#i just wish for xbx news.....

[holykhepri]

twitter is broken for me so

all these gamecube remakes makes me PATIENTLY HOLD MY BREATH....

[aion-rsa]

Watch Dogs: Legion Review

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Watch Dogs: Legion’s hook is the ability to recruit and play as any character in London, but this new feature is really more representative of a series in the midst of an identity crisis.

Legion opens with Dalton Wolfe, an operative from DedSec, the hacker group featured in the previous two games, dispatched beneath the Houses of Parliament to defuse bombs set up by the rival hacker group Zero Day. (Apparently every story involving terrorists and London needs to reference the Gunpowder Plot in some way.) Wolfe succeeds in saving Parliament, but loses his life in the process while failing to stop other bombs set up around the city.

DedSec is blamed for the bombings and the British government quickly hires the private security company Albion to establish a high-tech surveillance state covering every inch of London. Things seem pretty grim until you choose a new operative to rebuild DedSec and unravel the conspiracy behind Zero Day. 

The story is largely formulaic and at times struggles to make a point. Ubisoft initially described Legion as a vision of post-Brexit London, but while hot button issues like fake news, illegal immigration, and National Health Service funding are regularly referenced, Legion seems too afraid to take any sort of stance on these topics or satirize them like other games such as the much bolder Grand Theft Auto. Ultimately, the plot feels as hollow as the many interchangeable characters you’ll play as.

I started my playthrough with Riordan Doyle, a pistol-packing debt collector with a deadeye, but quickly leveled up to unlock more than a dozen other operatives with a variety of skills. For as much attention as Ubisoft put on the ability to play as anyone you meet on the streets, it never feels very fleshed out, and isn’t all that different from similar systems in the State of Decay and Shadow of Mordor games.

Recruitment begins by pressing a button to learn a few basic facts about a character and the skills they’ll offer DeadSec. These abilities range from powerful new weapons and vehicles to drone summons and unique combat abilities. But some characters also come with disadvantages like poorer stealth abilities or weaker damage resistance.

If your potential DedSec member has a positive opinion of you, you can initiate a recruitment mission, which might involve information gathering, destroying incriminating information, or rescuing one of their friends from Albion. I actually enjoyed many of these missions more than the main campaign, which quickly grows repetitive with countless missions that have you infiltrate a secure areas to hack something before making a quick escape.

Procedural generation comes with its own set of problems. For one thing, character models are pretty bad in the Xbox One X version of the game I played. I’d say they actually look worse than the characters in the first Watch Dogs released in 2014. Leaving character creation to chance also leads to characters who just don’t seem to have voices that match their models. 

It leads to other inconsistencies as well. At one point, I was tasked with recruiting a lawyer who would be able to free jailed operatives more quickly. But in order to get her to join DedSec, I had to get information about two men who assaulted her father because she couldn’t get the police to do anything about them, so I don’t think she was quite the formidable criminal defense lawyer she made herself out to be.

Once you have multiple operatives at your side, you are free to change them at any time you’re not in combat or in a restricted area, but don’t expect the smooth transition between characters like in Grand Theft Auto V. Switching operatives is accompanied by an almost 10-second long load screen each time. And you can’t change characters (or even equipment) in restricted areas, which are where the majority of the campaign takes place. Then again, it doesn’t matter much since there’s little incentive to keep changing operatives once you meet a powerful one that matches your playstyle. 

Release Date: Oct. 29, 2020 Platforms: XBO (reviewed), PS4, PC, Stadia, XBX/S, PS5 Developer: Ubisoft Publisher: Ubisoft Genre: Action-adventure

At the start of the game, you’ll have the option of turning on permadeath. Without it, characters are hospitalized or sent to jail for a short time before they return to the squad. Even if you do play with permadeath on, there’s little risk of losing characters you’ve invested in. Legion’s AI is surprisingly dumb, with enemies constantly walking into gunfire or easily evaded. All in all, these issues make me wish Ubisoft had gone with a more traditional approach to the campaign with one playable character like in the previous Watch Dogs games. 

Other gameplay changes are a similarly mixed bag. Legion puts a greater emphasis on stealth and hand-to-hand combat than previous games, but melee controls are just plain bad, using essentially a rock-paper-scissor system of strike, guard break, and dodge. And it rarely seems to work all that well. More often than not, I’d whip out a firearm to quickly end a fight after taking a couple hard hits from enemies. Curiously, even though Albion’s guards are well armed and armored, they’re almost always willing to first try to resolve things with fisticuffs. It’s just a bizarre design decision, especially when Watch Dogs: Legion’s gunplay and driving remain fundamentally solid.

Near-future London, with dozens of self-driving cars on its roads and drones filling its skies, is rendered well enough, although I did notice the frame rate dipping when driving around the city at high speeds. Perhaps that’s why campaign missions focus so much on sneaking around building interiors.

One addition I did enjoy was the ability to hack cargo drones and fly over the London skyline. This gives you the best view of the city and lets you access quite a few areas that are otherwise off-limits, but pretty soon this feature also reveals itself to be a one-trick pony. There’s just not much else to do once you’re in the air. 

I do need to note that there are a couple other features I didn’t get to try out. Legion will feature a four-player cooperative online mode, but it won’t be available until December. And while I’m hopeful that some of Legion’s technical issues will be ironed out in the Xbox Series X version, I didn’t have the chance to try that version of the game for this review.

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There’s still some fun to be had in Watch Dogs: Legion. Hacking environmental objects to see the reactions of NPCs or raising blockers to evade police remain as amusing as ever, but you’ll really have to make your own fun in this sandbox, or hope that the game’s code spits out one of its better recruitment missions. When you stick to the main story, Legion’s new features feel half-baked, and the plot never comes close to its full potential. This is one of the more disappointing sequels in recent memory.

The post Watch Dogs: Legion Review appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[malevolenttoaster-blog1]

Bitcoin Investment Rely on Ups It has the Proposed INITIAL PUBLIC OFFERING But Agreement Is Still Making an attempt

On Economy is shown 20, 2017, Grayscale Ventures LLC filed away for an original public presenting (IPO) due to the Bitcoin Expenditure Trust to get listed on the NEW YORK STOCK EXCHANGE Accra alternate in an attempt to get bitcoin purchase to the loads through a widely tradable expenditure vehicle such as a new investment.

Grayscale Investment funds, the financial commitment management branch of the Craig Silbert-led Digital camera Currency Set, established the particular Bitcoin Financial commitment Trust (BIT) in 2013, hoping to give investors together with the opportunity to purchase digital currency exchange bitcoin and never having to purchase and also securely retailer the digital camera currency their selves.

The Bitcoin Investment Have confidence in, which provides the ticker GBTC, trails the TradeBlock XBX Index chart 24-hour VWAP bitcoin index chart and rates a 3 percent 12-monthly management service charge. The Confidence currently features around $262 million materials under managing. Shares inside Bitcoin Purchase Trust is usually traded otc and can be kept in traditional purchase accounts, including IRAs along with Roth IRAs.

By intending public, Grayscale Investments wishes to open up it has the bitcoin expense vehicle with a broader individual base that will prefers delete word investing in a great exchange-traded in addition to fully controlled security.

On, may 4, 2017, Grayscale Purchases LLC downloaded an mending to a IPO medical history with the SECOND increasing the length of its offered IPO by $500 zillion to up to $1 billion dollars meaning that that the affinity for a publicly-tradeable and licensed investment auto that paths the price of bitcoin would find substantial desire from institutional and private buyers.

However , presented the SECOND recent options not to agree to the long-awaited Winklevoss Bitcoin ETF (COIN) as well as the SolidX Bitcoin Have faith in, the chances for any Bitcoin Expense Trust’s INITIAL PUBLIC OFFERING to gain corporate approval aren't going to be high.

Even though Alan Friedland, founder plus CEO connected with Compcoin, does not necessarily hold considerably hope for typically the ETF acceptance just yet, he / she agrees there's enough require from proven institution shareholders for bitcoin as an alternative purchase class to help merit often the $1 billion INITIAL PUBLIC OFFERING increase.

“Digital coins is the fastest rising financial industry and we usually are projecting the 1. 7 trillion dollar market place cap by means of 2025, ” he instructed Bitcoin Newspaper.

When the SECOND announced with March so it would not say yes to the two consist of bitcoin exchange-traded funds, the exact regulator reported that a bitcoin ETF will require "surveillance-sharing agreements together with significant market segments for dealing the underlying thing or derivatives on in which commodity. In addition to second, people markets need to be regulated. micron

Since these kind of conditions are even now not found for bitcoin, an approval with the Bitcoin Expenditure Trust appearance rather less likely.

Spencer Bogart, analyst on Blockchain Cash, thinks the reason is “highly unlikely” that this upgraded ETF account will be authorised. “The SECOND disapproved the last two ETFs not for the reason that took problem with the design of the investment but considering that the SEC at this time considers the large markets what is the best bitcoin is definitely traded being too not regulated, ” Bogart told Bitcoin Magazine. “Given that this has not changed ever since the last disapproval, the SECOND is improbable to offer some other response. ”

Bogart is way more optimistic with regards to the chances of a ETF endorsement outside of the America. “I assume mainstream expenditure products will probably first possibly be approved by unknown regulatory businesses (to some degree this has by now happened). Regarding the approval of an U. Nasiums. -listed Bitcoin ETF, In my opinion it’s more often than not that the SECOND changes it is view (e. g. using regime change) than it can be that the Bitcoin ecosystem improvements such that most marketers make no activity passes to really regulated niche categories. ”

[radicaldreamer017]

Wait... Never mind my over-reaction about the Xenoblade 2 reveal. I only just noticed that this game is cell-shaded. Like, the one thing I wished Takahashi had done with Xenosaga and Xenoblade X (because Tanaka’s artstyle). It’s a good thing.

But the art style itself... it looks like a Tales Of :( (not a huge fan... though I enjoyed Symphonia... but the artsyle is generally just bland anime stuff)... It’s fairly disappointing Takahashi didn’t hire Tanaka again so we could FINALLY have cell-shaded Tanaka models. The way it should have been. It hurts me to hear people say that the Xenoblade 2 artsyle is miles better than Tanaka’s art (heck, the artstyle from the first xenoblade has more personality than the Xenoblade 2 artstyle)... only based on the fact that Tanaka’s art doesn’t translate very well to full 3D models. I love Tanaka’s drawings, it pains me to hear people ignorantly shitting on his work. It’s like crapping on a soundtrack because the sound editing was bad. Makes no sense.

I really REALLY hope it has nothing to do with the first Xenoblade. The new artstyle makes me hope so now (why does Takahashi keep doing this confusing naming stuff?). Still, it looks like Takahashi is really trying to catter to the first Xenoblade fans with this one. I just... hope the plot isn’t too similar. Or worse, a direct sequel. I won’t be interested if it is. The first game was self-contained, complete. Unlike with Gears, Saga or even Blade X (feeling sorry for the fans of XBX who were expecting a sequel to their game because of the cliffhanger ending... talk about dividing a fanbase even more), there was no missing plot things or a strong desire to know more when finishing the first Xenoblade (except for Fiora’s “condition” and it was adressed in a short story in the artbook). A sequel would add nothing to it. In fact, it could even ruin it. Lots of sequels that were done long after the original material (often because the original material was popular enough to sell a sequel... see the milking of FF7) created this problem (like, lots of Square sequels, and Disney’s... and many many others).