Surprise! The Last Remnant Remastered Is Now Available On The Switch eShop
During the Square Enix Live E3 2019 presentation, the company surprised Switch owners when it revealed The Last Remnant Remastered would be released today on the Nintendo Switch eShop. After being made available on the PlayStation 4 late last year, the enhanced version of this JRPG is now also available on the Switch.
The Nintendo release will set you back $19.99 and takes up approximately 12.0GB of storage space. Prior to this remaster, the game was released in 2008 on Xbox 360. Here’s a description from Nintendo’s store page:
Last released in 2008, The Last Remnant captured the hearts and minds of gamers with its enthralling story, countless characters and intricate battle system. Now this cult classic RPG is back with a Remastered version and is coming to Nintendo Switch with even more beautiful graphics, enhanced via an updated game engine.
And this is the story:
There exists a world woven together by four races: Mitra, Yama, Qsiti, and Sovani.
In this world, mysterious objects called “Remnants” have existed since ancient times. Who created these objects? When? And for what reason? No one knew nor had the means to know, but continued to extract and use their colossal power.
However, the Remnants’ immense power gradually caused the world to fall out of balance. As further separation tore apart those who rule and those who follow, a war broke out―the beginning of a long and endless strife.
A thousand years later, this story begins.
In terms of what else you can expect: There’s a distinct battle system – where coming into contact with enemies will trigger encounters. You’ll also be required to strategize and make full use of continually changing commands, depending on the positions of friendlies and enemies within the field. The morale of your allies will also impact the outcome of battles.
Is this a game you were expecting to see released on the Switch? Tell us down in the comments.
Markdown is a lightweight markup language that is useful for adding formatting while still maintaining readability when viewing as plain text. Markdown (and Markdown derivatives) are used extensively as the priumary form of markup of documents on services like GitHub and pagure. By design, Markdown is easily created and edited in a text editor, however, there are a multitude of editors available that provide a formatted preview of Markdown markup, and / or provide a text editor that highlights the markdown syntax.
This article covers 3 desktop applications for Fedora Workstation that help out when editing Markdown.
UberWriter
UberWriter is a minimal Markdown editor and previewer that allows you to edit in text, and preview the rendered document.
The editor itself has inline previews built in, so text marked up as bold is displayed bold. The editor also provides inline previews for images, formulas, footnotes, and more. Ctrl-clicking one of these items in the markup provides an instant preview of that element to appear.
In addition to the editor features, UberWriter also features a full screen mode and a focus mode to help minimise distractions. Focus mode greys out all but the current paragraph to help you focus on that element in your document
Marker is a Markdown editor that provides a simple text editor to write Markdown in, and provides a live preview of the rendered document. The interface is designed with a split screen layout with the editor on the left, and the live preview on the right.
Additionally, Marker allows you to export you document in a range of different formats, including HTML, PDF, and the Open Document Format (ODF).
Where the previous editors are more focussed on a minimal user experice, Ghostwriter provides many more features and options to play with. Ghostwriter provides a text editor that is partially styled as you write in Markdown format. Bold text is bold, and headings are in a larger font to assist in writing the markup.
It also provides a split screen with a live updating preview of the rendered document.
Ghostwriter also includes a range of other features, including the ability to choose the Markdown flavour that the preview is rendered in, as well as the stylesheet used to render the preview too.
Additionally, it provides a format menu (and keyboard shortcuts) to insert some of the frequent markdown ‘tags’ like bold, bullets, and italics.
Posted by: xSicKxBot - 06-11-2019, 08:10 AM - Forum: Windows
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Inside Xbox: E3 2019 news recap
Today’s special E3 edition of Inside Xbox was chock-full of world premiere trailers, developer interviews, exclusive gameplay and general celebration of all things gaming and E3.
We delved deep into the hectic, strategic and violent new game mode for Gears 5, Escape, with Rod Fergusson and showcased the fast and fluid 4v4 competitive gameplay of Ninja Theory’s brand new IP, Bleeding Edge. We welcomed Phil Spencer to the stage to discuss Team Xbox’s vision for gaming, plumbed the depths of Halo Infinite’s moving new trailer with Chris Lee, got details on the incredible partnership with Smilegate to bring Crossfire X to Xbox One, and gave a hearty welcome to Double Fine’s Tim Schafer, the newest member of the Xbox Game Studios Family.
Also highlighted on stage were Sea of Thieves, including their brand new Halo-themed livery – available now until June 15 at 4:00 pm PT – Watch Dogs: Legion, Star Wars: Jedi Fallen Order, State of Decay 2’s new story-focused expansion Heartland (Trumbull Valley lives!), and Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2, along with world premiere trailers for The Surge 2, Code Vein, Age of Wonders: Planetfall, Zombie Army 4, Journey to the Savage Planet, and Phoenix Point.
Of course, it wouldn’t be Inside Xbox if it didn’t break some news along the way.
Inside Xbox revealed the final wave of backward compatibility announcements for Xbox One, as the engineering team that brought one of the most beloved Xbox One features to life moves on to ensure your Xbox One library is backward compatible on Project Scarlett.
The team announced eight new original Xbox game entries into the backward compatibility catalogue: Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell, Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow, Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory, Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell: Double Agent, Unreal Championship 2: The Liandri Conflict, Armed and Dangerous, Indiana Jones and the Emperor’s Tomb, and Sphinx and the Cursed Mummy.
The newly announced Xbox 360 backward compatibility titles are Asura’s Wrath, Battlefield 2: Modern Combat, Enchanted Arms, Far Cry Classic, Far Cry Instinct Predator, Infinite Discovery, Peter Jackson’s King Kong: The Official Movie of the Game, Prince of Persia: Forgotten Sands, Skate, Star Ocean, Super Puzzle Fighter Turbo, The Syndicate, Unreal Tournament 3, and Too Human, which is available right now for free in the Microsoft Store.
Finally, eight Rare classics have received the Xbox One X Enhanced treatment: Banjo-Kazooie, Banjo-Tooie, Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts, Kameo: Elements of Power, Perfect Dark and Perfect Dark Zero.
The team also announced some exciting new updates coming to Gamertags! First, you’ll now be able to use character scripts to represent over 200 languages, with even more support coming in the future. This means you can use characters native to your own language in your Gamertag.
You’ll also be able to now select any name you like for your Gamertag. If someone else has selected the same Gamertag, you’ll be assigned a 3-4 digit ID suffix separate you from those that have chosen the same Gamertag.
Finally, if you like your current Gamertag, nothing changes. Yours will always be the original version of that Gamertag and will not include a numerical suffix. For all the details on the coming updates to Gamertags, check out the blog post here.
X019
Phil Spencer announced the return of our global celebration of all things Xbox, with X019 slated for November 2019 in London. The event will be filled with news, first looks and plenty of surprises, all kicking off with the biggest Inside Xbox episode of the year. Thousands of fans will join in person, and we’ll have more details on how to participate in X019 at gamescom in August.
Inside Xbox may be done, but the there’s plenty more left in store during E3 week. Keep your eyes peeled on Mixer.com/Mixer for wall-to-wall E3 coverage throughout the week, and don’t forget to check out the full episode of Inside Xbox.
I confess I have been somewhat lax in my boardgame-fanboy duties as of late. We are inundated with all and sundry new releases each year (mostly clustered around the fall conventions) and generally get served more new games than we know what to do with. This inevitably means some worthy releases pass by without enough notice. Mystic Vale is the latest to cross-over from cardboard to the app store(s). The result is a surprisingly punchy lightweight, rapid-fire push-your-luck game, remixing relatively new trends in mechanics (deck-building & customization) with the tried-and-true (set collection, engine building). It is a good game and faithful app, but a little flat and perfunctory as well. Mystic Vale is generally a worthy super-filler, and the digital app gets the job done.
To cleanse the land of corruption, competing tribes of druids graft on ever-more-potent magical allies, animal spirits and the like to turn the tide. Every player starts with an identical deck of cards and takes turns drawing from the land’s energy to fuel more magical improvements. But the tainted land is strong as well and will leave greedy players empty-handed.
There’s a Mario Party minigame where the players take turns inflating a comically oversized balloon until it pops, exploding with (again, comedic) force and knocking out contestants one by one until there is only the winner left. The spirit, if not the mechanic, of push-your-luck, is crystallized into this image. Players can calculate the risks and independently decide how far they want to push their luck for a greater reward. Mystic Vale does this with its Spoiled Lands, drawing every turn until three corrupted symbols appear. The player can choose to draw more cards, one by one, increasing their rewards in the process, but also risk busting and ending their turn prematurely with nothing to show for it. Push-your-luck is so satisfying because it breaks a large risk down into delicious increments. It’s difficult to do well, aside from very pure, refined implementations (e.g. Can’t Stop).
To its credit, Mystic Vale make it one of the central decisions of each turn, and then tasks successful players with spending their mana & spirit symbols to further enhance their decks. Each deck cycles through 20 cards with a top, middle, and bottom region which can each be enhanced with purchases from a common pool of cards. The game’s iconography is crystal-clear, and its elements as stripped-down as can be.
In addition to the primary resource, mana, there are four elemental symbols as well as a ‘guardian’ subtype with tribal synergy. Most purchases simply enhance a deck’s mana and victory point yield during the harvest, but the bigger swings in ‘tech’ improvements come from the vale cards. These are also purchased after the harvest, but instead of using mana, players must have a match of the symbols of the vale. A few give straight-up victory points, but the more interesting offerings give unique effects (bonus mana, avoiding spoilage, wild symbol conversion) to dramatically accelerate the game’s pace.
The game feels aggressively midrange for such a naturalistic-shamanistic setting, for the whole affair is over in under twenty turns (Which passes in no time at all on the app). It ends just as things really start taking off for the players, kinda like with Splendor. It has achieved an amazing balance of brevity and strategy, for players must constantly assess which engine to build and how. Pretty much every card is viable and competitive, some with niches smaller than others. Mana and timing constraints mean that even winning decks often have jury-rigged, rag-tag elements mixed in with the rest.
The endgame comes so quickly because the pacing is up to the players. Instead of a set number of turns, the game is scaled around a victory point pool. Once it is completely divvied up amongst players, the game is over. More involved multi-card synergies will generate gonzo points in a single turn, but are they worth the lengthy set-up? Alternatively, is it worth scrimping a few victory points each turn if everyone else is planning for a deferred late game? It’s a simple but elegant change which turns game length into another strategic element to be decided by the dynamic equilibrium generated by the players.
The app makes the art look inorganic and forced, as if the graphical assets were used to recreate the tabletop visual as literally as possible. (They also appear to scale poorly). Functionality and legibility are top-notch. Music and layout are both serviceable, and the app has a touch of whimsy about its loading-screen text, but generally this implementation is a by-the-numbers affair. It is good but not to be oversold, like when the game boasts of its ‘card crafting system’. Lastly, Mystic Vale has both an in-game rule reference, a card compendium, as well as the obligatory introductory tutorial series, so props for thoroughness on that front.
Now for the bad news. Everything Mystic Vale does well recalls a stronger instance in another game. As an experience or an instruction in game design, it’s masterful. But there are other lightweight games I love more, and other quick-playing games with a little more control or strategy on tap. The game itself couldn’t be further than kitchen-sink, but in terms of gaming niches this is precisely the trap it falls into. Maybe this is the hobbyist curmudgeon in me, but it feels as if Mystic Vale’s strengths do not actually further its appeal.
Mystic Vale is refined and sharp, better than most of its kind, that of a mid-range, easy-to-learn, decently competitive multiplayer deck builder. Its individual components are better represented by other games, and honestly it isn’t really that strategic, but it is extremely well-made and fun. The app is a fairly priced way to experience it, with decent AI and timed multiplayer. Good, but not excellent.
Construct beta r153 has just been released. Construct is a “codeless” HTML5 based game engine that runs entirely in your browser. The major feature of this new update is the new ease curve editor which can be used for tweening timelines. Addition you can now use both local and global variables in scripts in events.
It’s time to embrace 5G, starting with the Edge in our homes and hands.
In June 1997, David Isenberg, then of
AT&T Labs Research, wrote a landmark
paper titled “Rise of the Stupid
Network”. You can still find it here. The
paper argued against phone companies’ intent to make their own systems
smarter. He said the internet, which already was subsuming all the world’s
phone and cable TV company networks, was succeeding not by being smart, but
by being stupid. By that, he meant the internet “was built for intelligence at
the end-user’s device, not in the network”.
In a stupid network, he wrote, “the data is boss, bits are essentially free,
and there is no assumption that the data is of a single data rate or data
type.” That approach worked because the internet’s base protocol, TCP/IP, was
as general-purpose as can be. It supported every possible use by not caring
about any particular use or purpose. That meant it didn’t care about data
rates or types, billing or other selfish concerns of the smaller specialized
networks it harnessed. Instead, the internet’s only concern was connecting end
points for any of those end points’ purposes, over any intermediary networks,
including all those specialized ones, without prejudice. That lack of
prejudice is what we later called neutrality.
When Craig Burtondescribes the Net’s stupid architecture as a hollow
sphere comprised entirely of ends, he’s painting a picture that gets at
what’s most remarkable about the Internet’s architecture: Take the value out
of the center and you enable an insane flowering of value among the connected
end points. Because, of course, when every end is connected, each to each and
each to all, the ends aren’t endpoints at all.
And what do we ends do? Anything that can be done by anyone who wants to
move bits around.
Posted by: xSicKxBot - 06-11-2019, 01:49 AM - Forum: Lounge
- No Replies
E3 2019: Watch Dogs Legion's Breakout Star Is Helen, Assassin Granny
Ubisoft's E3 2019press conference had quite a few unexpected surprises, but none seems to have hit as hard as an octogenarian with a mean streak. Helen, one of the showcased playable characters from Watch Dogs Legion, has captured the hearts of the Internet.
That's no small feat, because the pitch behind Legion is that anyone is a playable character. Any of the residents of London you find wandering have their own stories and backgrounds and habits, and you can hack into their lives and learn more about them to recruit them. Many of them have specialized skills like brawling or robotics expertise. Helen, according to the trailer, is a former assassin, and the wrinkles have made her no less deadly.
The Internet quickly agreed: Helen's pretty great.
Is it bad that a major reason for me buying Watch Dogs: Legion is just to plays Grandma Helen? @watchdogsgame#E319
Watch Dogs 2: Okay I’m playing these DedSec characters as pacifists, no killing, just tazers Watch Dogs Legion: MY NAME IS HELEN AND I SHALL SLAUGHTER THE GOVERNMENT PIGS
Jotun Developer Announces Spiritfarer For Nintendo Switch, Due Out In 2020
During Microsoft’s 2019 E3 Xbox Conference today, Thunder Lotus announced Spiritfarer, a “cozy” management game about dying. The game is scheduled to arrive in 2020 on the Switch and multiple other platforms.
Here’s a bit about it, straight from the PR:
In Spiritfarer, you play Stella, ferrymaster to the deceased. Build a boat to explore the world, then befriend and care for spirits before finally releasing them into the afterlife. Farm, mine, fish, harvest, cook, and craft your way across mystical seas. Join the adventure as Daffodil the cat, in two-player cooperative play. Spend relaxing quality time with your spirit passengers, create lasting memories, and, ultimately, learn how to say goodbye to your cherished friends.
Thunder Lotus is previously responsible for Jotun and Sundered. The aim of Spiritfarer is to deliver an experience that is both entertaining and emotionally moving. The team’s also got the veteran creative director Nicolas Guérin on board. Check out the trailer below:
Is this a game you would like to try out on the Switch? Tell us down in the comments.
LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga Is Coming To Nintendo Switch
During today’s Xbox E3 2019 Press Conference, Microsoft showed footage of a new LEGO Star Wars game. It’s called Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga and is once again being handled by TT Games.
While it was confirmed for the Xbox One during the show, a new trailer uploaded on the official TT Games YouTube channel has now revealed it’ll be coming to the Switch as well. You can see this confirmation at the very end of the video.
The game will include content from the nine major Star Wars films and is scheduled to arrive at some point in 2020. We can only hope TT Games is able to fit all of this content on the card.
While we wait patiently for more information, take a look at the game’s official announcement trailer below:
Will you be picking this LEGO title up when it is released on the Switch? Tell us down in the comments.
Become one of the Steel Rats, a biker gang sworn to protect their city against an invading army of alien robots - Junkbots. Wreck and ride through hordes of enemies, switching between four unique characters as you wreak havoc with the ultimate killing machine; your flame spewing, saw bladed, motorcycle.
