“That’s just inappropriate,” Dr. William Schaffner said of scenes from the event attended by the president in Texas.
Microsoft Flight Simulator Seems Like the Perfect Quarantine Game
If you haven’t noticed, opportunities for air travel have been a little bit scarce as of late. Sure, it’s still possible to fly from here to there, but it’s much less desirable than it used to be for obvious pandemic-related reasons. And I definitely miss it. Playing the new Microsoft Flight Simulator has done a lot to fill that gap, and then some, offering up the chance to not only see the Earth from thousands of feet up, but also the opportunity to take control of one of 20 different planes to chart my own courses.
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The great thing about Microsoft Flight Simulator and its real-time Bing maps integration is you can hop into a plane and take off from basically any airport in the entire world. At last count, over 37,000 airports, airfields, and even tiny dirt airstrips were available to you. The 30 airports available with the base game are hand-crafted to resemble the actual airports on which they’re based as accurately as possible. If you’ve ever flown into LAX or JFK, you’ll probably be astonished at how well they’ve been recreated here by Asobo Studios. But the 36,970 other airfields are also impressive, even if they aren’t modeled on actual architectural blueprints like the hand-crafted ones. For example, my local airport in midcoast Maine is absolutely tiny, with two runways: one just over 1,500 meters and the other just over 1,200 meters.
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The algorithm used to fill in the three-dimensional structures from real-world Bing maps data recreated my local airport to a level such that I wasn’t sure if it was generated or built by a programmer. Sure, there are a few smaller buildings missing, and the signage isn’t in place, but it’s close enough I could actually recognize it when I was taxiing to park.
But that’s just my small rural airport. The real joy of Microsoft Flight Simulator has been visiting places I’ve never been before. I watched a short YouTube video on Hong Kong the other day and when it was over I thought, “It would be cool to fly over Hong Kong at night, I bet.” And so I fired up Flight Sim and I did. And it looked incredible. I was able to fly around the city and see the towering skyscrapers lit up with the warm orange hues of halogen and cool blues of mercury streetlights on the patchwork of city streets below. Couple that with the half-moon reflecting off the ocean and a few low-clouds and it was sublime, almost like a low-fi hip-hop beat come to life.
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Beyond Hong Kong at night, I visited other places on my bucket list, flying lower and closer than real-life would ever allow. I took off from Galeão International Airport in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and immediately pointed the nose toward Christ the Redeemer, the massive granite statue looking over the city. After circling around, I radioed the tower and went back in for a landing. The level of detail in the model of the statue is incredible.
I flew a similar sight-seeing tour of the Great Pyramids, coming in lower and closer than any real-life plane would be allowed. I also took a tour of the Grand Canyon, dropping down inside and carefully maneuvering my plane between its foreboding walls.
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I have to say, Microsoft Flight Simulator is scratching my travel itch while letting me explore and experience more than I ever could simply sitting in seat 24C on a commercial jet. It’s almost an addiction at this point. If I’m watching a YouTube video or something on Netflix and I see an interesting location, I make a note to visit it later in Flight Simulator. With no clear end in sight to the stay-at-home and quarantine orders still covering so much of the country and much of the world, Microsoft Flight Simulator let me escape the confines of my small town and explore the world anyway, and for that I absolutely cannot wait for its full release on PC on August 18
Animal Crossing: New Horizons Summer Update Part 2 Brings Back An Old Glitch As A Permanent Feature
Animal Crossing: New Horizons update 1.4.0, also known as the Summer Update part 2, is now live, and its headlining features are the additions of the Dream Suite, a new fireworks feature, and the ability to back up your save data. But it’s also added back in a feature that has was patched out of the game earlier.
A glitch in earlier versions of the game allowed you to remove the UI when using your Nook Phone to take a photo, letting you get clean footage of your character’s movements from a fixed angle. As Polygon notes, this glitch, which was patched out earlier this month, is now back–but this time it’s a feature, included on purpose.
As you can see in the tweet below from Animal Crossing World, the game will now let you remove UI elements when taking a photo by clicking the right stick. This isn’t possible if you’re playing using just the left Joy-Con in horizontal mode, but it’s possible in all other control variants.
Portland protests: Federal forces ready for phased pull-out
Oregon’s governor calls the officers “an occupying force”, but the president says they saved the city.
Resident Evil 3 And Resistance Are Getting Paid Unlockables And Costume DLC Soon
Resident Evil 3 is getting new DLC for both its single-player campaign and its multiplayer Resident Evil Resistance mode, although one pack is more substantial than the other. In August, you’ll be able to purchase two new costumes for the cast of Resistance, and a code to unlock everything in the campaign.
The Resistance DLC is the more exciting of the two, because it lets you dress up the whole game’s cast in the outfits from Resident Evil 2. You’ll be able to dress them up as either Claire Redfield, with her red jacket, or Leon Kennedy with his STARS outfit.
Unfortunately, you can’t just play as Leon and Claire, but this is the next best thing.
Coronavirus: Australia’s Victoria records huge case jump
The state reports its highest case and death toll – prompting fears that lockdown is not working.
Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles Remastered Looks To Make A Once-Obtuse Game Accessible
Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles is a cult classic, but it was infamously obtuse. It required such a specialized combination of hardware that building a full squad required a hefty investment from each player. For the Remastered version, coming next month to PS4, Nintendo Switch, and mobile devices, Square Enix is taking a remarkably more accessible approach, even by modern standards.
The original Crystal Chronicles was built around multiplayer. Though you could complete it as a single-player experience, the story centered around a caravan protected by a band of warriors from different magical races, each with their own combat specialty. But that multiplayer relied on a GameCube link cable, connected to up to four GameBoy Advance systems. The conceit allowed each player to have their own personalized menu, but the requirement made the sticker price remarkably high. If your friends didn’t happen to already own a GBA, they needed to buy one to join in.
Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles Remastered, on the other hand, looks to make a full 180 on that barrier-laden design philosophy. The advent of connected consoles and smartphones makes it easy for players to connect and retain their own individual menus like any other online game. Rather than lock players into a single console with a very narrow control scheme, it features cross-play so that players can join up regardless of platform preference.
Riot Games Ends LEC Partnership With Saudi City After Backlash
Update:
Riot has announced in a statement that it will end its partnership with the Saudi city of NEOM “effective immediately” following community outcry.
You can read Riot’s full statement below:
“As a company and as a league, we know that it’s important to recognize when we make mistakes and quickly work to correct them. After further reflection, while we remain steadfastly committed to all of our players and fans worldwide including those living in Saudi Arabia and the Middle East, the LEC has ended its partnership with NEOM, effective immediately. In an effort to expand our esports ecosystem, we moved too quickly to cement this partnership and caused rifts in the very community we seek to grow. While we missed our own expectations in this instance, we’re committed to reexamining our internal structures to ensure this doesn’t happen again.”
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Original Story: Riot Games is facing criticism after announcing that the League of Legends European Championship (LEC) will partner with Neom, a $500 billion, smart-city founded by Saudi Arabia’s crown prince Muhammad bin Salman.
Although touted as a city of the future in a press release announcing news of the partnership, Neom has been reportedly built atop forced evictions. This is on top of existing criticism against the Saudi Arabian government in regards to its treatment of LGBT peoples, as well as bin Salman’s links to the assassination of a Washington Post journalist.
All of this has led to the swift condemnation of the sponsorship from high-profile voices in the League of Legends community, as well as from Riot employees.
This is disappointing because this is the LEC. It’s my team, my product, my managers, my office.
My family. My home.
This isn’t someone far away in HQ that I don’t know. This is devastating because I know who made these choices and I feel silenced.
— Froskurinn (@Froskurinn) July 29, 2020
“Incredibly disappointed in Riot today and am baffled at how we could possibly support this,” tweeted Alex Shahmiri, brand lead for Arcane, Riot’s upcoming animated series. “[The partnership] does not reflect the company that I started at six years ago and goes against so much of the progress we’ve been trying to make in the last few years.”
Incredibly disappointed in Riot today and am baffled at how we could support this, does not reflect the company that I started at six years ago and goes against so much of the progress that we’ve been trying to make in the last few years. https://t.co/R9N7d09NnS
— alex shahmiri (@RiotAstryx) July 29, 2020
The Rioters Against Forced Arbitration group, which was started following the allegations that Riot fostered a toxic and sexist workplace, also tweeted out against the partnership.
Riot’s decision to partner with NEOM flies in the face of all the progress that Rioters have worked hard to make over the past few years. Please join us in voicing your support for ending this partnership at #NoToNEOM #RiotGames
— Rioters Against Forced Arbitration (@RiotersAFA) July 29, 2020
IGN has reached out to Riot for a comment.
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Matt T.M. Kim is a reporter for IGN.
STALKER 2 Could Offer Frame Rates Of Up To 120FPS On Xbox Series X
STALKER 2 is coming to Xbox Series X in 2021 as a console exclusive, and it’s aiming to do things that would not be possible on current console hardware. According to the game’s Xbox store page, it’s going to aim for a very high frame rate.
The page promises that STALKER 2, which will skip Xbox One, was designed to take advantage of the Series X. The text on the page hints at what’s possible on the system, and specifically mentions a 120 FPS goal.
“Games built using the Xbox Series X development kit are designed to take advantage of the unique capabilities of the Xbox Series X,” the page reads. “They will showcase unparalleled load-times, visuals, responsiveness, and frame rates up to 120 FPS.”
Star Wars: Solo Director Confirms No Plans For A Sequel
Star Wars: A Solo Story director Ron Howard has confirmed there are no plans for a sequel, while he also cleared up some confusion about his potential involvement in The Phantom Menace.
Appearing on the Radio Andy show, Howard bluntly said, “There is no sequel planned now” for Solo.
He also reflected on his journey with the movie. Less than a year before release, Howard was brought in to direct Solo after Disney fired the original directors, Phil Lord and Chris Miller.