Welcome to 1980’s Sweden. The local population has disappeared, and hostile machines roam the streets. Explore the open world to unravel the mystery, perfect your fighting strategies, and prepare to strike back. Play alone or together with up to three friends, as you discover ways to defeat the invaders. In Generation Zero, living is winning.
The Hirata Estate level early in Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice is a great place to learn how to deal with multiple kinds of enemies. It gives you several new Shinobi Prosthetic tools, lets you fight and stealth a bunch of different kinds of fighters, and puts you up against a couple of mid-bosses and a boss to teach you techniques you'll use for the rest of the game. Until you learn those techniques, though, Hirata can be pretty tough--especially when you face Juzou The Drunkard, a mid-boss who has a lot of backup.
You'll find the huge Juzou right before you get to the last portion of Hirata Estate, where he guards the way forward. He's got a bunch of regular fighters protecting him, and requires two deathblows to beat, making him a tough enemy to best. The good news is, there are a lot of ways to get the upper hand over Juzou if you're quick, careful, and patient. You can even get help battling him.
As you approach Juzou by crossing the water near him, you'll see him surrounded by enemies, and you should see a building off to his left with a wood walkway leading up to the main Estate. Head to the left and sneak into the building to find two enemies you can take down. From there, if you take the wood walkway, you'll wind up behind Juzou and most of the enemies around him. Sneak along the wall and you can deathblow at least one of them; when everyone starts to come for you, run back to the wood walkway and through the hut to find a place to hide. Everyone will eventually stop looking for you, allowing you to use the same move over and over again to clear out the minions. The fight with Juzou is much easier when he's not flanked by a bunch of helpers getting in your way.
Backstab Juzou
The same logic that goes into the last step applies to Juzou himself. As a big, tough mid-boss, he usually requires two deathblows to defeat--but fighting him straight-up is a great way to get yourself killed in the process. Once you've killed everyone around that can alert Juzou, you can use the same wood walkway approach on the left side of the arena to get behind him and lay down a deathblow. This will immediately knock out one of the deathblow requirements for Juzou, making the fight fully half as difficult. You can't get two stealth deathblows on him, though, so don't even try--once you've attacked Juzou, you have to finish the fight, or he'll get all his health back.
Enlist Some Help
You don't actually have to fight Juzou all alone. Just out in the water ahead of him is a samurai loyal to Hirata who means to take on Juzou as well, and he'll join you in the battle if you talk to him first. You can get the samurai's assistance just about any time, but he's most effective if you've cleared out Juzou's helpers and backstabbed him once. With all the other obstructions cleared away, run out and talk to the samurai after Juzou starts chasing you and he'll join the fight. He's great for distracting Juzou, allowing you to slash away at the Drunkard's back. If you're quick and smart about it, you can even kill Juzou before he manages to finish the samurai off. Just be sure to be careful that Juzou doesn't turn his attention, and his attacks, to you. When that happens, you'll want to have your guard up.
Watch Out For Poison
Juzou's tough with his sword, but he's not doing anything you haven't seen before in fighting other warrior enemies. The new trick he brings to the fight is drinking from his flask and then blowing the contents out at you. If you see him go for a drink put some distance between you and him. He'll likely unload his stinky sake all over the battlefield, which carries a poison effect if too much hits you. He'll also use the drink on his sword to make it poisonous, which means you could take poison damage even when blocking.
Wear Down Juzou's Vitality
If you decide to fight Juzou straight--which is pretty good practice--you'll find that even when blocking him repeatedly, you won't do much damage to his Posture. That's because Juzou is a boss character with a lot of Vitality, or health points. Enemies with a lot of Vitality recover Posture very quickly (and you'll notice that your Posture recovers faster when your health is high, too). The trick to getting Juzou into deathblow position is dealing damage to him. The best way to do that is to watch his moves and look for counter-attack opportunities. Those are when you successfully parry a blow and then can follow up immediately with a slash of your own, which will get through the enemy's defenses. Fighting Juzou toe-to-toe with your sword can be tough, but it's definitely doable. Don't be afraid to try Shinobi Prosthetics like the Firecrackers to mess with him a bit, as well.
Surreal Puzzler Back To Bed Sleepwalks Onto Switch Next Month
2Awesome Studio has revealed that it will be bringing Bedtime Digital Games’ Back to Bed to Nintendo Switch next month.
The game sees players guiding a sleepwalker named Bob from his sleep-inducing office to the safety of his bed, all by controlling his subconscious guardian, Subob. The pair travel through a surreal world where the boundaries between Bob’s dream and reality have disappeared; real-world dangers are still as present as ever, so Subob must take extra care to keep Bob safe.
If that all sounds a bit weird to you, that’s probably because it is. If you haven’t checked out the trailer yet (up above) then we’d urge you to do so – things are seriously strange. The game actually launched on Wii U back in 2016; we gave it 7/10 in our review.
Back to Bed will launch on Switch on 11th April with pricing set at $4.99 / 4.99€. Pre-orders will go live on 28th March, though, letting you secure the game at 10% off.
What do you think? Is this one going on your Switch wishlist? Sleepwalk on over to the comments below and let us know.
Posted by: xSicKxBot - 03-26-2019, 09:56 PM - Forum: Windows
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Check out the first-ever episode of ID@Xbox Game Pass
Today, during the first-ever episode of ID@Xbox Game Pass, we gave fans a closer look at upcoming ID@Xbox program titles set to arrive with Xbox Game Pass the same day as their global launch, as well as shared new details of ID@Xbox and Xbox Game Pass activities at PAX East this weekend. If you missed the show, don’t worry! We’ve put together a recap outlining the top news from today’s episode. Check out what was announced below:
We’re excited to announce three new ID@Xbox titles coming to Xbox Game Pass the same day they release on Xbox One: Killer Queen Black,Outer Wilds and Blazing Chrome. Xbox Game Pass is not only a great way for gamers to find new and unique games, but the service is also an incredible vehicle for independent developers to reach new audiences. We are stoked to see these titles enter Xbox Game Pass at launch! See below to learn more about each title:
Killer Queen Black: From Liquid Bit, Killer Queen Black is an intense multiplayer action/strategy platformer designed for up to eight players. Hop on the snail, hoard berries or wipe out the enemy’s queen to claim victory! Killer Queen Black will be available on Xbox One and with Xbox Game Pass in 2019.
Outer Wilds: Outer Wilds, from Mobius and Annapurna Interactive, is an exploration game about curiosity, roasting marshmallows and unraveling the mysteries of the cosmos. It’s coming in 2019 and we’re thrilled to announce that it will be in Xbox Game Pass the same day as its global launch.
Blazing Chrome: From JoyMasher and The Arcade Crew, Blazing Chrome lets you kick some serious metal ass! The world is dominated by machines, that threaten the few humans remaining with total extermination. You get to kick some metal butts and free humankind in this classic run’n’gun, made by and for fans of serious arcade action.
In addition to announcing three upcoming titles to the ID@Xbox program, we also got an early look at both Afterparty and Outer Wilds as well as interviews and insights with the development teams behind those games (Night School Studio and Mobius, respectively).
Finally, we shared new details pertaining to ID@Xbox at PAX East! This year, we will be bringing Void Bastards, Operencia: The Stolen Sun, Supermarket Shriek, The Good Life andAfterparty to PAX East. All five titles will launch with Xbox Game Pass timed to their global release and are playable this weekend, so be sure to stop by the Xbox booth for your chance to experience these games first-hand! At the booth, you’ll also have the opportunity to collect custom pins for each of our ID@Xbox titles and even enter to win a custom-designed Xbox console specifically made for ID@Xbox. You won’t want to miss this!
Thank you for watching today – we hope you enjoyed the show! To stay up to date with the latest news and announcements, be sure to stay tuned to Xbox Wire and follow us on Instagram and Twitter. With our Xbox Game Pass mobile app, you can also get notifications as new games are added and remote install games to your home console as they are available!
Among the nations on the Zemurian continent, the mighty Erebonian Empire has been quick to stake its claim militarily; yet politically, ugly bouts of internal conflict between the upper class and commoners struggling to rise to power have been steadily intensifying with each passing month. The Noble and Reformist Factions have been none too kind to one another over the years, and tensions between the two only stand to worsen if compromises aren't reached in the very near future.
Rean Schwarzer, like any other citizen of the Imperial nation, is no stranger to these rising conflicts: the class system has been deeply interwoven into the tapestry of Erebonian culture since the days of old. As a seventeen-year-old student preparing for his new life at Thors Military Academy, however, he notices that his crimson uniform differs from the standard outfits issued to his peerstypically green for commoners, and white for nobles.
Enter, Class VII of Thors Military Academy. For the first time in the prestigious academy's history, rank means nothing and skill means everything. With nine hand-picked students of various backgrounds and abilities, Rean included, Class VII readies itself to dive deep into the political quagmire that threatens not only them, but the very foundations of the Empire.
It?s the year 2030, the era of flying vehicles. A one-off championship for wheel based vehicles has been organized, with cutting-edge electric cars boosted by Xenon gas. Drift through cities like Tokyo and Dubai as fast as you can and claim eternal glory.
The first and easiest use of square brackets is in globbing. You have probably used globbing before without knowing it. Think of all the times you have listed files of a certain type, say, you wanted to list JPEGs, but not PNGs:
ls *.jpg
Using wildcards to get all the results that fit a certain pattern is precisely what we call globbing.
In the example above, the asterisk means “zero or more characters“. There is another globbing wildcard, ?, which means “exactly one character“, so, while
ls d*k*
will list files called darkly and ducky (and dark and duck — remember * can also be zero characters),
ls d*k?
will not list darkly (or dark or duck), but it will list ducky.
Square brackets are used in globbing for sets of characters. To see what this means, make directory in which to carry out tests, cd into it and create a bunch of files like this:
This will create files file000, file001, file002, etc., through file097, file098 and file099.
Then, to list the files in the 70s and 80s, you can do this:
ls file0[78]?
To list file022, file027, file028, file052, file057, file058, file092, file097, and file98 you can do this:
ls file0[259][278]
Of course, you can use globbing (and square brackets for sets) for more than just ls. You can use globbing with any other tool for listing, removing, moving, or copying files, although the last two may require a bit of lateral thinking.
Let’s say you want to create duplicates of files file010 through file029 and call the copies archive010, archive011, archive012, etc..
You can’t do:
cp file0[12]? archive0[12]?
Because globbing is for matching against existing files and directories and the archive… files don’t exist yet.
Doing this:
cp file0[12]? archive0[1..2][0..9]
won’t work either, because cp doesn’t let you copy many files to other many new files. Copying many files only works if you are copying them to a directory, so this:
mkdir archive cp file0[12]? archive
would work, but it would copy the files, using their same names, into a directory called archive/. This is not what you set out to do.
However, if you look back at the article on curly braces ({}), you will remember how you can use % to lop off the end of a string contained in a variable.
Of course, there is a way you can also lop of the beginning of string contained in a variable. Instead of %, you use #.
It prints “Goodbye Cruel World” because #Hello gets rid of the Hello part at the beginning of the string stored in myvar.
You can use this feature alongside your globbing tools to make your archive duplicates:
for i in file0[12]?;\ do\ cp $i archive${i#file};\ done
The first line tells the Bash interpreter that you want to loop through all the files that contain the string file0 followed by the digits 1 or 2, and then one other character, which can be anything. The second line do indicates that what follows is the instruction or list of instructions you want the interpreter to loop through.
Line 3 is where the actually copying happens, and you use the contents of the loop variable itwice: First, straight out, as the first parameter of the cp command, and then you add archive to its contents, while at the same time cutting of file. So, if i contains, say, file019…
"archive" + "file019" - "file" = "archive019"
the cp line is expanded to this:
cp file019 archive019
Finally, notice how you can use the backslash \ to split a chain of commands over several lines for clarity.
In part two, we’ll look at more ways to use square brackets. Stay tuned.
Apple TV Channels: All The Services Supported So Far
Apple has some big updates coming for its TV app, and in the process, it will be incorporating many other existing online video services, as revealed at today's Apple Event.
Apple TV Channels puts the majority of the services people subscribe to--except for Netflix--into one place. It's more about organization and a one-stop place to view all the content you are subscribed to. It was unclear at the time of the event as to whether you had to purchase these services through Apple or if you could migrate existing accounts onto TV Channels.
Aside from the bigger services like Hulu and Amazon, Apple TV will add smaller services like Acorn TV, for British television; Tastemade, for travel and food series; and Shudder, for horror movies and original series. Additionally, it's interesting to see a few Viacom properties, like Comedy Central, Nick, and MTV here, as much of the parent company's content was pulled from various streaming services, and it wasn't included with Hulu's new live TV service.
Here is what Apple announced will be incorporated into TV Channels. The only big service missing here is Netflix. As far as large cable/satellite providers go in the United States, Comcast and Time Warner were not listed.
In addition to Apple TV Channels, the company also announced TV Plus, a new streaming service with original content from creators like Steven Spielberg and Oprah Winfrey, along with a new subscription gaming service called Arcade.
Posted by: xSicKxBot - 03-26-2019, 09:50 AM - Forum: Lounge
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Samurai Shodown Uses Deep Machine Learning To Create Opponents
The latest entry in SNK's classic fighting game series, Samurai Shodown, will launch for PS4, Xbox One, and Switch in June, publisher Athlon Games has announced. The PC version, meanwhile, will launch at a later, as of yet undisclosed time.
At launch, there will be a number of modes available to the player. Alongside the prerequisite story, online, and offline versus modes, there will also be a new asynchronous mode called "Dojo." While SNK didn't delve into the specifics of how it'll work, it did say that Dojo will use deep machine learning to create custom computer-controlled opponents. These AI fighters will learn from how a player behaves in online and offline modes, and battle against the player with this behavior in mind.
These AI characters will be shareable, and Samurai Shodown players will also be able to download versions of other players that are online. Ghosts will be available to fight in one-on-one battles, as well as a unique Ironman Challenge that pits a player against 100 AI fighters in a row. The potential here is interesting, especially when it comes to teaching how to play the game.
Samurai Shodown is a weapon-based fighter set in the late 18th century. Despite not being a numbered entry, it takes place in the existing timeline, set before Samurai Shodown V and prior to the events of the original game. At a recent preview event, the game's developers explained that this placement in the timeline allowed SNK to bring back familiar faces while also introducing new characters. In total there will be 13 characters that longtime fans will recognize, including Haohmaru, Galford, and Earthquake. Additional characters will also be made available through DLC after the games launch.
Unlike many other fighting games, Samurai Showdown doesn't focus on lengthy and flashy combos, and is instead oriented by single, well-timed strikes that deal devastating damage. As a result, high-level play is based on reading the opponent, manipulating their movements, and reacting to exploit openings. While the barrier to entry is low, the ceiling for mastery has traditionally been very high.
In the trailer above, you can see some of Samurai Shodown's characters and get a feel for how lethal the gameplay can be. It's also a good look at the game's eye-catching visual style, which mixes 3D models with painterly backgrounds and a cel shading effect.
