The Unigine Engine has existed for well over a decade and has been used heavily in the engineering, military and scientific markets as well as powering several popular benchmarking applications. With the boom in indie game development and game engines, Unigine was rarely if ever used and most of that came down to it’s pricing. Recently however, Unigine started offering cheaper monthly subscription options as well as a 30 day trial.
Unigine is available for Linux and Windows using OpenGL and Direct3D and can target those platforms as well as many VR headsets including the VIVE and RIFT. Games are programmed using your choice of C++, C# and/or their own UnigineScript language. Unigine also ships with a fully functioning editor and complete asset pipeline.
In the following video we go hands-on with the Unigine game engine, taking a look at the coding experience, editor and ecosystem available.
Two Years Later, Ticket to Earth is Finally Complete
We liked Ticket to Earth when it first launched in March 2017. In fact, it was one of Matt’s highlights for the whole year. There was only one problem… it wasn’t finished. A four-part story that only launched with one part, people were understandably nervous that they may not get everything they were promised if they bought into it too early.
It seemed a bit touch and go as well: Episode 2 released five months after launch in August, but Episode 3 didn’t land until December 2018. Now, ten months later and over two years since the original mobile release, Ticket to Earth’s fourth episode has landed as part of the free updated that dropped yesterday. If you’ve never heard of this game before, let’s start out with a trailer:
Ticket to Earth is essentially a turn-based tactical RPG/Puzzle game, with some very innovative mechanics connected to how yo move around the battle-space and what it means. It’s on our list of essential turn-based strategy games on mobile, so that should tell you something.
Now that Episode 4 is out, we’re interested in seeing what Robot Circus does next. We hope whatever it is, it doesn’t take two years to complete. If you end up trying out Episode 4, let us know what you think in the comments!
Ticket to Earth is available on iOS and Android for $3.99/$4.99 respectively.
Add a using statement for Microsoft.AspNetCore.Components.Authorization in your top level _Imports.razor file.
Update all Blazor component parameters to be public.
Update implementations of IJSRuntime to return ValueTask<T>.
Replace calls to MapBlazorHub<TComponent> with a single call to MapBlazorHub.
Update calls to RenderComponentAsync and RenderStaticComponentAsync to use the new overloads to RenderComponentAsync that take a RenderMode parameter (see Render multiple Blazor components from MVC views or pages below for details).
(Optional) Remove page specific _Imports.razor file with the @layout directive to use the default layout specified through the router instead.
Remove any use of the PageDisplay component and replace with LayoutView, RouteView, or AuthorizeRouteView as appropriate (see Blazor routing improvements below for details).
Replace uses of IUriHelper with NavigationManager.
Remove any use of @ref:suppressField.
Replace the previous RevalidatingAuthenticationStateProvider code with the new RevalidatingIdentityAuthenticationStateProvider code from the project template.
Replace Microsoft.AspNetCore.Components.UIEventArgs with System.EventArgs and remove the “UI” prefix from all EventArgs derived types (UIChangeEventArgs -> ChangeEventArgs, etc.).
Replace DotNetObjectRef with DotNetObjectReference.
Replace OnAfterRender() and OnAfterRenderAsync() implementations with OnAfterRender(bool firstRender) or OnAfterRenderAsync(bool firstRender).
In gRPC projects:
Update calls to GrpcClient.Create with a call GrpcChannel.ForAddress to create a new gRPC channel and new up your typed gRPC clients using this channel.
Rebuild any project or project dependency that uses gRPC code generation for an ABI change in which all clients inherit from ClientBase instead of LiteClientBase. There are no code changes required for this change.
You should now be all set to use .NET Core 3.0 Preview 9!
Blazor event handlers and data binding attributes moved to Microsoft.AspNetCore.Components.Web
In this release we moved the set of bindings and event handlers available for HTML elements into the Microsoft.AspNetCore.Components.Web.dll assembly and into the Microsoft.AspNetCore.Components.Web namespace. This change was made to isolate the web specific aspects of the Blazor programming from the core programming model. This section provides additional details on how to upgrade your existing projects to react to this change.
Blazor apps
Open the application’s root _Imports.razor and add @using Microsoft.AspNetCore.Components.Web. Blazor apps get a reference to the Microsoft.AspNetCore.Components.Web package implicitly without any additional package references, so adding a reference to this package isn’t necessary.
Blazor libraries
Add a package reference to the Microsoft.AspNetCore.Components.Web package package if you don’t already have one. Then open the root _Imports.razor file for the project (create the file if you don’t already have it) and add @using Microsoft.AspNetCore.Components.Web.
Troubleshooting guidance
With the correct references and using statement for Microsoft.AspNetCore.Components.Web, event handlers like @onclick and @bind should be bold font and colorized as shown below when using Visual Studio.
If @bind or @onclick are colorized as a normal HTML attribute, then the @using statement is missing.
If you’re missing a using statement for the Microsoft.AspNetCore.Components.Web namespace, you may see build failures. For example, the following build error for the code shown above indicates that the @bind attribute wasn’t recognized:
CS0169 The field 'Index.text' is never used
CS0428 Cannot convert method group 'Submit' to non-delegate type 'object'. Did you intend to invoke the method?
In other cases you may get a runtime exception and the app fails to render. For example, the following runtime exception seen in the browser console indicates that the @onclick attribute wasn’t recognized:
Error: There was an error applying batch 2.
DOMException: Failed to execute 'setAttribute' on 'Element': '@onclick' is not a valid attribute name.
Add a using statement for the Microsoft.AspNetCore.Components.Web namespace to address these issues. If adding the using statement fixed the problem, consider moving to the using statement app’s root _Imports.razor so it will apply to all files.
If you add the Microsoft.AspNetCore.Components.Web namespace but get the following build error, then you’re missing a package reference to the Microsoft.AspNetCore.Components.Web package:
CS0234 The type or namespace name 'Web' does not exist in the namespace 'Microsoft.AspNetCore.Components' (are you missing an assembly reference?)
Add a package reference to the Microsoft.AspNetCore.Components.Web package to address the issue.
Blazor routing improvements
In this release we’ve revised the Blazor Router component to make it more flexible and to enable new scenarios. The Router component in Blazor handles rendering the correct component that matches the current address. Routable components are marked with the @page directive, which adds the RouteAttribute to the generated component classes. If the current address matches a route, then the Router renders the contents of its Found parameter. If no route matches, then the Router component renders the contents of its NotFound parameter.
To render the component with the matched route, use the new RouteView component passing in the supplied RouteData from the Router along with any desired parameters. The RouteView component will render the matched component with its layout if it has one. You can also optionally specify a default layout to use if the matched component doesn’t have one.
<Router AppAssembly="typeof(Program).Assembly"> <Found Context="routeData"> <RouteView RouteData="routeData" DefaultLayout="typeof(MainLayout)" /> </Found> <NotFound> <h1>Page not found</h1> <p>Sorry, but there's nothing here!</p> </NotFound>
</Router>
Render content using a specific layout
To render a component using a particular layout, use the new LayoutView component. This is useful when specifying content for not found pages that you still want to use the app’s layout.
Authorization is no longer handled directly by the Router. Instead, you use the AuthorizeRouteView component. The AuthorizeRouteView component is a RouteView that will only render the matched component if the user is authorized. Authorization rules for specific components are specified using the AuthorizeAttribute. The AuthorizeRouteView component also sets up the AuthenticationState as a cascading value if there isn’t one already. Otherwise, you can still manually setup the AuthenticationState as a cascading value using the CascadingAuthenticationState component.
You can optionally set the NotAuthorized and Authorizing parameters of the AuthorizedRouteView component to specify content to display if the user is not authorized or authorization is still in progress.
You can now specify additional assemblies for the Router component to consider when searching for routable components. These assemblies will be considered in addition to the specified AppAssembly. You specify these assemblies using the AdditionalAssemblies parameter. For example, if Component1 is a routable component defined in a referenced class library, then you can support routing to this component like this:
Render multiple Blazor components from MVC views or pages
We’ve reenabled support for rendering multiple components from a view or page in a Blazor Server app. To render a component from a .cshtml file, use the Html.RenderComponentAsync<TComponent>(RenderMode renderMode, object parameters) HTML helper method with the desired RenderMode.
RenderMode
Description
Supports parameters?
Static
Statically render the component with the specified parameters.
Yes
Server
Render a marker where the component should be rendered interactively by the Blazor Server app.
No
ServerPrerendered
Statically prerender the component along with a marker to indicate the component should later be rendered interactively by the Blazor Server app.
No
Support for stateful prerendering has been removed in this release due to security concerns. You can no longer prerender components and then connect back to the same component state when the app loads. We may reenable this feature in a future release post .NET Core 3.0.
Blazor Server apps also no longer require that the entry point components be registered in the app’s Configure method. Only a single call to MapBlazorHub() is required.
Smarter reconnection for Blazor Server apps
Blazor Server apps are stateful and require an active connection to the server in order to function. If the network connection is lost, the app will try to reconnect to the server. If the connection can be reestablished but the server state is lost, then reconnection will fail. Blazor Server apps will now detect this condition and recommend the user to refresh the browser instead of retrying to connect.
Utility base component classes for managing a dependency injection scope
In ASP.NET Core apps, scoped services are typically scoped to the current request. After the request completes, any scoped or transient services are disposed by the dependency injection (DI) system. In Blazor Server apps, the request scope lasts for the duration of the client connection, which can result in transient and scoped services living much longer than expected.
To scope services to the lifetime of a component you can use the new OwningComponentBase and OwningComponentBase<TService> base classes. These base classes expose a ScopedServices property of type IServiceProvider that can be used to resolve services that are scoped to the lifetime of the component. To author a component that inherits from a base class in Razor use the @inherits directive.
@page "/users"
@attribute [Authorize]
@inherits OwningComponentBase<Data.ApplicationDbContext> <h1>Users (@Service.Users.Count())</h1>
<ul> @foreach (var user in Service.Users) { <li>@user.UserName</li> }
</ul>
Note: Services injected into the component using @inject or the InjectAttribute are not created in the component’s scope and will still be tied to the request scope.
Razor component unit test framework prototype
We’ve started experimenting with building a unit test framework for Razor components. You can read about the prototype in Steve Sanderson’s Unit testing Blazor components – a prototype blog post. While this work won’t ship with .NET Core 3.0, we’d still love to get your feedback early in the design process. Take a look at the code on GitHub and let us know what you think!
Helper methods for returning Problem Details from controllers
Problem Details is a standardized format for returning error information from an HTTP endpoint. We’ve added new Problem and ValidationProblem method overloads to controllers that use optional parameters to simplify returning Problem Detail responses.
[Route("/error")]
public ActionResult<ProblemDetails> HandleError()
{ return Problem(title: "An error occurred while processing your request", statusCode: 500);
}
New client API for gRPC
To improve compatibility with the existing Grpc.Core implementation, we’ve changed our client API to use gRPC channels. The channel is where gRPC configuration is set and it is used to create strongly typed clients. The new API provides a more consistent client experience with Grpc.Core, making it easier to switch between using the two libraries.
// Old
using var httpClient = new HttpClient() { BaseAddress = new Uri("https://localhost:5001") };
var client = GrpcClient.Create<GreeterClient>(httpClient); // New
var channel = GrpcChannel.ForAddress("https://localhost:5001");
var client = new GreeterClient(channel); var reply = await client.GreetAsync(new HelloRequest { Name = "Santa" });
Support for async streams in streaming gRPC responses
gRPC streaming responses return a custom IAsyncStreamReader type that can be iterated on to receive all response messages in a streaming response. With the addition of async streams in C# 8, we’ve added a new extension method that makes for a more ergonomic API while consuming streaming responses.
// Old
while (await requestStream.MoveNext(CancellationToken.None))
{ var message = requestStream.Current; // …
} // New and improved
await foreach (var message in requestStream.ReadAllAsync())
{ // …
}
Give feedback
We hope you enjoy the new features in this preview release of ASP.NET Core and Blazor! Please let us know what you think by filing issues on GitHub.
Posted by: xSicKxBot - 10-21-2019, 06:51 PM - Forum: Windows
- No Replies
The Miami Heat are on a fast break to innovate
The Miami Heat next week open their regular-season schedule – a slate that stretches deep into April and includes 41 home games at AmericanAirlines Arena.
The outcomes of those 41 contests? Unknown. Who will lead the team in scoring on those 41 nights? Check back in April.
How many fans will attend each of those 41 games? How many Jimmy Butler jerseys will they buy each night? How many Mofongo Dogs will they gobble during every game? Miami Heat executive Edson Crevecoeur already has the answers.
Edson Crevecoeur.
Within hours of the NBA schedule’s release in August, Crevecoeur had forecast the attendance for each game at AmericanAirlines Arena plus the food and beverage sales, retail sales, ticket sales and staffing needs for every event, fueling business decisions well before the first tip-off.
In basketball, they call that connecting from distance.
In this case, Crevecoeur and team made the prognostications using Microsoft Power BI, a data-visualization tool, to display the purchasing patterns of tickets, concessions and arena retail from seasons past to offer a clear view of game nights to come.
“We use Power BI to provide the right information to the right audience at the right time,” says Crevecoeur, vice president of strategy and data analytics for the Heat. “We’re able to understand what’s happening a lot quicker than we were in the past and react accordingly.”
Those insights are part of the Heat’s drive to become the NBA’s digital leader. It begins with real-time data that’s generated by fans and their mobile devices while in the arena – or while buying tickets or merchandise away from games. The data gets collected and enriched by Microsoft Azure.
Heat employees make sense of that data with Power BI, becoming better acquainted with the tastes and behaviors of individual customers. On game days, the team can swiftly re-position staff to better accommodate arriving crowds – and to cater more personally to the appetites of fans in the building, whether they’re craving Ropa Vieja or D.Wade commemorative gear.
A Power BI dashboard created by the Miami Heat.
“Our goal at the Miami Heat is not only to be one of the most innovative teams in sports, but to be innovation leaders across all industries,” says Matthew Jafarian, executive vice president of business strategy for the Heat and AmericanAirlines Arena.
Fans can see this digital evolution on their smart phones by downloading the Miami Heat mobile app, which becomes the digital focal point for fans attending Heat games or other live events at the venue, Jafarian says.
“Imagine walking up to AmericanAirlines Arena and your ticket is smart enough to know you’re attending an event that evening, so it pops up right on your home screen. You simply tap the app on the NFC-enabled pedestal and the ticket taker welcomes you into the venue,” Jafarian says.
“You check out real-time wait times at concessions, choose a great spot to eat and tap to pay with your phone. You can be in your seat and share a ticket with a friend that’s running late, all from the device in the palm of your hands,” he adds.
A Heat fan scans his mobile ticket.
Two seasons ago, AmericanAirlines Arena adopted “mobile-only entry” and phased out paper tickets. That change is unleashing more opportunities for the Heat to better understand and communicate with their customers.
Based on how often a fan attends games, the opposing teams they tend to watch and the kinds of food or gear they buy at the arena, the marketing staff crafts and sends digital messages that are relevant to them, say, ticket packages or the arrival of new apparel.
“We want to know our customer,” says Lisette Toirac Perdomo, manager of data platform services for the Heat. “We want to anticipate what they want, so we can meet their interests.”
To gain that knowledge, the team creates 360-degree customer profiles, using the data generated whenever a fan interacts within the arena or visits online touchpoints, including the Heat app, Heat.com, AAArena.com or MiamiHeatstore.com, the team’s e-commerce presence.
Those digital interactions get captured by Adobe Analytics – a solution that measures and makes sense of web and app data – and is seamlessly integrated with Adobe Campaign, which connects the Heat to the customer throughout their journey via e-mail and push notification, Jafarian says. Adobe is a Microsoft partner.
“We capture some relevant information in Microsoft Dynamics 365,” a cloud-based tool that enables customer relationship management (CRM), Jafarian says. “We then put that fan profile into the hands of a Miami Heat sales or service person who can help provide a better experience.”
With the Miami Heat mobile app, a fan’s phone shows the live score as he enters the arena.
All that extra attention is expanding the team’s fan base, he says.
“Three years ago, we didn’t even know who was walking in the building because paper tickets are largely anonymous. Now we’re getting an understanding of who they are,” Jafarian says. “The fan experience is everything for us.”
About five years ago, the Heat saw the need to commit to a full-scale, back-office modernization – a big shift sparked by an abrupt change to the basketball roster.
About five years ago, the Heat saw the need to commit to a full-scale, back-office modernization – a big shift sparked by an abrupt change to the basketball roster.
As one of the winningest NBA teams of the past 25 years, the Heat had a dynastic run when, from 2010 to 2014, the team dominated the NBA thanks to three superstars – LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh, dubbed “the Big Three.” During that span, the Heat reached four NBA Finals and won two back-to-back league titles, in 2012 and 2013. Ticket sales were hotter than a Miami summer, and there was no urgency to build a sales infrastructure. Then, the Big Three era ended.
James left the in 2014, while Wade and Bosh were gone by 2016.
“We were fortunate to have some of the greatest players to ever play the game,” Jafarian says. “Then we no longer had the Big Three, yet we still had to sell tickets. We stood up a CRM for the first time. It was a natural progression for us to choose Dynamics 365, enabling our salespeople to better sell.
Posted by: xSicKxBot - 10-21-2019, 06:51 PM - Forum: Windows
- No Replies
SAP partners with Microsoft for first-in-market cloud migration offerings
Through a new agreement, companies will accelerate and modernize customer transitions to SAP S/4HANA and SAP Cloud Platform on Microsoft Azure
REDMOND, Wash., and WALLDORF, Germany — Oct. 20, 2019 — Building on a joint commitment to simplify and modernize customers’ journeys to the cloud through project “Embrace,”SAP SE (NYSE: SAP) and Microsoft Corp. on Monday announced an extensive go-to-market partnership — from conceptualization to sales — to accelerate customer adoption of SAP S/4HANA® and SAP® Cloud Platform on Microsoft Azure.
Today’s new, preferred cloud partnership brings together SAP and Microsoft, along with a global network of system integrators, to offer holistic bundles that provide customers with unified reference architectures, road maps and market-approved journeys to illuminate a clear path toward the cloud. As part of this simplified customer journey, Microsoft will re-sell components of SAP Cloud Platform alongside Azure. This unique offering is aimed at more easily migrating SAP ERP and SAP S/4HANA customers from on-premises to public cloud.
“This partnership is all about reducing complexity and minimizing costs for customers as they move to SAP S/4HANA in the cloud,” said Jennifer Morgan, co-chief executive officer of SAP. “Bringing together the power of SAP and Microsoft provides customers with the assurance of working with two industry leaders so they can confidently and efficiently transition into intelligent enterprises.”
“SAP’s decision to select Microsoft Azure as its preferred partner deepens the relationship between our two companies in a differentiated way and signals a shared commitment to fostering the growth of the cloud ecosystem,” said Judson Althoff, executive vice president, Worldwide Commercial Business, Microsoft. “Today’s news also reflects our commitment to a customer-first mindset and supporting their cloud transformation, which continues to drive how we at Microsoft approach everything from partnerships to product innovation. It takes co-selling to a whole new level.”
SAP will lead with Microsoft Azure to move on-premise SAP ERP and SAP S/4HANA customers to the cloud through industry-specific best practices, reference architectures and cloud-delivered services. This includes future deployment and migration of existing direct SAP HANA® Enterprise Cloud customers leveraging hyperscaler infrastructure. However, SAP continues with its longstanding policy of supporting choice for those customers who request alternatives based on business requirements.
Specifically, project “Embrace” on Microsoft Azure will provide customers with:
A simplified move from on-premise editions of SAP ERP to SAP S/4HANA for customers with integrated product and industry solutions. Industry market bundles will create a road map to the cloud for customers in focused industries, with a singular reference architecture and path to streamline implementation.
Collaborative support model for simplified resolution. In response to customer feedback, a combined support model for Azure and SAP Cloud Platform will help ease migration and improve communication.
Jointly developed market journeys to support customer needs. Designed in collaboration with SAP, Microsoft and system integrator partners will provide road maps to the digital enterprise with recommended solutions and reference architectures for customers. These offer a harmonized approach by industry for products, services and practices across Microsoft, SAP and system integrators.
About SAP
As the Experience Company powered by the Intelligent Enterprise, SAP is the market leader in enterprise application software, helping companies of all sizes and in all industries run at their best: 77% of the world’s transaction revenue touches an SAP® system. Our machine learning, Internet of Things (IoT), and advanced analytics technologies help turn customers’ businesses into intelligent enterprises. SAP helps give people and organizations deep business insight and fosters collaboration that helps them stay ahead of their competition. We simplify technology for companies so they can consume our software the way they want – without disruption. Our end-to-end suite of applications and services enables more than 437,000 business and public customers to operate profitably, adapt continuously, and make a difference. With a global network of customers, partners, employees, and thought leaders, SAP helps the world run better and improves people’s lives. For more information, visit www.sap.com.
SAP, SAP HANA and other SAP products and services mentioned herein as well as their respective logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of SAP SE in Germany and other countries. Please see https://www.sap.com/copyright for additional trademark information and notices.
About Microsoft
Microsoft (Nasdaq “MSFT” @microsoft) enables digital transformation for the era of an intelligent cloud and an intelligent edge. Its mission is to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more.
For more information, press only:
Microsoft Media Relations, WE Communications for Microsoft, (425) 638-7777, rrt@we-worldwide.com SAP, Atle Erlingsson, (415) 519-8053, atle.erlingsson@sap.com SAP, Susan Miller, (610) 570-6845, susan.miller@sap.com
Note to editors: For more information, news and perspectives from Microsoft, please visit the Microsoft News Center at http://news.microsoft.com. Web links, telephone numbers and titles were correct at time of publication but may have changed. For additional assistance, journalists and analysts may contact Microsoft’s Rapid Response Team or other appropriate contacts listed at http://news.microsoft.com/microsoft-public-relations-contacts.
It’s October! That means its time for the annual Hacktoberfest presented by DigitalOcean and DEV. Hacktoberfest is a month-long event that encourages contributions to open source software projects. Participants who register and submit at least four pull requests to GitHub-hosted repositories during the month of October will receive a free t-shirt.
In a recent Fedora Magazine article, I listed some areas where would-be contributors could get started contributing to Fedora. In this article, I highlight some specific projects that provide an opportunity to help Fedora while you participate in Hacktoberfest.
Fedora infrastructure
Bodhi — When a package maintainer builds a new version of a software package to fix bugs or add new features, it doesn’t go out to users right away. First it spends time in the updates-testing repository where in can receive some real-world usage. Bodhi manages the flow of updates from the testing repository into the updates repository and provides a web interface for testers to provide feedback.
the-new-hotness — This project listens to release-monitoring.org (which is also on GitHub) and opens a Bugzilla issue when a new upstream release is published. This allows package maintainers to be quickly informed of new upstream releases.
koschei — koschei enables continuous integration for Fedora packages. It is software for running a service for scratch-rebuilding RPM packages in Koji instance when their build-dependencies change or after some time elapses.
MirrorManager2 — Distributing Fedora packages to a global user base requires a lot of bandwidth. Just like developing Fedora, distributing Fedora is a collaborative effort. MirrorManager2 tracks the hundreds of public and private mirrors and routes each user to the “best” one.
fedora-messaging — Actions within the Fedora community—from source code commits to participating in IRC meetings to…lots of things—generate messages that can be used to perform automated tasks or send notifications. fedora-messaging is the tool set that makes sending and receiving these messages possible.
fedocal — When is that meeting? Which IRC channel was it in again? Fedocal is the calendar system used by teams in the Fedora community to coordinate meetings. Not only is it a good Hacktoberfest project, it’s also looking for a new maintainer to adopt it.
In addition to the projects above, the Fedora Infrastructure team has highlighted good Hacktoberfest issues across all of their GitHub projects.
Community projects
bodhi-rs — This project provides Rust bindings for Bodhi.
koji-rs — Koji is the system used to build Fedora packages. Koji-rs provides bindings for Rust applications.
fedora-rs — This project provides a Rust library for interacting with Fedora services like other languages like Python have.
feedback-pipeline — One of the current Fedora Council objectives is minimization: work to reduce the installation and patching footprint of Fedora releases. feedback-pipeline is a tool developed by this team to generate reports of RPM sizes and dependencies.
And many more
The projects above are only a small sample focused on software used to build Fedora. Many Fedora packages have upstreams hosted on GitHub—too many to list here. The best place to start is with a project that’s important to you. Any contributions you make help improve the entire open source ecosystem. If you’re looking for something in particular, the Join Special Interest Group can help. Happy hacking!
Poll: Box Art Brawl #13 – Goemon’s Great Adventure
Smell that? Yes, that aroma of blood, sweat and tears can only mean one thing: it’s time for Box Art Brawl, the series where we lock box art variants of the same game in a cage and see which one survives to the bitter end according to votes from you bloodthirsty lot.
Last week North American Trevor Belmont triumphed over his European and Japanese selves with that version of Castlevania III: Dracula’s Curse comfortably winning approval. To be honest, we thought round 12 was going to be much closer, but NA bagged over two-thirds of the vote and left Japan and Europe to depart with bloody tears in their eyes.
This week we’re sticking with Konami but jumping to the Nintendo 64 with Goemon’s Great Adventure, or Mystical Ninja 2 Starring Goemon as it was known in Europe. The Ganbare Goemon series has a loyal fanbase, but it’s been a long while since we last saw the mystical ninja and he’s arguably slipped off the radar a bit. Well, we’re here to remember his heyday with the cover of this 2.5D side-scrolling sequel.
Let’s take a look and see which mystical ninja has the stealthiest skills…
North America
With Goemon centre-stage and striking a similar pose to the one on his first N64 game cover, Ebisumaru and the pre-rendered gang gather behind him as red, fiery shards of energy burst from the rear of the group. It’s big, dynamic and uses practically every colour on the spectrum. The logo arguably gets a bit lost and we found our eyes constantly drawn to Goemon’s odd-looking feet.
Europe
The European version eschews the rendered look for a more traditional ensemble piece of art. It’s similarly colourful, but more characters equal more action and the logo stands out a bit better, despite having some odd colouring going on in the diamond behind the text. The black info strip down the side provides a calm counterpoint to the energy of the main image, but that won’t be everyone’s cup of tea.
Normally it’s the North American and European covers which share the same key art, but this time it’s Europe and Japan…
Japan
Yep, Europe used the same key image as the JP cover, although the portrait orientation means we get a better look at the moon above the mountains. We see more of the art, although we’re not sure if that’s an improvement on the landscape perspective of the PAL version. The Konami logo in the top left is joined by a red strip across the bottom that repeats the company’s name and once again the title is a mishmash of colours and elements.
If we could mix-and-match the parts we wanted, there’s surely a killer cover here somewhere – unfortunately, we’ve got to pick between them. Actually, that’s wrong – you’re doing the picking! Once you’ve decided which ninja deserves your undying loyalty, give him a click below and hit that ‘Vote’ button:
A disciplined professional in combat and self-defence, it’ll be fascinating to see how the ninja performs against himself. Box Art Brawl will return next week for another round – we hope to see you then!
Wild West FPS Call Of Juarez: Gunslinger Rated For Switch By The ESRB
Update – Sun 20th Oct, 2019 13:05 BST: Following a rating by the ESRB earlier this month, Techland has seemingly started teasing Call of Juarez: Gunslinger for Switch.
It recently sent out a postcard to select media (thanks, VG247), showing a picture of a gunslinger playing what appears to be the recently rated game on the Nintendo Switch. The back of this postcard says “more” will be revealed on 24th October. Take a look below:
Keep an eye out for a more official announcement next week.
Original Story – Wed 9th Oct, 2019 04:15 BST: A Nintendo Switch version of the western-themed first-person shooter Call of Juarez: Gunslinger has been rated by North America’s Entertainment Software Rating Board.
This game was first released in 2013 by publisher Ubisoft and was acquired by Techland in 2018. It’s the fourth entry in the Call of Juarez series and received positive reviews by critics when it was originally released.
There’s been no mention before now about Call of Juarez: Gunslinger coming to the Switch, so we’re guessing a more official announcement is on the way. In the meantime, take a look at one of the original trailers for the game:
Is this a game you’ve been wanting to see released on the Switch? Comment below.
Box Office Report: Maleficent 2 Is Disney's Worst Opening Of 2019
The latest box office numbers have arrived, and Disney's Maleficent sequel, Mistress of Evil, was a disappointment. Entertainment Weekly reports that the film made an estimated $36 million in the Friday-Sunday period in the US and Canada, which is below the $40 million it was predicted to make.
Additionally, that's just over half of the $69.4 million that the first Maleficent movie made over its first weekend back in 2014.
At $36 million, Mistress of Evil had the lowest opening weekend for for any Disney movie so far in 2019. The film pulled in a further $117 million from overseas markets over the weekend to push its total to $153 million. Still, the movie had a budget of $185 million (before marketing), so this shows "audiences weren't invested in a sequel," EW said.
Mistress of Evil has a very good A rating on Cinema Score, which is a measurement of audience scores. The movie stars Elle Fanning and Angelina Jolie. It was directed by Joachim Ronning, who previously made Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales.
Mistress of Evil did well enough to unseat Joker from the No. 1 position its held since it debuted on October 4. The Todd Phillips/Joaquin Phoenix movie made $29.2 million at the box office in the US/Canada this weekend. The movie has made more than $730 million globally so far, which makes it a huge success given it was made on a $55 million budget.
Another new movie that premiered this weekend was Zombieland 2: Double Tap. It earned $26.7 million in the domestic market, which is ahead of the $24.7 million that the first movie made over its opening weekend in 2009 (not adjusted for inflation).
Huawei To Help Create Nation’s First Open-Source Foundation
Huawei Technologies Co said it plans to partner with other companies to set up China’s first open-source software foundation, which is expected to begin to operate in a month or two to expand the nation’s software community. The plan for the software foundation came after GitHub, the world’s largest host of source code, prevented in July users in Iran and other nations sanctioned by the United States government from accessing portions of its service. The incident highlights increasing geopolitical interference with global open-source tech communities, which are supposed to be fair and open to all, analysts said. (Source: China.org)
