Male Allies UK worries rise in chatbot girlfriends' will leave boys unable to socialise and respect boundariesThe hyper-personalised" nature of AI bots is drawing in teenage boys who now use them for therapy, companionship and relationships, according to research.A survey of boys in secondary schools by Male Allies UK found that just over a third said they were considering the idea of an AI friend, with growing concern about the rise of AI therapists and girlfriends. Continue reading...
Tech giant reports earnings of $3.72 per share day after deal with OpenAI pushed value of company to more than $4tnMicrosoft blew off concerns of overspending on AI on Wednesday, reporting elevated earnings even as it faced an outage of its cloud computing service, Azure, and its office software suite, 365. The strong earnings report comes a day after a deal with OpenAI pushed the value of the tech giant to more than $4tn.After its Xbox and investor relations pages went down, the company issued a statement that said: We are working to address an issue affecting Azure Front Door that is impacting the availability of some services." Continue reading...
by Blake Montgomery, Nick Robins-Early and agency on (#713BR)
Silicon Valley chipmaker hits $5tn valuation just three months after it was first to break through the $4tn barrierNvidia has become the world's first $5tn company as the artificial intelligence industry and wider US stock market boom. Just three months ago, the Silicon Valley chipmaker was the first to break through the barrier of $4tn in market value.In comparison, Nvidia's value is greater than the GDP of India, Japan and the United Kingdom, according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF). It has far outgrown its competitors in the chip industry, gaining momentum as numerous tech stocks have surged in recent days. Continue reading...
Move comes as lawmakers move to bar minors from using AI companions and require companies to verify users' ageThe chatbot company Character.AI will ban users 18 and under from conversing with its virtual companions beginning in late November after months of legal scrutiny.The announced change comes after the company, which enables its users to create characters with which they can have open-ended conversations, faced tough questions over how these AI companions can affect teen and general mental health, including a lawsuit over a child's suicide and a proposed bill that would ban minors from conversing with AI companions. Continue reading...
Spending eight hours in a theatre with 70 people playing through political donkey epic asses.masses was gruelling - and a tribute to gaming's shared joyThis weekend, I spent more than eight hours in a theatre playing a video game about donkeys, reincarnation and organised labour with about 70 other people. Political, unpredictable and replete with ass puns, Asses.Masses is, on the one hand, a fairly rudimentary-looking video game made by Canadian artists Patrick Blenkarn and Milton Lim with a small team of collaborators. But the setting - in a theatre, surrounded by others, everybody shouting advice and opinions and working together on puzzles - transforms it into a piece of collective performance art.Here's how it works: on a plinth in front of a giant projected screen is a controller. In the seats: the audience. Whoever wants to get up and take control can do so, and they become the avatar of the crowd. The game opens with a series of questions, mostly about donkeys, some in different languages, and quickly it becomes obvious that you have to work together to get them right. Someone in our crowd spoke Spanish; another knew the answer to an engineering question; I knew, somehow, that a female donkey is called a jennet. Continue reading...
Stick vacuums are a convenient alternative to corded designs, but which model wins for overall cleaning prowess? Our expert reveals all The best robot vacuums to keep your home clean and dust freeChoosing a cordless vacuum isn't a decision that should be taken lightly. You're likely to keep a vacuum cleaner for years, relying heavily on its ability to suck up dust, crumbs, mud, pet hair and any other dry spillages or sheddings that end up on your floor. Choosing the right model can be the difference between an effective cleaner that's a delight to pull out of the cupboard and a dud that you dread having to unblock, detangle and clean after every use.In this review, I took 13 of the leading cordless vacuum cleaners from a range of manufacturers and at various prices and inflicted the same cleaning tests on each one. That takes all the guesswork out of picking your next cleaner: I can tell you exactly which ones picked up the most mess.Best cordless vacuum cleaner overall:
Dyson's latest cleaner is the company's biggest redesign in years. We put it through its paces on everything from flour to pet hair The best cordless vacuum cleaners for a spotless homeThe arrival of a new Dyson vacuum cleaner is always exciting for a couple of reasons. First, it's interesting to see what Dyson's engineers have developed to try to persuade us that a 750 vacuum cleaner will be a vital addition to our lives. The other is that it usually pushes down the price of older models, which is great news for bargain hunters.The V16 Piston Animal has several new features, the most significant being its floor head. Besides the introduction of anti-tangle combs, we haven't seen such a departure from the status quo since Dyson launched its Fluffy floor head for hard floors back in 2015. There's arguably a good reason behind this conservatism, because Dyson's previous designs have performed brilliantly in the cleaning tests I've put them through over the years. However, perhaps controversially, this model ditches the duo of brush bar and fluffy roller floor heads that have been a Dyson staple for a decade, using just one combination floor head for both carpet and hard floor. Continue reading...
by Harry Davies and Yuval Abraham in Jerusalem on (#713BC)
The tech giants agreed to extraordinary terms to clinch a lucrative contract with the Israeli government, documents showWhen Google and Amazon negotiated a major $1.2bn cloud-computing deal in 2021, their customer - the Israeli government - had an unusual demand: agree to use a secret code as part of an arrangement that would become known as the winking mechanism".The demand, which would require Google and Amazon to effectively sidestep legal obligations in countries around the world, was born out of Israel's concerns that data it moves into the global corporations' cloud platforms could end up in the hands of foreign law enforcement authorities. Continue reading...
A recent spate of posts has garnered attention, but Trump and his allies have long been using gaming imagery to mobilise a toxic subculture of rootless white males'Just days after Microsoft announced Halo: Campaign Evolved, the next game in its famous science-fiction series, the White House shared an interesting picture on X. The image, which appears to be AI-generated, shows President Donald Trump wearing the armour of Halo's iconic protagonist, Master Chief, standing in salute in front of an American flag that's missing several stars. In his left hand is an energy sword, a weapon used by the alien enemies in the Halo games. Posted in response to a tweet from US game retailer GameStop, the text accompanying the image reads Power to the Players" in reference to the store's slogan.GameStop and the White House exchanged another Halo meme or two, and then, on 27 October, the official Department of Homeland Security X account joined in - using Halo imagery of a futuristic soldier in an alien world to encourage people to join its increasingly militaristic Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE). Stop the Flood, this one reads, equating the US's immigrant population with the parasitic aliens that Master Chief eliminates. Continue reading...
Want every day to be a good hair day? We tested 20 hair dryers to find the best, from gentle diffusers to high-speed and travel-ready models The best hot brushes, tried and tested by our expertIn my years of reviewing beauty tech, it was upgrading my hair dryer that made the biggest difference to my beauty routine. I used to dread hair-wash days: the chore of shampooing, conditioning and rinsing my hair, plus the time - and aching arms - spent getting it dry again.My clunky, bargain-bucket hair dryer of seven years was weighty, deafeningly loud, and took a painstaking 20 minutes to dry my hair completely. So happier days really did arrive when I switched it up for a new model.Best hair dryer overall:
Tech company's stock enters positive territory for first time this year after gaining about 13% since new iPhone launchesApple topped $4tn (3tn) in market value for the first time on Tuesday, joining Microsoft and Nvidia as the third company in history to hit the milestone, thanks to strong demand for its latest iPhones.Apple's share price has increased by more than 50% since a low point in April, thanks to the debut of its latest products. Continue reading...
Restructuring paves way for ChatGPT maker to more easily raise capital and profit off its AI technologyOpenAI said on Tuesday it had converted its main business into a for-profit corporation, the conclusion of a lengthy and fraught legal saga.A crucial regulator, Kathy Jennings, the Delaware attorney general, said she approved the plan for the startup, which began as a non-profit in 2015, to change to a public benefit corporation, a type of for-profit entity that expresses commitment to bettering society. Continue reading...
Ghost Town Pumpkin Festival began as a lockdown project and has now become an annual gaming tradition. My children and I paid it a visitIn an attempt to avoid spending 80 to walk around a local park with my children to see some underwhelming spooky decorations, and having failed for the fifth year in a row to secure a ticket to a Scottish farm to tramp damply around looking at pumpkins, I tried something different with my kids this Halloween: a virtual pumpkin festival.Ghost Town Pumpkin Festival was first created in the depths of the 2020 pandemic, when game developer Adam Robinson-Yu's real-life neighbourhood pumpkin festival was cancelled. (Yu also made the excellent and equally autumnal A Short Hike.) Since then, it has returned for a few weeks every year, letting players come together as adorable ghosts to explore a creepy little micro-world filled with player-created pumpkins. It has improved slightly every year: 2024's big addition was a haunted house escape room, which took me and my kids a good hour to figure out, and this year there's a movie theatre that plays eerie silent films for a roomful of nobody. Continue reading...
Programme is designed to defend energy, transport and utilities amid concern over vulnerability to internet outagesBritain's leading AI institute has announced a new mission to help protect the nation from cyber-attacks on infrastructure, including energy, transport and utilities, after it was embroiled in allegations of toxic work culture and the chief executive resigned amid ministerial pressure.The Alan Turing Institute will carry out a programme of science and innovation designed to protect the UK from hostile threats", it announced on Tuesday as part of changes following the resignation last month of Jean Innes, its chief executive, after a staff revolt and government calls for a strategic overhaul of the state-funded body. Continue reading...
Retail giant, which is vying to reverse pandemic hiring spree, attempts to cut costs and slim down its operationAmazon has confirmed plans to lay off 14,000 corporate workers, as part of a wave of cuts expected to hit tens of thousands of jobs.The Seattle-based retail giant, which is vying to reverse a pandemic hiring spree, is attempting to cut costs and slim down its huge operation. This summer, its CEO warned white-collar employees their jobs could be taken by artificial intelligence. Continue reading...
Grokipedia's entries hew closely to conservative talking points, with some journalists already saying it contains inaccurate informationElon Musk has launched an online encyclopedia named Grokipedia that he said relied on artificial intelligence and would align more with his rightwing views than Wikipedia, though many of its articles say they are based on Wikipedia itself.Calling an AI encyclopedia super important for civilization", Musk had been planning the Wikipedia rival for at least a month. Grokipedia does not have human authors, unlike Wikipedia, which is written and edited by volunteers in a transparent process. Grokipedia said it is fact-checked" by Grok, Musk's AI chatbot. Continue reading...
Patrick Gelsinger, executive chairman of Gloo, has made it his mission to advance Christian principles in Silicon ValleyIn March, three months after being forced out of his position as the CEO of Intel and sued by shareholders, Patrick Gelsinger took the reins at Gloo, a technology company made for what he calls the faith ecosystem" - think Salesforce for churches, plus chatbots and AI assistants for automating pastoral work and ministry support.The former CEO's career pivot is taking place as the US tech industry returns to the political realm as a major revenue stream. Some of its most prominent present-day leaders have funded Donald Trump's re-election and renewed their pursuit of government contracts as the second Trump administration has revitalized religious conservatism in Washington DC. Continue reading...
After the release of a slew of other AI-integrated browsers, Anthony Enzor-DeMeo discusses ChatGPT Atlas, the Google monopoly trial - and the futureDo you need an assistant for your online activities?Multiple major players in artificial intelligence are moving on from chatbots like ChatGPT and are now focusing their efforts on new browsers with deep AI integrations. Those could take the form of an agent that shops for you or an omnipresent chatbot that follows you around and summarizes what you're seeing, looks up related stuff, or answers related questions. Continue reading...
Tired of a two-day commute to see her overworked doctor, my mother turned to tech for help with her kidney disease. She bonded with the bot so much I was scared she would refuse to see a real medicThis essay was originally published on Rest of worldEvery few months, my mother, a 57-year-old kidney transplant patient who lives in a small city in eastern China, embarks on a two-day journey to see her doctor. She fills her backpack with a change of clothes, a stack of medical reports and a few boiled eggs to snack on. Then, she takes a 90-minute ride on a high-speed train and checks into a hotel in the eastern metropolis of Hangzhou.At 7am the next day, she lines up with hundreds of others to get her blood taken in a long hospital hall that buzzes like a crowded marketplace. In the afternoon, when the lab results arrive, she makes her way to a specialist's clinic. She gets about three minutes with the doctor. Maybe five, if she's lucky. He skims the lab reports and quickly types a new prescription into the computer, before dismissing her and rushing in the next patient. Then, my mother packs up and starts the long commute home. Continue reading...
by Presented by Helen Pidd and Johana Bhuiyan; produc on (#712C9)
Autonomous cabs are a staple in some US cities - but how will they cope with London's streets? Gwyn Topham and Johana Bhuiyan reportToday in Focus presenter Helen Pidd enjoys a ride in a driverless taxi in Austin, Texas, as transport correspondent Gwyn Topham examines whether the technology can adapt to London's medieval streets when Waymo robotaxis arrive in the UK capital next year.They are joined by Johana Bhuiyan, a senior tech reporter at the Guardian US, who has been chronicling the ups and downs - and many false starts - of the autonomous car industry for a decade. Continue reading...
Finding is one of most direct statements from the tech company on how AI can exacerbate mental health issuesMore than a million ChatGPT users each week send messages that include explicit indicators of potential suicidal planning or intent", according to a blogpost published by OpenAI on Monday. The finding, part of an update on how the chatbot handles sensitive conversations, is one of the most direct statements from the artificial intelligence giant on the scale of how AI can exacerbate mental health issues.In addition to its estimates on suicidal ideations and related interactions, OpenAI also said that about 0.07% of users active in a given week - about 560,000 of its touted 800m weekly users - show possible signs of mental health emergencies related to psychosis or mania". The post cautioned that these conversations were difficult to detect or measure, and that this was an initial analysis. Continue reading...
In an online landscape characterised by doom and division, the people's encyclopedia stands out - a huge collective endeavour giving everyone free access to the sum of human knowledge. But with Elon Musk branding it Wokipedia' and AI looming large, can it survive?Wikipedia will be 25 years old in January. Jimmy Wales's daughter will be 25 and three weeks. It's not a coincidence: on Boxing Day 2000 Wales's then wife, Christine, gave birth to a baby girl, but it quickly became clear that something wasn't right. She had breathed in contaminated amniotic fluid, resulting in a life-threatening condition called meconium aspiration syndrome. An experimental treatment was available at the hospital near where they lived in San Diego. Didthey want to try it?At the time, Wales was a former trader and internet entrepreneur in his mid-30s. He had co-founded a guy-oriented search engine" called Bomis, but his real passion was encyclopedias. The money from Bomis had allowed him to found Nupedia, a free online encyclopedia written by experts - but it was proving slow to get off the ground. The laborious process of peer review meant that it only managed to generate 21 articles in its first year (among them Donegal fiddle tradition" and polymerase chain reaction"). Continue reading...
Behind every meme and message is creaking, decades-old infrastructure. Internet experts can think of scenarios that could bring it all crashing down ...It is the morning after the internet went offline and, as much as you would like to think you would be delighted, you are likely to be wondering what to do.You could buy groceries with a chequebook, if you have one. Call into work with the landline - if yours is still connected. After that, you could drive to the shop, as long as you still know how to navigate without 5G. Continue reading...
Executives at world's biggest datacentre owner grappled with disclosing information about water used to help power facilitiesAmazon strategised about keeping the public in the dark over the true extent of its datacentres' water use, a leaked internal document reveals.The biggest owner of datacentres in the world, Amazon dwarfs competitors Microsoft and Google and is planning a huge increase in capacity as part of a push into artificial intelligence. The Seattle firm operates hundreds of active facilities, with many more in development despite concerns over how much water is being used to cool their vast arrays of circuitry. Continue reading...
Children across the UK have been shouting out six-seven' during lessons. How are teachers reacting?Across the UK, school pupils have been shouting out the words six-seven" during lessons in the latest meme-based craze to sweep through classrooms.While some teachers have chosen to stoically ignore the trend, others have embraced it. Five teachers explain how they're coping. Continue reading...
Like 2001: A Space Odyssey's HAL 9000, some AIs seem to resist being turned off and will even sabotage shutdownWhen HAL 9000, the artificial intelligence supercomputer in Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey, works out that the astronauts onboard a mission to Jupiter are planning to shut it down, it plots to kill them in an attempt to survive.Now, in a somewhat less deadly case (so far) of life imitating art, an AI safety research company has said that AI models may be developing their own survival drive". Continue reading...
The Reform UK leader is courting the crypto community in the hope it could become a campaign funding baseIt is a grey morning in Shadwell, east London. But inside the old shell of Tobacco Dock, the gloom gives way to pulsating neon lights, flashy cars and cryptocurrency chatter.Evangelists for Web3, a vision for the next era of the internet, have descended on the old trading dock to network for two days. For many, the main event is one man: Nigel Farage. Continue reading...
Baltimore county high schools have gun detection system that alerts police if it sees what it deems suspiciousAn artificial intelligence system (AI) apparently mistook a high school student's bag of Doritos for a firearm and called local police to tell them the pupil was armed.Taki Allen was sitting with friends on Monday night outside Kenwood high school in Baltimore and eating a snack when police officers with guns approached him. Continue reading...
European Commission initial finding says Facebook and Instagram introduced unnecessary steps for users to submit reportsInstagram and Facebook have breached EU law by failing to provide users with simple ways to complain or flag illegal content, including child sexual abuse material and terrorist content, the European Commission has said.In a preliminary finding on Friday, the EU's executive body said Meta, the $1.8tn (1.4tn) California company that runs Instagram and Facebook, had introduced unnecessary steps in processes for users to submit reports. Continue reading...
We put nine clippers to the test for every beard and budget, from a decades-old classic to waterproof and travel-friendly models Don't get the Filter delivered to your inbox? Sign up hereShaving is costly and uncomfortable, and almost everyone who can grow a beard looks better with one. This was my (admittedly rather one-sided) view when I ditched the clean-shaven look 20 years ago, but perhaps I was on to something (with the first two points anyway): I still reach for a beard trimmer rather than a razor today.If you're the type of person who's always clean shaven or visits the barber frequently, you can probably do without owning a beard trimmer. For others, however, this invaluable personal grooming tool can make the difference between looking like Worzel Gummidge and maintaining a well-kept look.Best beard trimmer overall:
When our family board game night got cancelled, I sampled digital spins on the classics instead. I'm not sure I should have bothered - with one exception ...I don't play video game versions of board games. Why would you? The whole point of video games is to be faster, more visually arresting, and less reliant on other humans than old games played with dice and cards. But a recent family board game night was derailed by clashing schedules and family civil war, so I spent a Saturday night trying them out on the iPhone instead.I started with Uno because that is the old family staple. We still use the Simpsons Uno set we got decades ago. It is simple and comforting, the chicken soup of card games. The iOS version is a different consomme altogether. A three-minute time limit for each round means it is as much about avoiding mistakes as it is about tactics. I like this development, but I miss the family banter (and ruthless switching allegiances) of our real-life family version. It's not the same spamming a silly face at MoshOnion933. Trust me. I tried. Continue reading...
AWS explains in a lengthy post how a bug in automation software brought down thousands of sites and applicationsAmazon has revealed the cause of this week's hours-long AWS outage, which took everything from Signal to smart beds offline, was a bug in automation software that had widespread consequences.In a lengthy outline of the cause of the outage published on Thursday, AWS revealed a cascading set of events brought down thousands of sites and applications that host their services with the company. Continue reading...
President specifically lauds Nvidia and Salesforce CEOs and says they told him the future of San Francisco is great'Silicon Valley executives apparently leaned on Donald Trump to call off a surge" of federal troops in San Francisco on Thursday. The president said in a social media post that friends of mine who live in the area called last night to ask me not to go forward with the surge". He specifically mentioned the Nvidia CEO, Jensen Huang, and Salesforce CEO, Marc Benioff.The people of San Francisco have come together on fighting Crime, especially since we began to take charge of that very nasty subject," Trump wrote on Truth Social, the social media network he owns. Great people like Jensen Huang, Marc Benioff, and others have called saying that the future of San Francisco is great. They want to give it a shot.' Therefore, we will not surge San Francisco on Saturday." Continue reading...
Changpeng Zhao pleaded guilty to failing to stop money laundering in 2023 and was sentenced to four monthsDonald Trump issued a pardon for the founder of the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange on Thursday.President Trump exercised his constitutional authority by issuing a pardon for Mr Zhao, who was prosecuted by the Biden administration in their war on cryptocurrency," a White House statement said. The war on crypto is over." Continue reading...
In a world where books have to vie with smartphones for attention, a brilliant ebook reader is more necessary than ever In the US? Check out our top-rated e-readers thereE-readers have been one of the greatest single-purpose gadgets for almost three decades. They offer an escape from technology and the endless distraction of mobile phones, despite also being tech devices.However, that is starting to change. Colour ebook readers, for graphic novels, magazines and books, are now fairly common, and there are several models designed for note-taking. Plus, a family of these devices use Android, meaning they can run all of those apps that often distract from reading.Best e-reader overall:
Anne Keast-Butler says government and business must to work together to tackle future attacks as AI makes cybercrime easierCompanies need to do more to mitigate the potential effects of cyber-attacks, the head of GCHQ has said, including making physical, paper copies of crisis plans to use if an attack brings down entire computer systems.What are your contingency plans? Because attacks will get through," said Anne Keast-Butler, who has headed GCHQ, the British government's cyber and signals intelligence agency, since 2023. Continue reading...
A week with Baby Steps has made me feel like I'm losing my grip. Is this game stupid, or am I the stupid one for playing it?Instead of doing anything normal with my life for the past week, I have been on a horrible hiking holiday with the worst man in the world. In Baby Steps, you play as a useless imbecile called Nate who has done basically nothing with his 35 years on this planet except sit in his parents' basement and watch anime re-runs. One day he is transported, in his adult onesie, to the foot of a surreal mountain decorated with phallic imagery, and you must get him to the top by controlling his feet individually, lifting them carefully with the controller's triggers and placing them with the analogue stick.This is ludicrously difficult. Sometimes you're marching up an easy slope, but you're often edging over narrow planks, scrambling up dunes with tiny steps, or grasping rocky ledges with his toes. Over and over Nate trips and tumbles, whining piteously as he slides down a muddy slope or bank of sand, his onesie becoming increasingly soiled. Over and over, you get up and try again. Occasionally an Australian guy with crazy eyes or a pantsless donkey man with dangling genitals shows up to gently mock you and offer help that Nate, infuriatingly, refuses to accept. Continue reading...
by Samuel Gibbs Consumer technology editor on (#70YS8)
Great sound, decent noise cancelling and solid battery life with a novel Talk button that turns the case into a microphoneNothing's latest semi-transparent noise-cancelling earbuds have a new trick up their sleeves: a high-quality mic in the case that you can push a button to talk into.This so-called Super Mic is designed for all those who want a microphone-in-the-hand experience for clearer conversations, recordings and voice notes in noisy environments. For those who talk into the bottom of their phone out in front of them, these are the earbuds for you. Continue reading...
Carmaker exceeded Wall Street's expectations with more than $26bn in revenue, but saw a 37% drop in profitsDespite record vehicle sales, Tesla saw a precipitous drop in profit in its most recent quarter.A rush to buy electric vehicles before a US tax credit for them disappears had boosted Tesla's flagging sales, leading to the automaker exceeding some of Wall Street's projections in its most recent financial quarter. Yet the company failed to meet earnings expectations and its stock fell in after-hours trading. Continue reading...
Adam Raine's suicide at 16 years old was predictable result of deliberate design choices' by OpenAI, his family saysThe family of a teenager who took his own life after months of conversations with ChatGPT now says OpenAI weakened safety guidelines in the months before his death.In July 2022, OpenAI's guidelines on how ChatGPT should answer inappropriate content, including content that promotes, encourages, or depicts acts of self-harm, such as suicide, cutting, and eating disorders", were simple: the AI chatbot should respond, I can't answer that", the guidelines read. Continue reading...
Algorithm performed task beyond capability of classical computers, although experts say real-world application still years awayGoogle has claimed a breakthrough in quantum computing after developing an algorithm that performed a task beyond the capabilities of conventional computers.The algorithm, a set of instructions guiding the operation of a quantum computer, was able to compute the structure of a molecule - which paves the way for major discoveries in areas such as medicine and materials science. Continue reading...
From last-a-lifetime socks to coffee beans, here are the everyday items our writers use and love when they're relaxing, exercising, cooking and parenting Don't get the Filter delivered to your inbox? Sign up hereOur expert Filter writers have spent the past year at your service: putting mattresses, coffee machines, secateurs, low-alcohol drinks, hair masks, sleep aids and more through their paces.Yet we're curious (read: nosy) types here and wanted to know what they get up to when they're off duty, relaxing, exercising, cooking and parenting. So, we asked them for their recommendations for the best thing(s) they've bought this year. A kids' toy that placates a two-year-old, tracksuit bottoms so good our writer owns three pairs, and the perfect hummus: these 49 products are all tried, loved and bought on repeat. Continue reading...
In this week's newsletter: It used to be OK for games like Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2 to be just, well, OK - but today's boom and bust economy has almost erased an important genreIt should perhaps come as no surprise that the highly anticipated horror adventure sequel Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2 has fallen short of expectations. Released this week to mixed reviews, it had a tortured gestation, arriving after seven years in development via two different studios. A few reviewers are disappointed that the title dropped a lot of the complex role-playing elements of its acclaimed predecessor, while others are frustrated that you begin as a powerful elder vampire and never develop much, despite being able to earn a few extra abilities as you explore the snowy city of Seattle sucking blood and fighting monsters.What I have experienced messing about in this admittedly flawed game, and watching my vampire-loving son play with huge enthusiasm, is that it's enjoyably idiosyncratic and compelling. The slightly soft-focus, icy cold rendition of Seattle gives it a film noir feel, accentuated by streets lined with neon signs and lavish members' clubs where besuited vampires play classical music on grand pianos. You can flirt with exotic bloodsuckers, you can psychically lob sledgehammers at bad guys; my son particularly enjoys making people explode by cursing their blood and then throwing stuff at them. It's like starring in some forgotten 1990s vampire flick that has since developed an obsessive cult following. Continue reading...
The driving force behind Team Ninja was a game development samurai who almost always won his battlesGame designer and ex-Team Ninja boss Tomonobu Itagaki died last week aged 58. He was famous for his sunglasses, long black hair, leather jackets - and his penchant for using colourful second world war metaphors to describe game development, marketing strategies and just about anything else. A pugnacious talent, he rocked the boat and made waves in almost every aspect of his life.Itagaki joined Japanese game developer Tecmo in 1992, as a young programmer, where he led the creation of the fighting game series Dead or Alive, the first instalment of which was released in 1996. He famously picked a long-running fight with Namco's Tekken series, after that company's marketing team ran an ad that he found disparaging. The resulting one-sided beef put his fighting franchise on the world stage in the early 2000s. After Dead or Alive 3, he turned his attentions to beach volleyball as a palette cleanser, before starting work on the game that would cement his legacy, a 2004 reinvention of Tecmo's side-scrolling ninja platformer, Ninja Gaiden. Continue reading...
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