You can now sign up for the Shards of Infinity Beta on iOS & Android
By Joe Robinson13 Mar 2019
Temple Gates Games, the developers that gave us the excellent digital port of Race for the Galaxy, are working on a digital adaptation of the Ascension-follow up Shards of Infinity. Released last year, this competitive deck-builder pits 2 – 4 players against each other in a bid to see who can survive the longest.
Each player has a health pool that can be reduced, and they are knocked out if it reaches zero. Similarly there are ‘Mastery’ points that can be obtained to make cards stronger, and if a player reaches 30 they essentially aut0-win, Exodia-style, by activating their Infinity Shard.
Note: only iOS users get to access the beta for free via TestFlight. It’s implied that Android and Steam users will have to pay for access via these stores respective Early Access programs. For some reason TempleGates haven’t figured out you can just generate free codes to give to people, although there’s nothing wrong engaging in the Early Access eco-system to its full extent, I guess.
Here’s a list of the current touted game features:
Become a powerful sorcerer with a host of mighty spells at your fingertips and protect the realm of Meliora! The Wizards is an acclaimed action-adventure game with a unique gesture-based spellcasting system, designed for PS Move controllers.
Enjoy an adventurous vacation to a 1960's parallel universe! A Sci-Fi-Mystery Adventure Game with handmade scenery. Imagine yourself on a vacation to Europe in the late sixties. Now, picture yourself as a young American scientist; Hans Tannhauser. Yes, that's your name in this scenario. While you're at it, think of Truberbrook, a remote village in rural, mountain-sloped and densely forested cold-war Germany. Because, that's where you somehow end up after hitting the continent. But who cares, you won the trip in a lottery! Or at least, that?s how it seems. But don't fear, instead of getting some rest, you could find yourself having to save the world ?
Posted by: xSicKxBot - 03-13-2019, 10:40 AM - Forum: Lounge
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World Of Warcraft Classic Post-Launch Content Drops Has Been Outlined
Blizzard has outlined post-launch plans for World of Warcraft Classic, which includes regular content drops. New content will come to the MMORPG over the course of six phases.
"Our focus is still primarily on player power-progression, but we're also aiming to capture what it felt like to play in a realm community in original WoW," Blizzard community manager Randy Jordan wrote in a forum post. "To do that, we're planning to mirror the approach taken by original WoW, with patches paired together. We'll launch Classic with content from original WoW through patch 1.2.x, then the second update will include content that was in original WoW 1.3 and 1.4, the third Classic update will have 1.5 and 1.6 content, and so on."
Blizzard hasn't announced an exact launch date for phases two through six. Also, PvP content is currently not listed in any of the phases, as Blizzard is "still evaluating" all of the options for how PvP rewards might work. For now, phase one--which is the launch of WoW Classic alongside its Molten Core, Onyxia, and Maraudon updates--is scheduled for Summer 2019. The list of all six phases and what's included in each are outlined below.
World of Warcraft Classic Content Drop Schedule
Phase 1 (Classic Launch)
Molten Core
Onyxia
Maraudon
Phase 2
Dire Maul
Azuregos
Kazzak
Phase 3
Blackwing Lair
Darkmoon Faire
Darkmoon deck drops begin
Phase 4
Zul'Gurub
Green Dragons
Phase 5
Ahn'Qiraj War Effort begins
Ahn'Qiraj raids open when the war effort dictates
Dungeon loot reconfiguration: Tier 0.5 Dungeon gear, Relics, drop rates and location changes
Phase 6
Naxxramas
Scourge Invasion
WoW Classic allows you to experience the original World of Warcraft game as it was from the very beginning, with the added benefit of quality of life changes. "[We] don't want to ruin the experience," WoW Classic production director John Hight told GameSpot. "It has to be an authentic experience. But by the same token, people don't want some of the funky bugs that we had back then."
Go Hands-On With Unreleased Switch Games At PAX East This Month
Nintendo is attending PAX East in full force later this month and has now revealed its full plans for the event. If you’re attending, you can expect to get your hands on some juicy, unreleased Switch games.
Visiting Nintendo’s booths will grant you access to games, competitions, and other fun stuff too, including photo opportunities and challenges to win some Nintendo-branded goodies. The games themselves will be on display for visitors to try out, and include the following:
On top of this, the final events for the Super Smash Bros. Ultimate North America Open 2019 and Splatoon 2 North America Inkling Open 2019 both take place on 30th March at the PAX Arena. If you have a PAX East Saturday badge you can attend these for free on a first-come, first-served basis. The tournaments will also be livestreamed on Nintendo’s website, so those not attending can tune in from home.
Very limited PAX East tickets are still available if you’re interested – grab them here – and the event runs from 28th March to 31st March in the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center at 415 Summer St., Boston, MA 02210. The two Nintendo Switch tournament finals take place on the Saturday which has now completely sold out.
Are you lucky enough to be going to PAX East? Would you like to have a go at any of those games listed above? Let us know which ones you’re looking forward to in the comments.
Any given task can succeed or fail depending upon the tools at hand. For security engineers in particular, building just the right toolkit can make life exponentially easier. Luckily, with open source, you have a wide range of applications and environments at your disposal, ranging from simple commands to complicated and integrated tools.
The problem with the piecemeal approach, however, is that you might wind up missing out on something that can make or break a job… or you waste a lot of time hunting down the right tools for the job. To that end, it’s always good to consider an operating system geared specifically for penetration testing (aka pentesting).
Within the world of open source, the most popular pentesting distribution is Kali Linux. It is, however, not the only tool in the shop. In fact, there’s another flavor of Linux, aimed specifically at pentesting, called BackBox. BackBox is based on Ubuntu Linux, which also means you have easy access to a host of other outstanding applications besides those that are included, out of the box.
What Makes BackBox Special?
BackBox includes a suite of ethical hacking tools, geared specifically toward pentesting. These testing tools include the likes of:
Out of the box, one of the most significant differences between Kali Linux and BackBox is the number of installed tools. Whereas Kali Linux ships with hundreds of tools pre-installed, BackBox significantly limits that number to around 70. Nonetheless, BackBox includes many of the tools necessary to get the job done, such as:
BackBox is in active development, the latest version (5.3) was released February 18, 2019. But how is BackBox as a usable tool? Let’s install and find out.
Installation
If you’ve installed one Linux distribution, you’ve installed them all … with only slight variation. BackBox is pretty much the same as any other installation. Download the ISO, burn the ISO onto a USB drive, boot from the USB drive, and click the Install icon.
The installer (Figure 1) will be instantly familiar to anyone who has installed a Ubuntu or Debian derivative. Just because BackBox is a distribution geared specifically toward security administrators, doesn’t mean the operating system is a challenge to get up and running. In fact, BackBox is a point-and-click affair that anyone, regardless of skills, can install.
The trickiest section of the installation is the Installation Type. As you can see (Figure 2), even this step is quite simple.
Once you’ve installed BackBox, reboot the system, remove the USB drive, and wait for it to land on the login screen. Log into the desktop and you’re ready to go (Figure 3).
Using BackBox
Thanks to the Xfce desktop environment, BackBox is easy enough for a Linux newbie to navigate. Click on the menu button in the top left corner to reveal the menu (Figure 4).
From the desktop menu, click on any one of the favorites (in the left pane) or click on a category to reveal the related tools (Figure 5).
The menu entries you’ll most likely be interested in are:
Anonymous – allows you to start an anonymous networking session.
Auditing – the majority of the pentesting tools are found in here.
Services – allows you to start/stop services such as Apache, Bluetooth, Logkeys, Networking, Polipo, SSH, and Tor.
Before you run any of the testing tools, I would recommend you first making sure to update and upgrade BackBox. This can be done via a GUI or the command line. If you opt to go the GUI route, click on the desktop menu, click System, and click Software Updater. When the updater completes its check for updates, it will prompt you if any are available, or if (after an upgrade) a reboot is necessary (Figure 6).
Should you opt to go the manual route, open a terminal window and issue the following two commands:
sudo apt-get updatesudo apt-get upgrade -y
Many of the BackBox pentesting tools do require a solid understanding of how each tool works, so before you attempt to use any given tool, make sure you know how to use said tool. Some tools (such as Metasploit) are made a bit easier to work with, thanks to BackBox. To run Metasploit, click on the desktop menu button and click msfconsole from the favorites (left pane). When the tool opens for the first time, you’ll be asked to configure a few options. Simply select each default given by clicking your keyboard Enter key when prompted. Once you see the Metasploit prompt, you can run commands like:
db_nmap 192.168.0/24
The above command will list out all discovered ports on a 192.168.1.x network scheme (Figure 7).
Even often-challenging tools like Metasploit are made far easier than they are with other distributions (partially because you don’t have to bother with installing the tools). That alone is worth the price of entry for BackBox (which is, of course, free).
The Conclusion
Although BackBox usage may not be as widespread as Kali Linux, it still deserves your attention. For anyone looking to do pentesting on their various environments, BackBox makes the task far easier than so many other operating systems. Give this Linux distribution a go and see if it doesn’t aid you in your journey to security nirvana.
Posted by: xSicKxBot - 03-13-2019, 10:40 AM - Forum: Windows
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Project xCloud: Choice for how and when you game
Back in October we formally unveiled our work on Project xCloud: a vision for game-streaming technology that will complement our console hardware and give gamers more choices in how and where they play. Since then, we’ve been heads down and hard at work, preparing to launch the first public trials later this year. At the same time, we wanted to stay transparent about our progress and chat with the Inside Xbox team, showing you the first public demo of the technology in action.
One of the great developments in entertainment over the last decade is how easy and common it’s become to read, listen, or watch your digital content (often via streaming). We’ve seen this revolutionize the way people experience music and video, letting them dive in from wherever they wish and on whichever device is most convenient to them at the time. Applying this approach to the world of video games is a more challenging endeavor. Games by their very nature are interactive entertainment. – And that interactivity is a substantial difference from watching TV or listening to music. We now find ourselves at an inflection point, where current technology can deliver a console-quality experience with the right cloud infrastructure, content and community in place.
We’re developing Project xCloud not as a replacement for game consoles, but as a way to provide the same choice and versatility that lovers of music and video enjoy today. We’re adding more ways to play Xbox games. We love what’s possible when a console is connected to a 4K TV with full HDR support and surround sound – that remains a fantastic way to experience console gaming. We also believe in empowering gamers to decide when and how to play.
We believe in the future where you will be able to seamlessly access content on your phone, tablet or another connected device. Imagine that you just began a single-player campaign the day before heading out of town and want to keep playing from where you left off. Maybe you just need a few more minutes to wrap up that weekly challenge before you head into work, but your bus just won’t wait. Or maybe the living-room television is occupied by someone else in the household when you arranged to play co-op with your friends.
While our vision for the technology is complementary to the ways in which we use consoles today, Project xCloud will also open the world of Xbox to those who may not otherwise own traditional, dedicated gaming hardware. True console-quality gaming will become available on mobile devices, providing the 2 billion-plus gamers around the world a new gateway to previously console- and PC-exclusive content. We can achieve this vision with the global distribution of Microsoft’s datacenters in 54 Azure regions and the advanced network technologies developed by the team at Microsoft Research. We’re excited about our ability to deliver a best-in-class global streaming technology.
Project xCloud is an integral part of our vision for placing you the gamer at the center of your experience, giving you more choice in how and when you play. We’re excited to share more about the technology and our progress in the coming months, including the first details of how and when you can help us test it in real-world scenarios later this year.
There’s so much more to come, so stay tuned. We’ll be in touch.
Posted by: xSicKxBot - 03-13-2019, 10:40 AM - Forum: Windows
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News recap from March 12 episode of Inside Xbox
Today, on our March episode of Inside Xbox, we made a big announcement about one of the world’s most popular games coming to Xbox Game Pass, revealed some major news regarding Halo: The Master Chief Collection, unveiled some of our plans for E3 2019, introduced a gorgeous new controller, shared info on new modes coming to State of Decay 2, and much more. For a full recap, read on below or watch the replay of Inside Xbox episode above when the VOD is available.
Minecraft is Coming Soon to Xbox Game Pass
Beginning April 4, Xbox Game Pass members can join the Minecraft community of millions of players from around the world. Discover limitless ways to play and create anything you can imagine. Plus, with Minecraft´s free content updates, you´ll always find new environments to explore, tools to create, and mobs to meet. Last summer, the Update Aquatic filled Minecraft´s oceans with dolphins, turtles and more, and the upcoming Village & Pillage update will expand the game even further later this spring. With over 100 great games, including Minecraft, there´s never been a better time to be an Xbox Game Pass member and discover your next favorite game. If you haven’t tried Xbox Game Pass, join today and get your first month for $1.
Halo: The Master Chief Collection is Coming to PC and Adding Halo: Reach
On today’s show, the crew was joined by Brian Jarrard from 343 Industries, who shared a couple of pieces of exciting news. First, we announced that Halo: The Master Chief Collection is officially coming to PC! Built specifically for the PC audience, players will be able to experience generation-defining campaigns and iconic multiplayer modes, many for the first time, on Microsoft Store and Steam. On PC, titles within Halo: The Master Chief Collection will be released individually over time to ensure that we are partnering with the community and investing the time into development to create a premier PC experience. We’ll have more to share during the Halo Championship Series Invitational at SXSW on March 15-17. We also announced that we’re bringing Halo: Reach to Halo: The Master Chief Collection for Xbox One and PC! Players will be able to experience this legendary title in stunning 4K/60fps and we’ll have more to share in the future.
Are You Ready for E3 2019?
At Xbox, planning for E3 2019 has kicked into high gear and we couldn’t be more excited for what we have in store for our fans. As you may have heard, Bonnie Ross head of 343i, recently confirmed we’ll learn more about Halo Infinite at the show. Our community team is hard at work getting ready for the return of Xbox FanFest, one of our favorite events at E3. And we’re stoked to announce that in collaboration with AEG and L.A. Live, Microsoft Square will soon be renamed Xbox Plaza and will be a big part of what we have in store for E3 in June. Cool, right? We’ll have more to share on how Xbox Plaza is shaping up, all things FanFest and so much more goodness on E3 2019 in coming weeks and months ahead so be sure to stay tuned to Xbox Wire, This Week on Xbox and Inside Xbox for all the latest info.
The Phantom White Special Edition Joins the Xbox Wireless Controller Family
Controller announcements The Xbox Wireless Controller – Phantom White Special Edition is the second controller in our Phantom Series following the Phantom Black Special Edition. The design is the optimal blend of luxury and Sci-Fi, embodying a new slant on technical beauty. You can grab the Phantom White Special Edition at retailers worldwide beginning April 2 for $69.99 USD, or pre-order yours today at select retailers, including your local Microsoft Store or online.
State of Decay 2 Lets You Choose Your Own Apocalypse
During today’s Inside Xbox segment, we revealed more about the two all-new terrifyingly awesome difficulty levels coming to State of Decay 2 with the free Choose Your Own Apocalypse Update (that we mentioned late last year) coming to Xbox Game Pass members and current players starting on March 26. Dread Zones will offer exciting challenges for experienced players, such as deadlier zombies, plague-infected juggernauts, a faster-acting blood plague, and fewer resources to scavenge. Want the ultimate challenge? Nightmare Zones are grueling endurance tests for hardcore players, featuring wandering groups of freaks and hostile humans capable of scoring lethal headshots against your survivors.
A Closer Look at the Future with Project xCloud
On today’s episode of Inside Xbox, we gave viewers their first real look at Project xCloud, a vision for game-streaming technology that will complement our console hardware and give gamers more choice in how and where they play. We’re developing Project xCloud not as a replacement for the video game console, but as a way to provide the same choice and versatility that lovers of music and movies enjoy today. We’re adding more ways to play Xbox games. We’re excited to share more about the technology in the coming months, including the first details of how and when you can help us to test it in real-world scenarios later this year.
Spatial Sound and the Wireless Display App are Changing the Game
As you might have heard, Xbox One currently supports Spatial Sound that’s specifically mixed for Dolby Atmos. During today’s show, we announced that the team is working to bring Spatial Sound to your whole Xbox One experience, regardless of whether it was specifically mixed for it. That includes all your games, movies, TV shows, and music content. Think as it as up-scaling for sound. To put it in simplest term: In the near future, all the content you experience through Xbox One is going to sound like it’s been mixed for Spatial Sound. We also announced that the team is in the process right now of rolling out the Wireless Display app, which is available in the Microsoft Store today. This app lets you project from your desktop or laptop PC or even your tablet onto the biggest and best screen in the house. Go check it out now!
DayZ Shambles Out of Xbox Game Preview
Bohemia Interactive’s DayZ has been a big hit on Xbox Game Preview, so we were happy to share on today’s episode that this intense RPG shooter will be coming out of XGP on March 27. Yes, you and your friends will be able to take on zombie hordes, as well as other players, in an attempt to stay alive. You’ll need to scavenge the world for weapons, food, water, weapons, and medicine, dealing with both zombies and competing players as you try to survive the outbreak. It’s one of the most intense experiences on Xbox One, and we’re excited for the full version to be released.
We hope you enjoyed the show, and we’ll see you next month!
Smell that my friends? That is the smell of sales. We love a good sale here at Pocket Tactics, so much so that sometimes we’ll even post about them separate from their usual slot on Friday’s Weekender Update. A handful of interesting deals have cropped recently, so we thought we’d take a break from our usual schedule to make you aware of the latest discounts.
11 Bit Studio’s excellent survival/adventure game set in a war-torn modern state is definitely one of those seminal works that must be experienced before you die. You play as a group of civilians trying to survive in a city turned into a warzone, and is based on real-life experiences from the Balkan conflict in the 90’s.
At $2.99 (down from $14.99), it’s a steal. This isn’t the cheapest price its ever been, but it’s the first time the game’s been on sale since last May, so who knows when it may drop in price again. If you haven’t picked it up yet, we suggest you do so now.
One of our favourite digital boardgames is going cheap again. Ticket to Ride pits 2 – 5 players against each other as they collect cards and connect cities to their train network in an attempt to meet hidden objectives and score the most victory points. It’s an excellent game to play solo, hot-seat on a single device or over the internet, and it’s currently half price.
Another Asmodee Digital title, Colt Express wasn’t in the best of states when it launched (hence our review), but Asmodee made some much needed fixes to multiplayer in the months following launch. It’s still not perfect, but at half price it might be worth a try if you’ve been looking for another digital board game to fill your boots.
To finish off the list, we also spotted that word puzzle app WindWord was being given away for free. We haven’t looked at it ourselves, but one our readers recommended it on our best word puzzle list. Given the circumstances, I think you can certainly afford to check it out!
Let us know if you spot any other good deals, otherwise we’ll check in again during Friday’s update!
