLOWING UP THE EDF!

    All of this is possible due to the work Volition has put into the destructible buildings. Without that, this game would just be another mundane third-person open-world clusterfuck.

    Congratulations to them for their incredible achievement, not since Crackdown have I been this entertained by an open-world game. Guerrilla takes everything that is fun for casual GTA players – getting as high a wanted level as possible and killing the local authority figures – and ramps it up to a whole new level of destruction.

  • Shaun, a Patreon-backed video producer, has made this video that re-examines last year’s absolutely horrible “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville Virgina, with some new perspective gained after the postmortem analysis by an independent law firm hired by the city and reports from journalists.

    The video is almost hour long, and is difficult to watch, but it is well worth your time if you’re not familiar with the most extreme examples of racist bullshit in the US.

  • It’s $1100 for a complete set with the lighthouses, controllers, and all, or $800 if you want to reuse an original Vive setup. You get higher resolution screens, a better headstrap, headphones. Kyle Orland and Sam Machkovech reviewed it for Ars:

    Despite the improvements, though, the Vive Pro still includes some of the same basic design problems of the original. The eyepiece housing (which now allows for additional room for eyeglasses, toggled by an easy button press and slider) still ends up pressed up tightly against the front of your face, creating a thick seal that traps heat and puts significant pressure on the sinuses. Any decently long VR session threatens to turn your face into a sweaty, red mess that can lead to significant steam buildup on the lenses. Worse, the front-of-face foam padding feels decidedly non-Pro. HTC has been showing this off at press events with a custom leather face cushion, and for this price, we wish they’d offered the same option as a consumer default.

    There’s nothing that sounds more appealing than turning into a sweaty red mess. The resolution bump is the best part of the Vive Pro, but is it really worth paying over twice the price of the base Vive if you’re starting from scratch? Read the rest of their review.

  • Time was you had to move games from one drive to another by using hacky programs that abused features of Windows’ filesystem to make virtual links from a folder on one drive to another. For Steam games that isn’t a problem anymore. Now that Steam can use multiple game library folders, maybe one for each drive, Valve have added a feature to move games between library folders.

    Here’s how it works if you don’t already have a separate library folder on another drive:

    1. Click the Steam menu, and then click on Settings:1 settings
    2. Click on the Downloads tab on the left, then click on the Steam Library Folders button:2a downloads
    3. Click on the Add Library Folder button and add a new folder if you don’t have one on the drive you’d like to move the games to.2b library folders
    4. Click Close and then OK. Right-click on the game you’d like to move to another library folder, click on Properties:3 properties
    5. Click on the Local Files tab, then click on the Move Install Folder button.4 local files
    6. Finally, select the new location for the game you’d like to move, click Move Folder, and then wait:5 move install folder

  • IPad 9 7 inch Pencil Slider 32718

    Apple announced a new iPad with a bunch of backslapping about how much they love education today at their event held at Lane Tech College Prep High School in Chicago. It’s an updated version of last year’s iPad Cheap with an A10 system-on-a-chip that also works with their stylus, the Pencil. The 2018 iPad Cheap is still missing a ton from the more expensive iPad Pro line, like more modern display technology with a variable framerate. The iPad Mini still hasn’t been updated in almost 3 years despite Apple charging $400 for the iPad Mini 4 versus $330 for this new iPad Cheap.

    As usual, I round numbers up to the nearest whole dollar because I don’t care for deceptive pricing.

    Here’s an updated rundown of their iPad lineup:

    • 2018 iPad Cheap at 9.7
      • non-laminated (thicker) display
      • A10 processor
      • 2GB RAM
      • Supports the ($100) Apple Pencil.
      • Old ass 1st generation Touch ID.
      • 32GB ($330) or 128 GB ($430) wifi only
      • 32GB ($460) and 128GB ($560) with cellular
    • iPad Mini 4 at 7.9
      • laminated (thinner) display
      • A8 processor
      • 2GB RAM
      • 128GB ($400) wifi only
      • 128GB ($530) with cellular
    • iPad Pro at 12.9
      • laminated (thinner) display
      • Wide color gamut (for professional color accuracy and better looking photos and videos)
      • True tone (makes the screen match the color temperature of the environment like a sheet of paper would)
      • ProMotion (variable frame rate)
      • A10X processor
      • 4GB RAM
      • Smart connector
      • 64GB ($800) 256GB ($950) wifi only 512GB ($1150)
      • 64GB ($930) 256GB ($1080) and 512GB ($1280) with cellular
    • iPad Pro at 10.5
      • laminated (thinner) display
      • Wide color gamut (for professional color accuracy and better looking photos and videos)
      • True tone (makes the screen match the color temperature of the environment like a sheet of paper would)
      • ProMotion (variable frame rate)
      • A10X processor
      • 4GB RAM
      • Smart connector
      • 64GB ($650) 256GB ($800) 512GB ($1000) wifi only
      • 64GB ($780) 256GB ($930) 512GB ($1130) with cellular

    Since I last revisited the table of confusing iPad decisions, Apple bumped up the price of some storage tiers.

    Apple also updated their free iWork office utilities today with new features like smart annotation. Additionally, they announced other software for educators, students, and developers who want to work with the new ClassKit API.

    New hardware was announced from Logitech, including a cut-down $50 version of Apple’s Pencil, called the Crayon that lacks pressure sensitivity but has a better external design for normal human beings. It appears that this device will only be sold through educational sales channels.

    One good thing that Apple announced is that students and teachers get 200GB of iCloud storage as long as the Apple ID they use is managed through their organization. Regular iCloud accounts have a tiny 5GB of storage for all their photos and other data. Apple typically charges $3 per month for 200GB of iCloud storage.

    Apple’s extended warranty program with accidental damage insurance was dropped in price to $70 for this iPad Cheap as well as the Mini.

    Overall, I don’t think that this new iPad Cheap is at all an approachable device for many educators who are still scrounging for basic materials like paper and pencils, while their students are dealing with hunger and homelessness. The $30 discount offered for schools who want to buy this new iPad Cheap is probably meaningful with large purchases, but it won’t mean anything for the poorest schools and students.

    The education theme of the event is an extension of the ongoing co-option of public resources by private businesses. Just like NASA ceding their public work and research to private industries, using expensive closed platforms for public schools is not a good look. One Apple presenter even referenced JFK’s “We Choose to go to The Moon” speech.

    Apple spend a large part of the presentation advocating for the iPad as a device for creation, but also for coding software. To treat the iPad as a replacement for the modern computer in creative endeavors, or a device for coding, is especially ridiculous when you realize that you can’t ship a game or app for Apple’s app store without using a Mac. iPads don’t have Xcode.

    For anyone else who wants an iPad with support for Apple’s Pencil stylus, almost as much processing power as the current Pro models, but is OK giving up enhanced display technologies and half the RAM, the 2018 iPad Cheap is a fine choice and a decent upgrade to last year’s model. It’s available today and I would expect more updates to the iPad line later this year.