Best Cheap Android Phones in 2018

• Best overall
• Best for all-metal
• Best for software
• Best for even less
• Best for battery life

Best overall

Moto G5 Plus

See at Amazon

Motorola performed yet another pricing miracle with the Moto G5 Plus, the successor to the excellent Moto G4 series and a contender for the best affordable smartphone today.

It starts with the excellent 5.2-inch Full HD display, but the real benefit to the G5 Plus this year is the excellent performance and battery life from the combination of a Snapdragon 625 platform and a 3000mAh battery.

Also of note is the improved low-light performance from the 12MP camera, which boasts the same hardware as (and similar results to) the Galaxy S7.

Bottom line: This is the best sub-$250 phone you can buy today, and it’s still a great device even if price isn’t a factor.

One more thing: Motorola.com is offering the Moto G5 Plus with inexpensive financing if you don’t want to pay up front.

Why the Moto G5 Plus is the best

Motorola has changed up the phone’s design with the Moto G5 Plus, adding a metal back and a more compact, mature look that complements the Moto Z series, and the excellent 5.2-inch IPS display is easily manageable in one hand. Also improved is the improved shape of the front fingerprint sensor, which is turned oblong and considerably easier to activate.

Motorola has also bestowed a fantastic camera on the Moto G5 Plus, giving it the same 12MP sensor and lens combination that’s in the Galaxy S7 — though the results aren’t quite as good. The phone isn’t perfect — there’s no NFC on the U.S. model, and it still uses the older Micro-USB charging port — but it’s close. It also works on all four U.S. carriers, so Verizon and Sprint users are still in the game.

While we’re looking forward to the Moto G6 series — the Moto G5 Plus was announced over a year ago, in February 2017 — this is still the best sub-$250 phone you can buy, especially since the 4GB RAM / 64GB storage variant frequently goes on sale.

Best for T-Mobile and AT&T

Honor 7X

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A big upgrade to the Honor 6X is the Honor 7X, a capable and well-made all-metal budget phone coming in at $199. Launching with Android 7.0-based EMUI 5.1, the device takes everything that made its predecessor good and adds a great new design, an improved dual camera setup, and plenty of power from the Kirin 659 chip and 3GB of RAM. Best of all, the new 5.9-inch 2:1 screen is bright and beautiful, and provides plenty of space for, well, everything!

Bottom-line: A fantastic flagship-like experience at $200 — now with more Android 8.0 Oreo!

One more thing: If you’re looking to save a bit of money, or get it from Amazon, the Honor 6X is a solid pick at $140.

Best for software

Nokia 6 (Prime Exclusive)

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The caretaker of Nokia’s smartphone brand, Finnish upstart HMD Global, has made a name for itself over the past year by releasing phones that are reliably well-made and extremely enjoyable to use. The Nokia 6 is one such phone, and at $199 from Amazon’s excellent Prime Exclusive program, you get a lot for the money here.

While the Snapdragon 430 processor lacks the power of the Moto or Huawei above, the rest of the experience, especially the pared-down Android 7.1-based software (soon to be based on Android One) is the perfect blend of power and simplicity.

Bottom line: If you can stand some Amazon app pre-installs, this phone will not disappoint.

One more thing: Even without Amazon Prime, this phone is relatively inexpensive at just over $230.

Best for even less

Moto E4

See at Amazon

The Moto E line has always been about getting a barebones smartphone experience in order to get a super low price, and that’s where the Moto E4 still lands. The specs aren’t amazing, nor is the physical design, but you get that core Moto DNA that means this is a slick little phone for a great price.

You get a 5-inch HD display, a Snapdragon 425 processor, and 2800mAh battery. But you also get nice-to-haves at this price, like an 8MP auto focus camera and a fingerprint sensor.

It all retails for just $129 brand new, and it’s tough to argue with that. Amazon has a Prime Exclusive version for $99, and Verizon’s prepaid service charges just $70 for this phone — both are a steal of a deal.

Bottom-line: For a bargain basement price, it’s tough to get a phone that performs better or has the features of the Moto E4.

One more thing: Be on the lookout for better deals and sales — this is a phone that will be discounted regularly to entice budget buyers.

Best for battery

Moto E4 Plus

See at Amazon

Whereas you get a lot for your money with the Moto E4, its Plus variant is only slightly more expensive and gives you a bigger screen, slightly more power and, best of all, a massive 5000mAh battery that lasts, well, forever.

Aside from that two (or three) day battery life, you get a decent 13MP rear camera, a nice 5MP front-facing camera with a flash, and Motorola’s excellent Android software. The phone is available for a reasonable $139.99 through Amazon’s Prime Exclusive series, but its $179.99 MSRP isn’t bad, either.

Bottom-line: The Moto E4 Plus is one long-lasting candy handset. Expect two or three days on a single charge.

One more thing: It’s compatible with all four major U.S. carriers, including Verizon and Sprint.

Conclusion

If you don’t want to spend over $250 and still want a great Android phone, the Moto G5 Plus is the best choice. You don’t get the best looking or feeling phone, but it offers a top-notch experience, especially for the price.

Best overall

Moto G5 Plus

See at Amazon

Motorola performed yet another pricing miracle with the Moto G5 Plus, the successor to the excellent Moto G4 series and a contender for the best affordable smartphone today.

It starts with the excellent 5.2-inch Full HD display, but the real benefit to the G5 Plus this year is the excellent performance and battery life from the combination of a Snapdragon 625 platform and a 30000mAh battery.

Also of note is the improved low-light performance from the 12MP camera, which boasts the same hardware as (and similar results to) the Galaxy S7.

Bottom line: This is the best sub-$250 phone you can buy today, and it’s still a great device even if price isn’t a factor.

One more thing: Motorola.com is offering the Moto G5 Plus with inexpensive financing if you don’t want to pay up front.

Updated March 2018: We’ve added the excellent Nokia 6 to this list of the best cheap phones you can buy.

Become an Excel whiz with this bundle of training courses!

Microsoft’s Excel, the spreadsheet tool in its Office suite, has an incredible amount of depth that most people never touch. Figures and graphs are what Excel is usually used for, but there’s so much more potential if you have the correct knowledge.

Use coupon code MADMARCH10 for additional 10% off! Learn more

Whether it’s PivotTables, Pivot Charts, macros, or powerful formulas, in-depth Excel training to automate spreadsheets and solve complex problems can be quite expensive. There’s a lot of content to cover, and there are many questions to answer.

If you’re interested in extensive spreadsheet training, Android Central right now has a Microsoft Excel course that includes over 70 hours of content spread over four courses. Instead of paying the regular price of $1,380, you’ll instead pay just $49. That’s 96 percent off the regular price!

Use coupon code MADMARCH10 and pay just $44.10! Learn more

Access to this course remains open forever, so even if you don’t have the time at this moment, you can jump in whenever you’d like. At just $49 for extensive Excel training, how can you go wrong?

After Math: Space Farce

It was a parabolic week for space nerds. The president teased the creation of a fourth military branch dubbed the “Space Force,” world-renowned astrophysicist Stephen Hawking passed away at the age of 76, and NASA’s acting chief retired without someone ready to succeed him. But hey, at least to listen to Elon Musk’s Wonka-esque visions for the future of spaceflight during his sold out SXSW keynote. Numbers because the only thing harder than math is space.

2019: Elon Musk is not messing around with this whole “Get your ass to Mars” plan of his. He announced at SXSW this week that he intends to test the 31-engine BFR rocket in “short up-and-down flights” some point in the first half of next year. Capable of carrying 5 times as much cargo as the Falcon Heavy, getting the BFR off the ground should make colonizing the moon a snap.

76 years: Professor Stephen Hawking, one of the only people in history who upon entering a room automatically became the smartest person in it, passed away this week at the age of 76. His life’s work revolutionized humanity’s understanding of the Universe, while inspiring generations of young scientists to seek out secrets hidden among the stars.

4: Regulations are there for a reason but hey, space-tech startup Swarm Technologies, don’t let a little thing like the federal government stand in the way of lobbing a quartet of microsatellites into orbit. I mean, what’s the FCC going to do? Revoke its approval for your subsequent launches?

14 months: It shouldn’t be that surprising, given the astronomical rate of turnover in this administration as well as its nearly pathological inability to staff federal agencies, but NASA’s about to have yet another vacancy to go unfilled. After just over a year, the acting administrator, Robert M. Lightfoot Jr., announced that he will be stepping down on April 30th. No successor has yet been named for what is NASA’s second most senior position.

115,000 feet: Netflix typically isn’t the first name that springs to mind when one thinks of space travel — though it is pretty near the top of the list when it comes to self-promoting stunts. For this year’s company Hack Day, a group of enterprising employees launched an iPhone loaded with Star Trek episodes into the heavens where it will boldly go on to become orbital space trash.

2017: “We may even have a Space Force, develop another one, Space Force. We have the Air Force, we’ll have the Space Force.”

L’Oreal buys an augmented reality beauty app maker

Makeup empire L’Oreal wants to promote its huge collection of brands the high-tech way, so it’s buying Modiface to make that happen. It’s now in the process of acquiring the beauty tech company, which has been teaming up with big cosmetics brands for over a decade to create augmented reality apps for mobile and desktop. Modiface’s AR tech powers quite a lengthy list of beauty apps, including a website where you can digitally try on Estee Lauder’s lipsticks, which you can see in the image above.

It also provides the magic behind Benefit’s perfect brow-finder, Sephora’s Virtual Artist App, which gives you way to see what the retailer’s products look like on your face, and even Bixby Vision’s make-up tool for the S9 and the S9+. In addition to apps, Modiface also develops AR mirrors that can superimpose makeup on your face in real time.

The company previously worked with L’Oreal to create an app that allows you try on various hairstyles and colors on a selfie. Now that its (70) developers and engineers are officially joining the Paris-based cosmetics giant, L’Oreal’s hair products aren’t the only ones getting the AR app treatment. Modiface will fulfill its existing contracts with other companies, but it will focus on creating digital experiences for L’Oreal’s 30-plus brands going forward.

It’s unclear if all those brands are getting their own individual apps, but they include drugstore makeup-makers Maybelline and Nyx, as well as luxury cosmetics companies Lancôme and YSL. Considering those high-end brands’ products can cost an arm, a leg and your favorite eyebrow, it’ll be nice having an AR app you can consult before shelling out $40-or-so for a tube of lipstick that makes you look like a corpse or a floating pair of lips.

Source: Bloomberg

How to stop your PlayStation 4 from starting up in safe mode

Time to get back to your normal PlayStation 4 menu

Sometimes choosing options that could change your console entirely can be anxiety-inducing, especially when PlayStation’s Safe Mode has, not one, but two options for initialization. You also may have come across the problem where your PlayStation won’t stop launching in safe mode. Take a deep breath, we’ve got some advice to get you out of Safe Mode and back to your games and streams!

What is safe mode?

First things first, let’s take a look at what this is so you can better understand why your PlayStation may be launching in it. Safe mode on a PS4 is basically the same Safe Mode option your computer has. If your system isn’t starting up normally then Safe Mode will start up your console with some basic functions to help find a solution to get your PS4 working again. Furthermore, if you’re PS4 is starting up normally but is having some issues you can launch into this options yourself and see if the menu options can help get them solved!

To get into the safe mode you follow these few steps:

Note: Do not attempt to go into safe mode if your USB ports are not working. The steps to get into it will require you to re-sync your controller through the USB ports. Click here to see options for getting your USB ports working again before you move forward.

Start with your console being off.
Press and hold the power button until you hear two beeps: one when you first press, and another seven seconds later.
Connect the DualShock 4 controller with the USB cable and press the PS button on the controller.

First choice options

If you turned on your PlayStation and have been met with this screen, it is attempting to start in Safe Mode. Here we’ll let you know the different options you have to get out, and why these problems might be happening to you. Make sure you have a USB cable that will allow data transfer to sync your controller. Most chargers have this ability already, but thankfully you can find one on Amazon for $8.49 if you find that your cord is not working.

See on Amazon

These options are the ones you want to try out before anything else because none of them have any risk of you losing any precious data!

• Using the Menu option to exit Safe Mode normally
• Updating your system software
• Unplugging the console
• Rebuild Database
• Checking your USB cables
• Sending it in for repairs
• Go on to more extensive options

Using the Menu option to exit Safe Mode normally

The Safe Mode actually has a menu option to re-launch the PlayStation in regular mode. Although “Restart PS4” might look like it might reset your device’s memory, have no fear because it won’t. Following these steps will only cause your PlayStation to shut down and, after a few moments, restart with a message saying, “Welcome back to PlayStation.”

Connect your controller to your PlayStation via USB port.
Select the first menu option. It will be labeled “Restart PS4”.

Updating your system software

Whether your PlayStation is not normally connected to the internet or you lost power/connection during the update, lacking the required updates can cause your console to have a conniption. Within the Safe Mode options, you’ll see a few different options for updating your system. We’ll go into the more in-depth options later, but for now, let’s look at the easiest one.

Connect your PlayStation to the internet.
Select “Update System Software” from the Safe Mode menu option.

If you do not have the means to connect your PlayStation to the internet:

Be sure to have 375 MB of free space on the USB of your choosing.

On the USB storage device create a folder named “PS4”.
Inside that folder, create another folder named “UPDATE” (See above.)
Download the update to a USB port from here, and save it inside of the “UPDATE” folder with the name “PS4UPDATE.PUP”
Connect the USB to one of your USB ports on your PlayStation.
Select “Update System Software” from the Safe Mode menu option.

Unplugging the console

If your PlayStation is still starting in Safe Mode after selecting “Restart PS4” from the menu options you should try unplugging your system entirely. The good ole’ “unplug it, and plug it back in” solution has an odd success rate.

Shut your PlayStation down properly with the Power Button to avoid the “PlayStation was not shut off properly” error code.
Unplug your consoles power cord.
Leave it unplugged for 20 minutes minimum.
Plug the cable back in and turn on your console.
If it still loads into Safe Mode attempt to use the menu option of “Restart PS4” once more.

Rebuild Database

This is the 5th option on the Safe Mode menu and will scan the hard drive of your PS4 to create a new database of all the content (games and apps) on the system. While this does not fix any hard drive issues for the system itself, any compromising data from a game or app that could be the source of your problems will be amended. None of your safe files will be compromised with this option.

Connect your PlayStation to the internet.
Select “Rebuild Database” from the Safe Mode menu.
Leave your console alone, as this process will take quite some time.

Check your USB cables

If your PS4 is not only starting in Safe Mode but not allowing you to navigate the menu options chances are there is a hardware issue. Before you do anything try changing out your HDMI cables. Another PlayStation user was met with this terrible fate and found that changing his cables allowed him to navigate the menu to use the “Restart PS4” option and get back to his regular boot mode. Luckily you can find some pretty good HDMI cables on Amazon for about $12.99.

See on Amazon

Sending in your PlayStation for repairs

Depending on your warranty, you may be either entirely covered for the fix or have to dish out a bit of cash for your console to be repaired. Unfortunately, unless you are willing to move on and attempt to initialize your PlayStation (removing all of your personal data), this is your last option. Sending your console back means the experts themselves will be able to take a look at the issues and hopefully fix them without your data being compromised. Be sure to ask if they have a way to transfer your data to an external hard drive before they try anything as the options to do so yourself will not be available from the Safe Mode menu options!

Initializing your PlayStation 4

This is the last measure option to getting your PlayStation out of Safe Mode, because both of these options will permanently delete all data and settings from your PS4 system.

Initialize option

This option will delete all user data and restore the PS4 to its original state. While the firmware will still be intact it will remove all trace of you ever owning this PlayStation. This will permanently delete all data and settings from your PS4 system. To do this, select the *Initialize PS4″ option from the Safe Mode menu. You do not need to be connected to the internet, but you will need to leave your PlayStation on and running for quite some time without disturbance.

Initialize PS4 (Reinstall System Software)

This option will not only delete all user data but it will also remove the PS4 firmware. This will basically have your PlayStation start from absolute scratch for your to reinstall all of the firmware with a fresh new device. This will permanently delete all data and settings from your PS4 system.

On the USB storage device create a folder named “PS4”.
Inside that folder, create another folder named “UPDATE” (See above.)
Download the update to a USB port from here, and save it inside of the “UPDATE” folder with the name “PS4UPDATE.PUP”
Connect the USB to one of your USB ports on your PlayStation.
Select “Initialize PS4 (Reinstall System Software)” from the Safe Mode menu option.

Get back to enjoying your downtime

Were you able to get your PlayStation back to a regular launch by one of these solutions? Are you still experiencing problems? Let us know in the comment section below!

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Amazon

GE test-flies the world’s largest jet engine

Airliners are growing ever bigger to haul more people per flight, which means they need appropriately massive engines — and GE Aviation is happy to oblige. It recently conducted the first test flight of the GE9X, widely billed as the world’s largest jet engine. It’s easy to believe the claim from a glimpse (it’s as wide as a Boeing 737), but the specs back it up as well: it has a whopping 11.2ft diameter front fan that, combined with carbon fiber blades, a next-gen high-pressure compressor and a new combustor, puts out over 100,000 pounds of thrust. For comparison, some of the earliest GE90 engines aboard Boeing 777s kicked out ‘just’ 74,000 pounds.

All that extra brawn is necessary. The GE9X is destined for Boeing’s stretched-out 777X series, where even the smaller -8X variant will carry 353 passengers (the larger -9X will haul 407). There’s even talk of a mammoth 450-passenger 10X that would compete with the likes of Airbus’ A380. If Boeing is going to compete in that size class while promising a more efficient design (it’s 10 percent more efficient than the GE90), it has to step up its design skills.

The GE9X should be certified for flight in 2019, when the 777X should undergo its first test flight. Full-on commercial service isn’t expected until December of that year at the earliest. Whenever it is ready, it could easily influence air travel by sparking more competition for long-haul flights. After all, you may fly with a carrier more often if there are more available seats at the times you prefer to leave.

Via: New Atlas

Source: GE Aviation

Severe solar storms could stop self-driving cars dead in their tracks

NASA

The driverless cars of tomorrow may be programmed to deal with harsh winter conditions, inattentive pedestrians, or even bird poop, but the biggest hazard may be a solar storm that knocks out GPS communication and turns roads into giant parking lots.

According to a report in Bloomberg, space meteorologists are cautioning that over-reliance on satellite data could cause problems for self-driving or autonomous vehicles in the event of a solar disturbance. We usually don’t notice solar storms, other than the colorful auroras in the sky as charged particles collide with the upper atmosphere, but they can be disruptive to communications.

Solar storms, like hurricanes, are rated on a scale from one to five, and the NOAA regularly issues alerts about “space weather” that includes solar activity. Scott McIntosh of the National Center for Atmospheric Research says that space weather forecasts may become as commonplace as terrestrial weather predictions.

“There is a lot riding on this, from an actuarial point of view,” he said. “All it is going to take is a couple of accidents.”

NASA has two STEREO (Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory) spacecraft monitoring solar activity, and the Air Force launched the C/NOFS (Communication/Navigation Outage Forecasting System) several years ago specifically to forecast possible disruptions to communication and navigation systems.

Luckily, we seem to be in a lull of solar activity as driverless cars take to the streets. The eruptions generally follow an 11-year cycle, which last peaked in 2014.

For their part, engineers of automated cars and trucks are taking steps to cope with unexpected disruptions like space weather. Some self-driving systems include onboard data such as regional maps that would let cars find the next freeway exit.

Danny Shapiro of Nvidea says that there’s enough redundancy built into self-driving navigation systems that fears of a Mad Max scenario on an interstate caused by solar activity are overblown. At the very least, the car would just pull to the side of the road and stop. Most cars aren’t overly reliant on GPS data when navigating across town.

“With very detailed measurements like lane changes and bike lanes, you don’t have time to take all this data and send it up to the cloud and back,” Shapiro said. “You go to the cloud when you’re asking, ‘Hey, what’s the fastest route to Starbucks?’”

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Do more with your drone: 5 things you can do with a UAV (aside from taking pics)

Drones are already famous for their incredibly beautiful shots of landscapes, sports, homes, and much more. But 4K images and video are just the beginning: There are many other activities that you —yes, even you, amateur drone pilot— can get involved in to show off your drone, make a difference in the world, and volunteer for some truly exciting opportunities. Here are the top five!

1. Racing Competitively

IDRA

If you have a seriously souped-up drone that you want to show off, then drone racing is absolutely a real sport, and it’s growing around the world with multiple options for joining leagues and testing your skills. They are even showing drone races on ESPN!

Drone racing leagues vary from more casual organizations that encourage amateur participation to very professional players that sign up for big, showy events (if you’ve never seen a drone race at night with all the drones decked out in LED lights, you’re definitely missing something). Of course, no matter how you get involved in racing, you have to have the right drone specifications to qualify, and enough time to invest in a serious hobby. The good news is that you can be part of a growing sport that is working to cement its own standards, laws, and policies.

Find out more: Try visiting Drone Racing MultiGP, a global racing league with a lot of different opportunities around the world. If you want to look for flashier events that are fun to attend even if you don’t necessarily want to race drones yourself, then check out The Drone Racing League and see what cities it’s coming to in the future.

2. Drone Search and Rescue Volunteering

Harrisen Howes

Drones have also proven to be particularly valuable when it comes to emergency services. You can get them off the ground more easily and more quickly than a helicopter, which makes them ideal for a rapid deployment when someone goes missing in nearly any wilderness situation. Drones can also be used for similar emergency services, such as spotting and tracking wildfires, searching disaster zones, and much more.

Obviously this is amazing because it allows drone pilots to help save lives, but it’s also a less costly and fast way of conducting search and rescue efforts compared to traditional solutions.

Find out more: Obviously, you can’t just go out and join a search and rescue team at a whim. First, search your local area to see if there are any nearby programs that allow amateur drone pilots to join efforts as volunteers. There are also many training programs online for gaining experience and potentially certification. The Drone Pro Academy offers classes to introduce you to search and rescue, and various drone companies offer boot camps for hands-on training.

3. Wildlife Conservation with Drones

Here’s an eco-friendly movement that has joined forces with drone pilots: Wildlife conservation organizations are turning toward drones to help them make a difference, and many of them are looking for volunteers to help out.

This effort is ongoing, and somewhat complex. The FAA has specific regulations for drones used to survey wildlife, and of course not everyone is close enough to the areas that conservation organizations want to survey. However, if you are in the right place and have the right training, this can be an excellent way to help the planet and spot some rare animals. It’s also a particularly cool choice if you don’t mind shipping out as a volunteer to join a research group in one of earth’s many exotic place for a couple months of drone scouting.

Find out more: There are plenty of resources online that you can check out to learn more about these opportunities. ConservationDrones is a great source of information for volunteers, and National Geographic has a good introductory article. You should also contact local colleges and conservation groups to see if they need any help track wildlife.

4. Helping Scientists with Important Studies

Even if tracking wildlife in exotic locations isn’t really your thing, you can still help out scientists in other ways! This typically involves equipping your drone with scientific equipment that can take thermo images or high-resolution cameras that can easily gather information that can help local research.

You’d be surprised just how many scientific purposes drones have: Some conduct surveys, some keep track of fire damage or pest infestations, some watch drought conditions, and…well, there are a lot of different projects, based on research goals. Drones can often find a place where widespread geographical data collection is needed. Plus, you get to make a difference!

Find out more: Check out this article on the legal requirements for flying science drones so that you know what’s expected. This is another good opportunity to connect with local colleges, GIS organizations, and research groups and see what their needs are.

5. Connecting Sick Patients with the Places They Love

For a heartfelt use of your drones, look no further than this outreach. The concept is simple and very touching: There are patients living in hospice care, at home, or in retirement homes and hospitals that have not been able to get out and about for years. Drone pilots can do something about that.

There are volunteers who connect with these patients and learn about favorite spots they had when growing up, whether it be a cabin in the forest, a spot on the beach, a river they loved to fish, or another important memory. Drone pilots then go out to the area in question, send up a drone with a high-quality camera, and send a (real-time, if possible) video feed back to a screen set up for the patient. Patients and their loved ones then get to relive some of their favorite spots through the eyes of the drone, which fortunately cannot shed tears.

Find out more: Visit Flight to Remember to learn more about this effort. You may want to contact hospice organizations in your area and see if they offer any similar programs, too.

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‘Yakuza Kiwami 2’ set for Western launch on August 28th

While Western fans of the Yakuza series are still patiently waiting for Yakuza 6: The Song of Life’s delayed PS4 launch next month, Sega decided to tease further by announcing that Yakuza Kiwami 2, the remake of Yakuza 2 from 2008, is also heading to the West on August 28th. This is surprising considering that there is a 28-month gap between the Japanese debut of Yakuza 6 and its Western counterpart, whereas for Yakuza Kiwami 2 it’s just going to be a nine-month wait — assuming that there will be no delay, of course.

In other news, following the botched release of the Yakuza 6 demo that let folks play beyond the intended limit, Sega said it will finally be releasing the demo back online “early next week.” This should keep fans busy until April 17th, at which point their progress in the demo will be carried over to the full game.

Following Yakuza 6, Yakuza Kiwami 2 is the second game in the franchise using the Dragon Engine, which offers a near-seamless experience when your character enters buildings or encounter street battles. Like the original release, Kiwami 2 is set a year after the first Yakuza story, where Kiryu is tasked with a mission to prevent a massive fight between the troubled Tojo Clan — which he had tried to avoid returning to — and Osaka’s ambitious Omi Family. Because of this, the two dragons of the Yakuza saga would eventually meet: Kiryu as the “Dragon of Dojima” and Omi Family’s Ryuji Goda as the “Dragon of Kansai.”

Much like Kiwami, Kiwami 2 offers a new playable story based on “Mad Dog of Shimano” Goro Majima, which sees him forming his own company, Majima Construction, as well as encountering his crush Makoto Makimura from Yakuza 0.

A typo in ‘Civilization VI’ game code can ‘yeild’ some strange A.I. behavior

If you’ve noticed that the priorities of your A.I. opponents in Civilization VI seem to be a little off, you’re not alone. Straight White Shark, a modder on the Something Awful forums, seems to have been the first to discover a typographical error in the game file that governs the default behaviors of the game’s various leaders.

via @Hentzau, it appears that Civilisation VI's AI was completely broken on release because of… a typo. pic.twitter.com/RufPrcjzQX

— mike cook #notGDC (@mtrc) March 14, 2018

This appears to be the only place where “YIELD” is misspelled, meaning that these priorities are not used by the A.I. As you can see, the programmers meant for the A.I. leaders to emphasize production, followed by gold, science, and culture, with faith as the lowest priority.

The typo means these priorities are never implemented, so faith gets treated with the same importance as production.

How something like this could have survived thousands of hours of testing and evaluation is a mystery, especially for such a high-profile title as Civilization VI. It’s not clear if these errors were in the original release version of the game, or if they’re the result of a recent update.

Shark and others have verified that correcting the code does make a difference in A.I. behavior. PC Gamer used multiple tests to evaluate the differences. When running identical Autoplay games, for example, Pedro II of Brazil produced far less faith over a 100-turn span when using the corrected code.

Firaxis has responded with a statement to PC Gamer, confirming that the errors were not intentional, and they would be corrected:

“We’re aware of a community-reported bug that has a minor impact on AI behavior. We’ve also made sure that everyone knows that I goes before E except after C … or other weird exceptions,” the developer said. “Thanks to all who helped bring this to our attention and there will be a fix included in our next update.”

If you don’t want to wait for the update, there’s also a mod on the Steam Workshop that corrects the priorities.

Spelling errors aside, we found Civilization VI to be one of the best games of 2016. Expanding on the best features of Civ V, it adds new features and systems that integrate flawlessly with the Civ experience you’ve grown to love. If you’re just getting started, we’ve got some hints and tips for you here, and if you grabbed the recent Rise & Fall expansion you won’t want to miss our strategy summary.

Editors’ Recommendations

• Master ‘Civilization VI’ with these starting tips for new players and veterans
• ‘Civilization VI’ for iPad brings the full sweep of history to your fingertips
• ‘Civilization VI: Rise & Fall’ review
• Put all of humankind in the palm of your hands with ‘Civilization VI’ on iPad
• ‘Civilization VI: Rise & Fall’ guide to Dark and Golden Ages