Rare shows the ‘Conker’ game that never was
If you know your Rare history, you probably know that Conker’s Bad Fur Day began life as a tame, kid-friendly game and evolved into the foul-mouthed ‘mature’ title that reached your Nintendo 64. Have you wondered what that original squirrel adventure looked like in action, however? Rare is happy to help. It just posted unreleased footage of the game when it was still known as Twelve Tales: Conker 64. To say that this early version was playing it safe would be an understatement. As you’ll see below, Conker’s companion Berry (aka Berri) wasn’t nearly so sexualized. Meanwhile, the gameplay mechanics involved innocuous things like unicycles and differently-themed hats — no feces monsters here.
The peek helps you get a sense of why Rare pushed Conker in a very different direction. Twelve Tales was going to be just another 3D platformer with a cutesy mascot, and that an especially big problem when Rare’s own Banjo-Kazooie largely covered the same turf. While you could criticize Bad Fur Day for going too far in the other direction and chasing offensiveness for its own sake, the end result at least stood out in a crowded field.
Via: Kotaku
Source: Rare (YouTube)
‘FTL: Faster Than Light’ soundtrack on vinyl looks out of this world
One of the direct results of folks helping Subset Games, the developers of FTL: Faster Than Light, absolutely demolish their Kickstarter goal was hiring Ben Prunty to score the game. And now thanks to iam8bit you’ll soon be able to listen to it on the best sounding format possible: vinyl. The two LP set features some truly incredible artwork from designer Leif Podhajsky, trippy starburst green and black vinyl and a download code. To make sure those atmospheric sci-fi sounds are at their best, the soundtrack was mastered for wax at Telegraph Mastering Studio whose clients include Sufjan Stevens and Steve Aoki among many others. The release is up for pre-order right now, ships early next year and will run you $35 plus the cost it takes to get it to your door. Don’t have a vinyl fetish obsession but still want these tunes? They’re available for $5 over on Prunty’s Bandcamp page.
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Source: iam8bit
Cloud Chasers is a new indie game about migration and survival
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There are plenty of brilliant indie games out there but many of them never reach mobile platforms – for once, though, one game that looks really interesting is coming our way. Cloud Chasers by Blindflug Studios (the same folks who made First Strike) is going to launch on Android and iOS on the 15th of October. Subtitled “A Journey of Hope”, Cloud Chasers sees you take control of a father and daughter duo, Farmer Francesco and Amelia, as they migrate across an endless desert in the hopes of going somewhere better. Driven by their story, you’ll need to keep the pair alive by managing their health and water – and to harness water, you’ll need to get up on your glider and harvest the clouds. Check out the official release trailer:
There’s a haunting beauty to Cloud Chasers and the game looks well executed on all fronts – no wonder it’s caught attention at multiple indie conventions. Once again, Blindflug addresses an important issue in its game – while First Strike addressed the issue of nuclear mutually assured destruction, Cloud Chasers addresses global migration, an issue I’m sure many of us are now acutely aware of, and Blindflug hopes to give us a different perspective of it.
What do you think about Cloud Chasers? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.
Source: Cloud Chasers
The post Cloud Chasers is a new indie game about migration and survival appeared first on AndroidSPIN.
Scottrade learned about a data breach from law enforcement
Companies typically find out about data breaches first-hand, and bring in the police after the fact to (hopefully) identify the culprits. Unfortunately, Scottrade didn’t even have that luxury: the investment firm only learned about a huge breach after federal law enforcement showed up at its door with word of an ongoing investigation. The intruders compromised roughly 4.6 million accounts between late 2013 and early 2014. They focused primarily on snagging contact information, but the targeted system also included information as sensitive as Social Security numbers.
Scottrade is quick to stress that neither passwords nor trading platforms were at risk, and it’s offering a free year’s worth of identity protection services if you’re still worried about fraud two years after the incident took place. Still, the revelation isn’t exactly confidence-inspiring. It suggests that the company’s security measures weren’t thorough enough to even detect the hacking attempt, let alone stop it, and that millions of customers were unaware of the danger until the feds stepped in.
[Image credit: Chris Yunker, Flickr]
Via: Wall Street Journal
Source: Scottrade
Apple to Open Up Apple TV’s Universal Search to Additional Apps via New API
One of the key features of the new Apple TV set to launch later this month is universal search, which allows users to find content across a number of different services using text entry or, in some countries, Siri voice search. Universal search will work across iTunes, Netflix, Hulu, HBO, and Showtime at launch, but it was initially unclear whether the feature would be expanded to include additional content sources over time.
In a follow-up story on his interview with Tim Cook last month, BuzzFeed‘s John Paczkowski relates some additional details on Apple TV shared by Cook, including word that developers will indeed be able to make their content available to universal search via an API.
“At launch we’ll have iTunes, Netflix, Hulu, Showtime, and HBO — so we’ll have five major inputs into universal search initially,” Cook said. “But we’re also opening an API, so that others can join in.”
And Apple’s confident that they will do just that. “I think that many, many people will want to be in that search,” Cook said. “And that’s great for users. Think about your experience today. Even if you’re fortunate enough to have the content you want to watch in an app, you sometimes don’t remember exactly where that show is, so you’re going to Netflix or Hulu or Showtime. You shouldn’t have to do that. It should be very simple.”
Cook went on to note that universal search will be intelligent enough to know which services the user is subscribed to, highlighting which sources are available free or with existing subscriptions. This is true even when different services offer only a portion of a television series’ seasons, such as a show where older seasons are available through Netflix with an existing subscription but newer seasons may need to be purchased through iTunes or through a new HBO subscription.
Danny Boyle on ‘Steve Jobs’: Casting Michael Fassbender, Apple’s Lack of Involvement, Accuracy
In a new interview with The Daily Beast, Steve Jobs director Danny Boyle spoke about many aspects of the movie, from why he casted Michael Fassbender to Apple’s lack of involvement with the film and whether it’s accurate to the life of Steve Jobs.
After Christian Bale dropped out of the role and Sony Pictures courted the likes of Leonardo DiCaprio and Bradley Cooper, the production chose Michael Fassbender to play the Apple co-founder. Boyle admits Fassbender doesn’t look like Jobs, but says that there’s a drive inside Fassbender that resembles Jobs.
What I saw in Michael was, aside from him being a great actor, this obsessive dedication to his craft, which I felt made him perfect for Jobs. Even though he doesn’t look exactly like him, by the end of the film, you believe it’s him.
Boyle goes on to say that he “won’t even pretend to say that this is the definitive portrait of Jobs,” noting that he acknowledges that some people will take the movie in a different way. Boyle says the film attempts to show as much of Jobs as possible, but that they weren’t able to fully capture everything about him.
As Raymond Chandler said, in any work of art there’s a sense of redemption. He clearly achieves that in his other family, which we don’t touch on. He did move towards knowing that even though he did make the most beautiful things in the world, he himself was poorly made. The ability to recognize that is a big step. He is our hero, if you want to call him that.
Finally, Boyle speaks a little about Apple’s lack of involvement in the film. In a recent interview with The Daily Beast, Ridley Scott, who directed Apple’s infamous “1984” commercial, said that the filmmakers wanted to include the commercial in the film. However, Apple wouldn’t agree because they didn’t like the direction the film takes. “It’s about his daughter,” Scott tells The Daily Beast. “Which is an odd choice because he was a genius designer and visionary.”
Sources at Universal Pictures tell The Daily Beast that Apple was “not helpful” in the making of the film. When asked about whether Apple tried to obstruct the making of Steve Jobs, Boyle dodges the question and says “We’ve had our struggles and we’re going to get the film out there, and once we get the film out there, I’m sure we can talk about all that.”
The full Daily Beast interview goes more in-depth with Danny Boyle, touching on the movie’s behind-the-scenes drama after the Sony hack, the film’s unique structure and more.
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