‘Skullgirls’ is coming to mobile with a role-playing twist
Lab Zero’s hyper-stylized fighting game Skullgirls has been available on almost every modern platform at some point in its history, but you couldn’t play it on your smartphone… until now. Hidden Variable (best known for producing versions of Threes) has revealed that it’s developing a Skullgirls game for Android and iOS that shakes up its formula. Rather than making a straightforward brawler, the studio is adding role-playing elements — you collect, equip and upgrade characters as they progress through the story. There’s even a Fight Assist option that lets you focus more on the bigger picture and less on the moment-to-moment action.
The title is only slated to arrive sometime before the end of the year, but you can apply to get into the closed beta right now. You’ll probably want a fairly high-end device, though, as Skullgirls mobile reportedly needs a “little extra moxie” to run smoothly. The big question: how much will it cost to play? Here’s hoping the collectible element doesn’t mean a heavy dependence on in-app purchases. While Skullgirls has built up a good reputation over the years, it won’t be so much fun if you have to pay extra (or grind for hours) to unlock fan favorite characters like Parasoul or Valentine.
Via: Kotaku
Source: Hidden Variable
Google Offers Free 4-Month Play Music Trial Subscription to Celebrate July 4th
In celebration of July 4th, Google is offering new U.S. subscribers to its Play Music streaming service a four-month trial completely free of charge.
Play Music subscribers can choose from a library of over 35 million tracks, which usually costs $9.99 per month, so the offer amounts to a $40 saving and users can cancel the subscription at any time.
Customers who sign up to the trial will also gain access to the company’s ad-free YouTube Red service, which features original content, and enables offline and background playback of YouTube videos on mobile devices.
Prospective users of the service should note that it’s a U.S.-only promotion, and is only available to those who have never signed up for Play Music or YouTube Red in the past.
Google Play Music is a viable alternative to Apple Music, Tidal, and Spotify, as the company offers an iOS app as well as desktop access via a web browser. Third-party standalone apps like Radiant Player are also available for accessing the service on a Mac.
In addition to music streaming, Play membership includes access to a cloud storage locker where users can store up to 50,000 of their own songs, with or without a paid Play Music subscription, using the Google Music Manager client.
Google’s promotion comes the same week that Spotify accused Apple of using its App Store process to stymie rival streaming services after Apple rejected a Spotify app update.
Apple responded to the accusation through its lawyers, who said Spotify was seeking exemptions to rules that have applied to all app developers long before Apple Music was introduced.
Apple Music also celebrated its one-year anniversary earlier this week. The service has 15 million paying subscribers, far short of Spotify’s user base, which is roughly twice that amount.
Tag: Google Play Music
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The Hottest Android apps and games around (July 1)
Welcome to Week 6 of The Hottest Android apps and games around!. On top of pulling the top 10 downloaded apps and games from Google Play and the Amazon Appstore I have also included the top 5 New apps and games from Google Play and Amazon’s Underground project.
If you are not familiar with Underground check out this Article, but it’s basically Amazon taking apps that normally cost money and making them free, even the in-app purchases are gone so you pay nothing for an app that normally cost money! Leave a comment below if you download any of this weeks apps.
Top 5 New Free Apps and Games (Google Play)
Top 5 New Paid Apps and Games (Google Play)
Top Actually Free Apps and Games (Amazon AppStore Underground)
Sonic Dash
2. Flow Free
3. Word Twist
4. Flow Free: Bridges
5. WorldCraft : 3D Build & Craft
Top 10 Free Apps and Games (Google Play)
Messenger
Snapchat
Facebook
slither.io
Farm Heroes Super Saga
Instagram
Pandora® Radio
Netflix
GO Speed (Clean & AppLock)
iFunny 🙂
Top Free Apps and Games (Amazon Appstore)
slither.io
Sonic Dash
Facebook Messenger
ES File Explorer
Goat Simulator Waste of Space
Amazon Video
Netflix
YouTube
Color Switch
Facebook
Top Paid Apps and Games (Google Play)
Minecraft: Pocket Edition $6.99
Nova Launcher Prime $0.99
Teeny Titans – Teen Titans Go! $3.99
Wheel of Fortune PUZZLE POP $0.99
Ultimate Guitar Tabs & Chords $0.99
Sleep as Android Unlock $0.99
Minecraft: Story Mode $4.99
Geometry Dash $1.99
Bloons TD 5 $2.99
Poweramp Full Version Unlocker $0.99
Top Paid Apps and Games (Amazon AppStore)
Minecraft – Pocket Edition $6.99
Teeny Titans – Teen Titans Go! $3.99
Plants vs. Zombies $0.99
Geometry Dash $1.99
Minecraft: Story Mode $4.99
Five Nights at Freddy’s $2.99
Bridge to Another World: The Others Collector’s Edition (Full) $2.99
Toca Life: Vacation $2.99
Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 $2.99
Terraria $4.99
How to back up Android settings
How do you back up Android settings?
Your phone is loaded with your preferred settings, from Wi-Fi passwords to app preferences, and it took you some work to get everything just the way you like it. Maybe you have your accessibility settings set up just so, or maybe you’re switching to a new device and you’d like to load all your settings just the way you had them on your old phone.
Maybe (and this is a sad thought) your phone gets lost or stolen and you’d like those settings to stay as they were if you have to start over. With a few easy steps you’ll be able to back up your settings to Google Drive and put your mind at ease.
- Sync your settings to the Google server
- Set up Google’s automatic restore
Sync your settings to the Google server
Launch the Settings app from your home screen or your app drawer.
Scroll down and tap Accounts.
Tap on Google. If you have more than one Google account associated with your phone, tap the primary account you set your phone up with.
Tap on each service you want to automatically sync.
Each synced service, like passwords, Chrome bookmarks, and app data will also then be available to your other devices when you sign in with your Google account, like a tablet.
Set up Google’s automatic restore
Automatic restore is helpful overall, but especially if you delete an app or service from your phone, then later reinstall it, or reset your phone.
Launch the Settings app from your home screen or your app drawer.
Scroll down and tap Backup & reset.
Tap Back up my data.
Tap On at the top of the screen.
Tap back at the top left of the screen.
Tap Automatic restore on.
The After Math: Pay up
This was a week of folks getting theirs. Brazil locked down $6 million of Facebook assets in its ongoing battle of WhatsApp. Disney shelled out $3.5 billion for the company that runs MLB At Bat. Hall-of-Fame running back Jim Brown squeezed $600,000 out of EA for its unlicensed use of his likeness. And Apple is reportedly about to spend big bucks buying Tidal from Jay-Z. Numbers, because how else are you going to measure financial debt?
Watch your favorite games quickly conquered for charity here!
It’s the long holiday weekend, we’re smack dab in the middle of the summer drought for big game releases and you want to make it to Tuesday with all your fingers intact. That basically rules out lighting fireworks or playing a new game. And, let’s face it, the chances of you actually playing anything you bought during the Steam summer sale are slim, at best. What’s there to do? How about plopping down and watching a ton of video games beaten in record time, for charity?
Summer Games Done Quick 2016 kicks off this morning at 11:30 Eastern with Super Mario Sunshine and doesn’t wrap until next Saturday with Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars. Between those games starring the most famous Italian plumber around are a glitch-free speed-run of Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, the absurdly difficult NES Ghostbusters tie-in, The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind and a whole lot more.
And you can watch all 160 hours of speed-runs right here! For an idea of what’s playing and when, check out the schedule over on the Games Done Quick homepage. It’s not like you had big plans this week anyhow.
Watch live video from GamesDoneQuick on http://www.twitch.tv
Source: Games Done Quick (Twitch)
Six months with the Steam Controller
The gentle whine of the haptics, the new rumble support, those inner paddles that make toggling run and crouch so easy … oh, and the one-click quick-save! I may be in the minority, but that I love my Steam Controller.
The divisive Valve device has just cleared six months of existence. You may have dismissed it at launch, as most reviewers did, as being “weird.” In the past half-year, though, it’s found its groove among weirdos, modders and amateur tinkerers. My love for the controller has even begun to grow outside of gaming, and I’ve found that it’s started to colonize my interactions with Windows in many surprising ways.
But of course, the controller is fundamentally a gaming device. In fact, many of my recent game choices have made been on the basis of how well they would work with the Steam controller. Doom has been a pure joy with the device (once you have the trackpad and gyro aiming configured to your liking), once you have your trackpad and gyro aiming set up to your liking. It’s also become my preferred way to play point-and-click adventure games, or role-playing games like Pillars of Eternity, which I have been playing from my sofa. I’ve also spent time thumbing my way through strategy games like Europa Universalis (although not on a sofa because of the tiny-text problem).
The growing list of “configs” for the controller has produced some surprising applications — for example, you can play Street Fighter V strictly with motion controls. Serious Rocket League players have the Steam Controller grips programmed for acceleration/brake and triggers for drift/boost. Cities Skylines has moved into the living room for many people.
Yes, “configs” has been said a few times already in this piece. Yes, that means before you can play a game with the controller, you need to browse a number of configuration settings through Steam and find one that suits your style. Yes, it also means you that it doesn’t end there: Once you find a config that works for you, it will no doubt need some tinkering. Yes, all of these things seem like obstacles to play. But configuring the Steam controller has become a surprising part of its appeal. It delivers the same kind of understated excitement you might get from assembling a custom gaming PC, or the kind of mild thrill that you might find in tweaking graphical settings to achieve the best image your rig can deliver. When you look at it this way, the Steam Controller is a fun new aspect of the PC gaming “meta.” I spent over two hours tweaking controls, graphical settings and mods before I actually started to play Fallout 4. Was that gaming time wasted? Depends on your definition of wasted.
However, because of all of this, the controller undeniably still feels like a specialist device. The range of configs and modifications it now supports, following several updates, can be staggering. An example: Valve has now made it so the user can have complete control over all device inputs by allowing modification of the so-called activators, control how input becomes an output –- for example, an activator can make a long press of a button mean something different than a short press (a hop vs. a long jump, for example). Opening this up is like giving a new canvas to the active modding community. Not to mention that Valve has released the blueprint of the device into the Creative Commons for the true “hard modders.”
But the good thing about specialist devices is that they spawn a community. For any Steam controller neophyte, finding a community to stay abreast of the latest configs, mods, updates and innovations will be a necessary step. The highly active, enthusiastic Reddit community is a great place to start. It’s beginner-friendly, home to useful wikis for first-timers and even gives out prizes for users to create configs that are still needed for major games. It also publishes the “Five Stages of Acceptance” that all users go through when they first try out their alien device and immediately regret the purchase. (Take heart because in Stage 5, “Your hands are naturally jerking around in crucial moments tweaking the gryo mouse to get a perfect snipe, a perfect course correction, a major grip over your recoil.”)
Soon enough you’ll discover other uses for the controller. I know people who use it in 3D modeling applications because of the precision of the gyro. I’ve started using it to interact with Windows more generally, particularly with Chrome. It also can work as a remote control for VLC and other video applications. And typing? Well, I wrote this entire piece using the Steam Controller keyboard interface. Just kidding: Typing is still a bit of a drag. The fastest I’ve seen someone brag about typing with it is 24 words per minute, just over half the average keyboard speed. (Don’t worry, the community is working on a Dvorak virtual keyboard layout, which should speed things up.
There are other problems too –- in most cases, the controller is still bound to Steam, particularly the Big Picture Mode (which you’ll need to minimize to access the rest of your desktop). Bugs abound, as well as seemingly random errors –- but these are natural for a piece of highly modifiable hardware that’s expanding in surprising ways.
The defining quality of video games is interactivity. Though they are composed of beautiful digital images, the true art of a game is in the dialogue between the player and the software. The interface is the message. And for many, nothing will beat a gamepad, or the keyboard and mouse. I get that, but it’s worth it if you have the $50 (on sale now!) to expand your interface horizons. If nothing else, it will make you think about games from a different perspective. But there’s fun to be found in the configs, too.
Lenovo ThinkPad 13 review – CNET
The Good The thin-and-light Lenovo ThinkPad 13 offers a lot for a little, including a great keyboard, a matte 1080p screen, useful port assortment, a fair amount of upgrade options and a lightweight, but rugged build quality.
The Bad The touchpad can be a little jumpy and the trackpoint can be hard to find without looking. The keyboard isn’t backlit.
The Bottom Line A travel-friendly, tough business laptop, the Lenovo ThinkPad 13 delivers essentials for work or school.
Budget laptops get no glory and ones made for business, even less so. But, they’re the ones a lot of us buy for day-to-day tasks at the office, at home or at school, so when a good one comes around, you know it because it stands out from the crowd. The Lenovo ThinkPad 13 is just that: a budget-friendly standout.
Starting at around $600 (AU$900, £360), the ThinkPad 13 might not go above and beyond for performance with its entry-level components. It’s really the overall design — including an excellent ThinkPad keyboard — and features are better than you might expect, giving you something more than “good enough.”
The ThinkPad 13 is also available as a Chromebook starting at less than $400, but around $550 configured with the same Core i3 processor and full HD display as the Windows system reviewed here.
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Lenovo’s ThinkPad 13 might be inexpensive, but it’s built to pass 12 military specification tests for durability.
Sarah Tew/CNET
Available in black or silver, the ThinkPad 13 isn’t super thin or light, but at 0.8-inch thick (19.8 mm) and 3.2 pounds (1.4 kg), it’s hardly a burden to travel with to and from the office or around campus. The top is covered with metal, but the rest is a durable plastic, and Lenovo says it’s built to pass 12 military specification tests including humidity, high and low temperatures, vibration and shock. This is ruggedness you don’t typically find in laptop at its price.
The full HD-resolution display (1,920×1,080 pixels) is also nice to have on a laptop at this size and price. However, if you opt for the black version, you get an HD 1,366×768-pixel resolution screen, the bonus being that it comes with a fingerprint reader absent from the silver version.
A big selling point for the ThinkPad 13 is it’s keyboard which is one of the best keyboards you’ll find on a budget business laptop. Or probably any budget laptop, really. If you spend much of your day typing, you want a keyboard that’s comfortable and responsive and this is it. Laptops this thin usually don’t offer much key travel and can feel mushy. But that’s not the case here, with every key giving you a firm response with each press. The only drawback is that it’s not backlit, but at least the keys are marked well.
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The ThinkPad’s keyboard is one of the best you can find on a budget laptop.
Sarah Tew/CNET
The little red nub that is the ThinkPad TrackPoint works well for guiding your cursor around the screen, but is nearly flush with the keys. That makes it hard to find by touch alone, which had me looking down at my keyboard a bit more than I’d like. The TrackPoint does have its own left, center and right mouse buttons below the spacebar. The center button can be programmed for scrolling or as a middle click.
N-n-n-n-n-n-n-n-nougat
And suddenly it was as if everything I knew from my childhood was wrong. Snickers doesn’t really satisfy, Pepsi wasn’t the real thing, and I’d been mispronouncing “nougat” all this time.
So it turns out I’ve been mispronouncing “nougat” all my life, eh? Noo-get. The blame lays squarely, of course, on Snickers. Well, that and the Southern bastardization of the English language.
In any case, we’ve finally got the nickname for Android N. Which might or might not be better than just calling it “Android N.”
O is too easy. If there’s not already a licensing deal in place for Oreo, well … Then we’ve got to have the yellow digestive hell knows as Peeps. But after that? Q?
And what happens a decade from now when we run out of letters? Actually, we never had A and B nicknames. So maybe Google rolls things over and stretches out a dozen years.
In any event … It’s a four-day holiday weekend. (Thanks, Canada Day!) Let’s not spend too much of it deep in thought.
A few other things that have been rolling around a bit …
- Horrible story with an even worse headline.
- Cool inside look at a job I’d never want.
- When I’m awake and working at 5:30 a.m. — on a weekend, too — that’s pretty much the same thing, right?
- How’d I miss that Seveneves is going to be made into a movie?
- Or would a miniseries be better?
- Shhhhhhhh. Nobody tell Texas that if it wants to secede it’ll have to figure out how to pay for things.
- It’s so cute that they keep bringing that up though.
- I’ll have a full review in a little bit, but the Bose QC35 headphones are legit.
- Sorry, Chris. I’m just not hearing it.
- I had higher hopes for Sony. Actually, I think we all did.
- I’ve got a OnePlus 3 on the way, though. (And Daniel Bader has a second-opinion review coming up.)
- Moto Z can’t be too far out now, either.
- And I’ll have some more thoughts this week on Nexus stuff. But leaked specs don’t excite me at all. Smartphones have smartphone specs.
That’s it for this week. Things are going to start heating up very, very soon. See y’all Tuesday!
Inhabitat’s Week in Green: Solar roadways, and more!
Photovoltaic roads sound almost like science fiction, but they’re becoming reality in the US. This week Missouri announced plans to pave a section of the historic Route 66 with energy-generating Solar Roadways tiles. In other futuristic transportation news, Russia wants to build a 44-mile-long hyperloop track that stretches along the coast to China. Driverless cars are expected to hit prime time within the next five years, and we explored whether the convenience they offer will fuel suburban sprawl. Volkswagen promised to pay a whopping $14.7 billion to owners of cars affected by the emissions cheating scandal. And if you hate parallel parking, check out these incredible omnidirectional wheels that allow any car to drive sideways.
In energy news, Mexico, Canada and the US just made a major commitment to source 50 percent of their electricity from clean sources by the year 2025. Meanwhile, Germany passed a groundbreaking measure that effectively bans fracking for all practical purposes. Sunpower set a new world record for rooftop solar efficiency, while a recent report projects that the average cost of solar and wind power will fall by 59 percent in the next decade. And two designers developed a spiraling building that sucks in carbon dioxide and produces clean, green biofuel.
A Chinese company just 3D-printed an entire mansion in 45 days — and they say it’s durable enough to withstand an 8.0-magnitude earthquake. In other technology and design news, researchers at Cambridge believe that they can grow buildings from natural materials like bone and eggshell, and Neste launched an awesome egg-shaped office pod that lets you work from almost anywhere. We also featured one of the most futuristic mobile homes we’ve ever seen. It’s called the Doubleback, and it expands 6.5 feet with the push of a button. Finally, in NASA developed a new technology that could provide the entire solar system with internet, and an experiment deemed that plants grown in Martian soil would indeed be edible.
AIVAnet 