Author: Justin Cabrera

{ "de-DE": "", "en-US": "Justin Cabrera is a tech content writer with Softonic.com. Prior to joining Softonic, Justin was a overcaffeinated radio DJ and know-it-all music critic with WPGU 107.1. His two favorite things in the world are video games and music culture.", "es-ES": "", "fr-FR": "", "it-IT": "", "ja-JP": "", "nl-NL": "", "pl-PL": "", "pt-BR": "", "social": { "email": "", "facebook": "", "twitter": "", "linkedin": "https://www.linkedin.com/in/justin-cabrera-62037a107/", "web": "https://www.clippings.me/justincabrera" } }

How food delivery robots encourage college students to eat better

Discover how these tiny delivery robots made students healthier.

It’s very easy to miss breakfast as a college student. The pounding headache and blurred vision that follows a diligent night of “studying” can make it difficult to get out of bed, much less make breakfast. Fortunately for students, the future is now, as California startup Starship Technologies is testing out food delivery robots on college campuses.

The little robot that could

starship food delivery — What sounds more futuristic than ordering food via Starship?

Each one of the little robots uses its six adjustable wheels to move autonomously. Sensors and cameras completely surround the robot, allowing it to be aware of its surroundings. The cameras and sensors feed into the robot’s “memory,” highlighting areas that are troublesome to navigate (such as a crack in the sidewalk) to make sure those areas are easier to traverse in future deliveries. The robot can even use its sensors to read street lights, preventing them from becoming robotic roadkill. Each of the robot’s wheels can raise and lower, letting it climb over curbs and other obstacles without issue.

The robots travel at a blazing 4 mph and make deliveries in 15 minutes or less, and each robot can hold a whopping 22 lbs of food. You may think that these slow robots containing pounds of delicious food would be prime targets for desperate college students, who would like nothing more than to crack open the poor things and devour their insides. Surprisingly, Starship reported that even after thousands of deliveries they have not encountered any instances of theft or vandalism. Even if someone tried to rob the robot, it has a few security measures.

First, the lid to the robot is tightly sealed, making it impossible to open through brute strength. The only way to unlock it is via a special code texted to the people who ordered the food. Second, the robot’s aforementioned cameras would surely catch the thief in the act. Most importantly, the robot has a built-in location system that tells Starship its position down to the inch. If somebody were to steal the robot, Starship would know exactly where it is, and would accordingly prepare a daring rescue.

4 best food delivery apps

Read Now ►

How robots changed the way students ate

food delivery robot — A man stares longingly at the road while a robot continues on its delicious journey

Starship claims that over 88% of college students skip breakfast, usually due to a lack of time. It really is the most important meal of the day; eating breakfast gives you energy, improves your mood, and improves mental and physical performance. It should go without saying that students should eat breakfast to do their best, but the hectic and brutal grind that is college often leaves one with little time to spend on their well-being.

Fortunately, Starship has reported that the introduction of delivery robots to campus has seen the number of breakfast orders rise significantly, which not only makes students healthier but contributes thousands of dollars to local businesses. Breakfast has become so popular, in fact, that it’s surpassed dinner as the most requested meal of choice.

Research has repeatedly shown that when it comes to food, college students value price and convenience above all else. The number of options and low pricing of delivery services like Uber Eats and GrubHub has led to an explosion in popularity on college campuses.

Would you use food delivery robots if they were in your area? Have you used one before? Let us know!

AI battles chimp in bid for intellectual supremacy

Discover why animal competition is helping create a smarter AI.

If you think about it, AI’s aren’t much different than chimpanzees. They’re both unpredictable, meltdown-prone creatures whose intelligence slowly and scarily approaches our own. Naturally, it’s only right that we pit them against each other in a desperate attempt to save our species.

Enter the Animal-AI Olympics: where chimps and other members of the animal kingdom compete for fame and glory against soulless automatons. The AI’s match up against “established benchmark tests” (a.k.a. tests that various animals have completed in the past). You can watch a brief video of the competition below.

The whole basis behind the competition is that currently, artificial intelligence is totally capable of beating humans at specific tasks. Whether that be beating a chess master or top-level Starcraft players at their own game, AI has shown the capacity to master specific tasks to the point of beating the most proficient human beings.

However, if you took the same AI that mastered chess and had it play checkers, for example, that AI would fail hopelessly. The brain of an animal is completely different. For example, while a dog would never come close to beating a human at a strategic game, the mind of a dog is much more adaptive than an AI, allowing them to better complete a variety of smaller and simpler tasks.

Hence the goal of the Animal-AI Olympics is to create adaptive AI instead of specialized AI. This ability to adapt and complete simple problems is called generalized intelligence, which is present in many animals, including crows, rats, dogs, and chimps.

AI robot revolts on the International Space Station

Read now ►

At the competition, entered AI’s will be exposed to hundreds of tasks that they have never seen before, which tests their ability to solve general problems instead of mastering one. Researchers can then compare how the AI performs compared to the animals, allowing them to study various forms of generalized intelligence. Animals generally have an advantage in these competitions due to millions of years of evolution leading to finely tuned senses and instincts. These generalized intelligence tests can also be applied to babies and small children, and as AI evolves, it should be able to complete these tasks with a similar aptitude to a grown human.

If we are to fully integrate AI into our households and everyday lives, then they need to have some form of generalized intelligence. If AI can achieve a sort of biological intuition, then it will be significantly more useful than a specialized AI at completing and adapting to various tasks. Of course, there will always be a need for specialized AI to complete specific tasks that are incredibly difficult or impossible for humans to do. The future of AI is generalized intelligence. If an AI has the ability to adapt and improve itself, then it won’t have a need for human tinkering. The thought of this is somewhat terrifying, but rest assured that today, the chimp is still kicking the AI’s ass.

Here’s what competitive Smash Ultimate looks like so far

Catch up with tips, tricks, and strategies to win Super Smash Bros Ultimate.

The release of Super Smash Bros Ultimate last December brought thousands of new players to the competitive scene. The game builds on 2014’s Smash 4 with an expanded roster of characters and significant gameplay improvements, causing the game to become the quickest selling entry in the franchise.

Now, over three months after its release, Smash Ultimate is enjoying a thriving competitive scene. Here’s a quick look at how this early meta is developing.

Competitive Super Smash Bros. Ultimate in 2019

The top characters

Competitive Smash players can rest easy; so far, the game’s roster of characters is by far the most balanced in the series. The balance of past Smash games hasn’t exactly been stellar, but so far Smash Ultimate has no definitive best character. Tournament results are far more spread out throughout the cast (over 91% of characters have had at least decent tournament placings), which is extremely impressive given that the game features 74 playable characters.

There are a handful of characters who have had poor competitive results, however. Kirby, Little Mac, Bowser Jr., and Mr. Game & Watch, among a few others, struggle to keep up with the rest of the cast. While these characters have their dedicated mains, hopefully, the dev team will buff these characters to bring them in line.

While the meta is still young, there have been no characters or strategies that are overcentralizing or excessively powerful. In Smash Ultimate, characters are balanced to better use their entire movesets as opposed to overcentralizing special moves or guaranteed combos like in Smash 4, which gives Ultimate significantly more gameplay variety. Here are a few of the characters in Smash Ultimate that have gotten the most tournament success (and how to beat them):

Pichu

Don’t let its cuteness fool you: Pichu is one of the biggest threats in Smash Ultimate. Pichu being so good comes as a surprise to those who played them in Super Smash Bros Melee, as Pichu was designed to be the worst character in that game (though in practice, Kirby and Bowser are actually worse). After 17 years of training, the baby mouse came back with a vengeance in Smash Ultimate.

Pichu’s tiny body and incredibly fast ground and air speed allow it to dodge enemy attacks with ease. Its incredible special move, Thunder Jolt, allows it to zone out opponents and rack up damage. The projectile moves slowly enough for Pichu to chase after it and grab shielding opponents. Pichu’s moves all have shockingly quick startup and endlag, giving it one of the best combo games in the entire cast. Combined with an excellent and nearly uninterruptible recovery, a deadly edgeguarding game, and potent kill options, Pichu is a threat that every competitive player must prepare for. Pichu is basically a minmaxed version of Pikachu, and is, so far, the game’s deadliest glass cannon.

Pichu’s biggest weakness by far is its survivability. It damages itself whenever it uses an electric move, which, combined with its incredibly low weight, allow it to be KO’d by a light breeze. Put some distance between yourself and Pichu and play defensively. This will force Pichu to rack up damage on itself while allowing you to KO it with a single strong attack.

The best Pichu players in the world are currently VoiD, Nietono, Captain L, and Yetey.

Wolf

Returning from Brawl to take his revenge, Wolf is a force to be reckoned with in Smash Ultimate. One of the most versatile characters in the game, Wolf can successfully combo, kill, zone, and pressure. Unlike other all-around characters like Pit (who is decent at everything but great at nothing), Wolf excels in nearly every offensive department. Though his ground speed is slow, he surprisingly has an incredibly fast air speed, allowing him to quickly follow up on aerial combos and punishes.

Speaking of Wolf’s aerials, his forward aerial can both combo into itself and kill, similar to Mewtwo. Despite moderate startup lag, his back air is his most consistent killing move, possessing a powerful sweetspot in his foot. Up aerial can combo at a wide variety of percents and even kill while near the top of the screen.

On the ground, Wolf is even better. His neutral B, Blaster, is one of the best projectiles/neutral tools in the game. The projectile flies slowly, inflicts a lot of damage, and has transcendent priority (meaning that it will beat out all other attacks and cannot be interrupted, much like Fox’s/Falco’s Blaster). Blaster more than makes up for Wolf’s slow dash speed, as it forces opponents to either approach or jump (allowing them to fall victim to Wolf’s fantastic aerials). Wolf is a character that not only succeeds in all areas of offense, he excels. His versatility makes him an unpredictable opponent that skilled players will push to the moon.

Wolf isn’t a perfect character, however. Defensively, Wolf is severely lacking. Though he is a heavy character, his survivability is incredibly poor due to his abysmal recovery. Fire Wolf and Wolf Flash are both linear and predictable, and unlike Fox and Falco, both moves put him in a helpless state (when the character blinks and is unable to do anything but shift left or right). Additionally, his fast falling speed, tall frame, and high weight make him perfect combo food. When facing Wolf, close the gap on the ground as much as possible and don’t give him a chance to use his Blaster or fight in the air.

Wolf is currently the most commonly picked character in tournament play. The best Wolf players are currently Zackray, Tweek, VoiD, and MKLeo.

Peach/Daisy

Note: For all intents and purposes, Peach and Daisy play exactly the same. There are very, very minor differences to their size and certain animations but these have hardly any effect on gameplay. Therefore, Peach and Daisy are interchangeable characters.

Peach has never been bad in a Smash game, and Ultimate is no exception. Simply put, everything that was good about Peach in past games is now better. Her main strength is in her fantastic aerial game. Peach’s ability to float in mid-air gives her amazing horizontal aerial pressure, and floating removes the damage penalty that normally applies to short hop aerials. Though her mobility is still slow, it has been improved from Smash 4. Her air acceleration is the second highest in the game (tied with Wario), which allows her to chase down and punish opponents with her float.

Peach’s ground game has also improved. Her down tilt is an incredible combo starter that launches opponents into the air. Her Vegetable projectile is now plucked faster, flies faster through the air, and does more damage, which (combined with her float) gives Peach some of the best horizontal stage control in the game.

Peach’s biggest weakness is her survivability. Her tall frame makes her easy to juggle in the air (though her low weight and falling speed prevent her from getting comboed too hard). Additionally, her vertical recovery is weak, though horizontally she can recover from afar using Peach Bomber and her float. Peach is an unorthodox character, so fighting her can be difficult. Focus on staying below her and juggling her in the air. If your character has good projectiles, zone her out as much as possible. She’ll have a hard time avoiding fire due to her low mobility.

The best Peach players are currently Samsora, CaptainZack, Zinoto, and Meru.

The top players

While a good portion of the top players in Smash Ultimate came over from Smash 4, many Melee players and brand new players have also placed high in tournaments. Here are a few of the current top players:

MKLeo

After top player ZeRo’s retirement, MKLeo was widely considered the best Smash 4 player in the world. Things haven’t changed in Smash Ultimate; MKLeo is currently the best player in the world (at only 18 years old!). At Smash Ultimate’s first supermajor tournament, GENESIS 6, MKLeo had an insane comeback run through loser’s bracket, eventually double eliminating VoiD to win the tournament.

MKLeo is famous for his aggressive-yet-intelligent playstyle, focusing on pressuring the opponent into making a mistake and brutally punishing them. He is known for playing sword characters and in Smash Ultimate he prefers Ike, Cloud, and Lucina. He used Ike throughout GENESIS 6, which was a surprising move as Ike wasn’t seen as an especially dominant character at the time. MKLeo’s performance with Ike reinvigorated interest in the character, and he’s now seen as a high tier by most competitive players.

Tweek

From humble beginnings as Smash 4’s best Bowser Jr to becoming one of the best overall players in the world, Tweek has risen to become one of competitive Smash’s top stars. He has already placed first at numerous tournaments, including Glitch 6. Tweek and MKLeo frequently go toe to toe with MKLeo barely edging him out. In the past, MKLeo has called Tweek’s playstyle his least favorite to go up against due to how calculating, punish-heavy, and grab-focused it is.

Tweek has a variety of characters under his belt that he pulls out for various matchups. He is an incredible Wolf and Chrom player, in addition to being so far the best Wario and Donkey Kong player in the world. He even used Young Link frequently at Glitch 6, a character who he said he only played for three days prior. Though Young Link is a strong character, he is infrequently seen in tournaments, which Tweek used to catch his opponents off guard.

Here is the grand finals set of Glitch 6, which features both Tweek and MKLeo. The set is an amazing showcase of the current Smash Ultimate metagame.

How are you enjoying Smash Ultimate so far? Are you planning on competing? Let us know!

The addictive psychology behind clicker games (and how they’ll destroy us all)

These games are designed to waste your time. Here’s why you’ll fall for it.

Cookie Clicker is an enigma. It is a game so basic that it barely qualifies as a form of entertainment. It appeals to every human being’s basic sense of action equalling reward, hitting the player with a series of dopamine rushes that compounds into itself.

Cookie Clicker is a free browser game that offers the player a simple goal: get as many cookies as possible. As the player clicks the giant cookie to gain more of the baked goods, they spend their cookies on buildings and upgrades that grant more cookies. If that sounds stupid and inane, it is, yet Cookie Clicker has gained a massive dedicated following.

In this article, we’re going to look at how the game design of clicker games exploits human psychology and how the genre itself is a brilliant satire (and exploitation) of the late capitalist digital hellscape we live in.

Inside the psychology of clicker games

Skinner’s Box o’ Fun

To understand why the appeal for clicker games exists in the first place, we need to go back to high school psychology and look at the Skinner box. Created by B.F. Skinner, the famous experiment had a rat placed in a box with a lever and a food dispenser. Whenever the rat pressed the lever, it would be rewarded with some sort of stimuli (which was usually food). The rat would quickly learn that by performing the repetitive and unstimulating action of pressing a lever, it would be rewarded. By pairing a formerly neutral stimulus (pressing a lever) with a rewarding stimulus (receiving food) the rats had been classically conditioned.

Though a gamer’s brain is slightly bigger than a rat’s, clicker games affect them in much the same way. Clicking a cookie is not an inherently stimulating action at all, yet it makes a number go up, and human beings LOVE big numbers. While the number of virtual cookies you have has no inherent actual value, players will nonetheless feel a rush of dopamine as if they have accomplished something tangible and real. The rat, at least, received a piece of food, prolonging its life and achieving a basic biological goal.

In clicker games, the player barely has any agency. The player quickly is able to purchase upgrades that generate cookies on their own, requiring no input from the player. By requiring no input or thought, clicker games somehow both require less effort than a rat pushing a lever and less reward than a small pellet of food.

Are we being too harsh on the genre? If clicker games are such a mindless waste of time, what about other games? To that, we say that clicker games take the increasing amount of addictive game design decisions made over the years and build the game completely around them.

Do you need a digital detox?

Read Now ►

Video games vs dopamine buttons

gaming addiction — At what point does a game go from fun to work?

It wouldn’t be fair to blame the existence of mindless clicker games on their developers; they were simply following gaming trends. As the gaming market has shifted from the single payment model to the DLC/microtransaction model, game developers are more focused on getting gamers hooked on their product than getting them to buy it in the first place.

Modern game design places more value on extrinsic awards than on intrinsic ones. To demonstrate what we mean, think of a raid in World of Warcraft. An example of an extrinsic reward would be gaining valuable loot after beating a difficult raid in WoW, while the intrinsic reward is a fond memory of camaraderie and satisfaction after working together with a group of friends for months to accomplish a goal. Designing a game based on extrinsic rewards is not inherently a bad thing, but clicker games take this basic design philosophy to the extreme.

The emergence of achievements and loot boxes have shown that gamers favor extrinsic rewards over some sort of internal satisfaction. Do you think shooters like Fortnite or Call of Duty would be as popular as they are without the constant stream of unlockable skins and items that come with playing? In today’s market, solid gameplay simply isn’t enough to keep a player hooked.

So what happens when you strip a game of all of its pesky gameplay and leave it with just a progression system? Clicker games. Gamers have been so conditioned to seek validation for their gameplay through extrinsic rewards that they’re willing to completely avoid gameplay as long as they get a cheap dopamine rush.

Clicker games take this gameplay-less formula to its logical conclusion by rewarding players for not actually playing the game. In clicker games, you get far more cookies (or whatever currency you’re trying to hoard) by simply letting the game run than by clicking or directly managing your game. The amount of effort required is less than minimal as you can go to bed and wake up with millions of new cookies, granting yourself a dopamine rush for doing exactly zilch. While it can be hard to predict gaming trends, I doubt anyone knew that some gamers would prefer games that you don’t play at all.

Why classical conditioning will destroy us all

Cookie cookie cookie, can’t you see, sometimes your words just hypnotize me

Clicker games are the unholy lovechild of video games and classical conditioning. They are, however, themselves of a symptom of modern digital design and not the source of the infection. Nearly every modern piece of digital technology is designed using classical conditioning to keep you as hooked as possible.

For example, when Facebook creates a big red notification whenever someone likes your photo, they are classically conditioning you to associate social status with likes. Much like clicker games, Facebook provides joy in increments (likes instead of cookies in this case), quantifying something that makes you happy. Like a clicker game, eventually the high of a certain number will fade, and you’ll require more likes to feel the same amount of satisfaction. This creates an endless feedback loop that resembles addiction, showing symptoms of withdrawal and tolerance.

Social media adds 24/7 emotional burdens

Read Now ►

Companies try and keep you hooked to their platforms because it generates them more money, so they push the classical conditioning as far as it can get. At the risk of sounding like some sort of tech-averse boomer or pseudo-intellectual 14-year-old, yes, you are being conditioned. But so is everyone who occupies a digital space, so you shouldn’t feel guilty about it. The most important thing you can do is be aware of it.

Whether it be about video games or social media, always be mindful of classical conditioning. If you ever feel like you’re just going through the motions instead of getting some sort of genuine enjoyment out of these products you should take a break or quit entirely. Studies have shown that people who find themselves addicted to social media or video games are unhappier on average. It’s possible to enjoy these things in moderation and be a perfectly happy, healthy person. All that’s required is a degree of self-awareness and the ability to distinguish between cheap, artificial dopamine rushes and genuine joy.

That said, you’re perfectly welcome to spend hours clicking a cookie just to see a number increase. Skinner and his rats are having a hearty laugh at your expense.

Complete guide to self-improvement: mind and body

Read Now ►

Want to get into comics? Here’s where to start

It should come as no surprise to anyone that superhero movies are the hottest thing in pop culture today. They routinely crush the box office and characters like Iron Man and Thanos have become modern icons. Many fans understandably have wanted to get into the comics that spawned these characters, but don’t exactly know where to start. This guide will show you what to do based on which comics you want to read and how you want to read them.

First, we’ll start with how you want to read them.

Where to start with print comics

If you prefer flipping through the pages of a comic to swiping on a screen, you have a few options. Your first option is to read trade paperbacks.

A trade paperback is a collection of comics that usually make up a single story arc. If you’re looking to read a specific story (e.g. “The Infinity Gauntlet” or “The Dark Knight Returns”), buying these trade paperbacks is often significantly easier and cheaper than hunting down individual issues of the story.

Trade paperbacks also often include issues of multiple series to fill out a story (for example, the “Civil War” trade includes issues of Avengers and Amazing Spider-Man, among others). For newer comic fans, buying trades is the easiest way to read famous stories without worrying about buying individual issues or reading them in a specific order. You can buy these either at book/comic stores or online, but in our experience, it’s usually cheaper to buy these at comic stores.

The other most common option is to subscribe to your favorite series at your local comic book store. Most stores offer some sort of discount if you subscribe to a monthly/weekly comic, and you can generally pick up new issues on Wednesdays. This is the best way to continuously keep up on a specific series, as you’ll get new issues right when they come out. Plus, it’s always important to support your local comic book store!

How Stan Lee created Marvel’s complex characters

Read Now ►

Where and how to read digital comics

The upside to reading comics digitally is convenience. You can read them on your phone, tablet, or computer, making it easy to bring them on the go without hauling a stack of books.

If you’re looking to read mainstream superhero comics, both DC and Marvel have digital comics subscriptions that are well worth the money. For $10 a month, Marvel Unlimited gives you access to nearly every Marvel comic released since the 1960s.

Marvel Unlimited Download Free ►

The app is very well organized by different stories, writers, and characters, allowing you to browse the massive catalog with ease. Unfortunately, you can’t read newer issues of current series when they come out (though you can buy the issue separately), but all comics are uploaded to the service a few months after they release. The service is basically everything you could want as a Marvel comic fan.

If you’re looking more broadly, the ComiXology app offers basically any modern comic you could possibly want. The service has both Marvel and DC comics, in addition to thousands of non-superhero comics from other publishers, and you can buy new issues as soon as they come out. They also have a paid subscription service called ComiXology Unlimited that gives you access to thousands of comics from a wide variety of publishers. If you’re more focused on keeping up with current series as opposed to diving into the backlog, you should use ComiXology over Marvel Unlimited.

ComiXology Download Free ►

Stan Lee masterclass: How to create a good villain

Read Now ►

Which comics are easy to get into?

Decades of continuity can make diving into comic books a confusing and daunting task. Fortunately, with the popularity of their movies Marvel and DC have made efforts to streamline their titles and give new readers a clean starting point. Here are some titles to check out from each publisher.

Marvel

Last year, Marvel launched its Fresh Start line. Fresh Start renumbered a bunch of Marvel’s most popular comics at #1, giving new readers a clear jumping on point. If you’re a movie fan looking to start reading, WE recommend choosing from these comic lines. Some of the comics that were renumbered include:

Avengers
Black Panther
Captain America
Captain Marvel
Deadpool
Guardians of the Galaxy
Immortal Hulk
Miles Morales: Spider-Man
Thor
Tony Stark: Iron Man
Uncanny X-Men
Venom

Most of the confusing or convoluted storylines that were present in these comics have been reworked to bring in the casual crowd, so don’t worry about jumping into some massive story that’s partway through. With Marvel Unlimited, you should be able to read most of these comics up until their current issues.

DC

DC is known for its massive universal reboots every so often, and they had arguably their most successful one in 2016’s DC Rebirth. The relaunch combined the modern sensibilities of the controversial New 52 relaunch with DC’s storied legacy to get the best of both worlds. For new readers, we recommend choosing from your favorite character’s Rebirth comic. Popular characters that got a new series in Rebirth include:

Aquaman
Batman
Cyborg
Doom Patrol
Flash
Green Arrow
Green Lantern
Harley Quinn
Justice League
Shazam
Suicide Squad
Superman
Wonder Woman

DC has done a nice job of balancing keeping their heroes familiar and introducing fresh elements to their stories. Rebirth is a great place to start for both new and returning readers.

Did this guide answer your questions? What comics are you most interested in? Let us know!

MySpace loses over 50 million songs

Remember MySpace? It just deleted a massive part of internet history.

MySpace released a statement saying that all songs, photos, and videos uploaded more than three years ago have been lost, amounting to 12 years of lost content and over 50 million deleted songs from 14 million artists. The loss was the result of a failed “server migration project.” In one of the most understated responses in corporate history, MySpace has said that they “apologize for any inconvenience.”

In the early-2000s, MySpace was the world’s biggest social media network. Founded in 2003, the site exploded in popularity, beating Google as the internet’s most visited site in 2006.

6 social media apps that are better than Facebook

Read Now ►

Though the site is obviously nowhere near that in popularity today, the platform played an instrumental role in popularizing modern online music distribution. Through MySpace, artists and their fans could interact with each other directly, without having to go through any corporate middlemen. In the age of Twitter, this may seem mundane, but back then the idea of sharing a platform with your favorite artist was novel and exciting. Artists self-promoted their own image and music in what was seen as a large scale extension of the underground, DIY scene. With social media like MySpace, the playing field between major label artists and underground acts was leveled, something that remains true today with platforms like Soundcloud, YouTube, and Bandcamp.

Several popular artists of the early 2000s including Arctic Monkeys, Hollywood Undead, Owl City, and Sean Kingston first gained popularity through MySpace. As the 2000s raged on, MySpace was dethroned by the massive launch of Facebook, a service originally available only to college students. After losing the mainstream social media battle to Zuckerberg, MySpace rebranded in 2011 to focus on its strength: music. The website was purchased by none other than Justin Timberlake and would go on to change hands over the next few years.

MySpace’s data loss is a loss for modern music history. The website offered a fascinating look into the beginnings of today’s online musical landscape. It’s baffling that a website that has done little more than exist for the past 10 years can completely destroy their legacy in just one move. For this, Tom, we will never forgive you. It’s finally time to unfriend.

5 ways Elder Scrolls 6 can improve from Skyrim

Here’s our wish list for a stellar Elder Scrolls VI.

Released in 2011, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim was one of the most iconic and popular games of the last console generation. The game rekindled interest in massive, open world AAA RPGs and was considered one of the most immersive and technically impressive games ever released. After receiving countless “game of the year” awards, millions of sales, ports to every modern system, and thousands of mods, Skyrim has cemented its place in gaming history.

Now, nearly 10 years after Skyrim’s release, Bethesda has revealed that The Elder Scrolls 6 is in development. The game is likely many years from release and the lofty goal of surpassing Skyrim is looming over the developers’ heads. Here are a few ways The Elder Scrolls 6 can improve upon the solid framework laid out by Skyrim.

5 biggest ways Elder Scrolls 6 can improve over Skyrim

5. Have a unique setting

One of the biggest strengths Skyrim had versus other games in the series was its distinct setting. The snowy landscapes of Skyrim and its uniquely Viking architecture helped the game’s setting stand out against the more generic high-fantasy, Tolkien-esque settings of Oblivion and Daggerfall. TES 6 needs to have a similarly distinctive setting.

One of the most highly requested settings is Hammerfell, a desert region that borders Skyrim. The area is home to the Redguards, an adventurous and nomadic race of humans who often work as mercenaries, sailors, and adventurers. Hammerfell itself is made up of massive port cities that contradict the deserts that make up most of the region.

The region also features massive abandoned Dwemer cities; advanced mechanical cities filled with gigantic gears and other machinations. The setting’s architecture is based on real-life ancient Arabian and African aesthetics, which would provide a fresh change of scenery for the series.

To stand out, The Elder Scrolls 6 needs to continue to stray from high fantasy and more towards surreal and unique settings not found in any other fantasy game.

Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Special Edition download now ►

The mods you need to play as a bard in Skyrim (and make it look awesome)

Read now ►

4. A more in-depth combat system

One of the most consistent complaints of the Elder Scrolls series is its flimsy combat. Fights often feel like simple button mashing, and when attacks connect there is no sense of power or weight. While Skyrim featured the best combat in the series so far, it was still incredibly simple and repetitive.

The combat system needs a complete rehaul in TES 6. First and foremost, keep the real-combat of Skyrim and Oblivion, and do not include Morrowind’s dice rolls. Visibly hitting an enemy with your sword and then rolling a miss was incredibly frustrating and immersion breaking.

Second, increase the number of available moves in combat. Allow for feints, thrusts, and parries, in addition to the normal and power attacks. A well-timed shield or two-handed weapon block should do more than just prevent you from taking damage, it should open an opportunity for you to strike back.

Third, adding more options on how or if to fight can improve the roleplaying experience. Give players an option to knock enemies out or restrain them instead of killing them. Conversely, giving the ability to enact brutal executions on command can help immerse players in their bloodthirsty character.

Beyond this, improved hit detection, more detailed animations, and more gruesome sound design can all help combat from feeling floaty and week. By featuring an advanced combat system, TES 6 can avoid one of the series’ most common complaints.

Complete Guide to Skyrim

Read Now ►

3. Make guilds make sense

In Skyrim, the way that the player interacted with the game’s various guilds was nonsensical. Not only did every guild make the player the leader too easily, but the player could serve as the leader of every single guild in Skyrim at the same time. It was unrealistic (in the context of a fantasy game) that somebody could serve as the brutal warrior leader of the Companions while also serving as the shadowy leader of the Dark Brotherhood and so on. Forcing the player into only joining one or two guilds (with the ability to only become the leader of one) would help force the player into creating a more distinct story for themselves.

It was also far too easy to advance through the ranks of a guild in Skyrim. To become head of the College of Winterhold (Mage’s Guild), the player technically only needs to know a handful of spells. Instead, the player should have to repeatedly demonstrate their magical aptitude with a wide variety of difficult spells. The fact that any old warrior with basic flame and ice spells could become the leader of the most powerful faction of mages in Skyrim was absurd. Rising through the ranks of a guild should be a matter of aptitude, networking, and shrewd inner politics.

Ultimate Skyrim guide: Which race is the best?

Read Now ►

2. Allow players to craft their own spells

One of the most missed features in Skyrim was the ability to craft your own spells. The spellcrafting system featured in Oblivion gave the players a ton of freedom to be creative, allowing them to assign various properties to their spells like range, self/touch/on target/, area of effect, buffs and debuffs, and various elements. Depending on the player’s magical abilities, these spells would be weaker or stronger or be easier or more difficult to cast.

Players found plenty of interesting ways to craft spells, such as combining invisibility with the Frenzy effect, which would cause enemies to kill each other while the player remains safely hidden. Bringing back this highly requested feature would go a long way in making longtime fans happy.

1. Use a new engine

It’s finally time to address the elephant in the room: Bethesda’s Creation Engine, used in Skyrim, Fallout 4, and Fallout 76, has become outdated. Here are a few ways the Creation Engine limits the game designer’s ability for player interaction with the environment:

3D objects can’t interact well with the environment, which prevents contextual environmental actions like vaulting over a ledge of climbing a ladder.
Physics and game speed are tied to FPS, which could cause the game to become unplayable on certain hardware or settings
Interiors and exteriors are completely separated by loading screens. Other games like Breath of the Wild and The Witcher 3 have already achieved seamless transitions between interiors and exteriors

For as good as the Creation Engine is in creating a world that interacts with itself (with NPC schedules, Radiant Quests, etc), the engine is in dire need of a retooling or an overhaul. Unfortunately, since the code dates back to the ’90s, a retrofitting may be out of the question, and a new engine is needed entirely.

What would you like to see in the next Elder Scrolls? Let us know!

The Nintendo Switch turns 2 years old

A look at the highs and lows of the incredibly popular portable console.

Happy birthday to the Nintendo Switch!

First released on March 3, 2017, the Nintendo Switch has made a huge splash in the gaming market. Bringing some much-needed momentum back to Nintendo after the Wii U flopped, the simple “portable-console hybrid” concept has resonated soundly with the gaming public. As of February, the Switch has over 32.27 million lifetime sales, which means that it has already overtaken the lifetime sales of the Wii U and Gamecube, and is on track to outpace the Nintendo 64’s lifetime sales soon.

From the massive success of the Wii to the floundering of the Wii U, Nintendo has clearly learned a lot from the past 15 years. While the Switch isn’t perfect, Nintendo is having its biggest hot streak in over a decade, and it’ll be interesting to see where they go from here. Here, we’ll look at the Nintendo Switch’s biggest improvements, innovations, and missteps.

A brief history of the Nintendo Switch

First-party knockouts

One of the biggest selling points of a Nintendo console is its lineup of excellent first-party titles. With the Switch, Nintendo once again proves that they are unequivocally the best first-party developers out there. Super Mario Odyssey took players on a breathtaking journey filled with fresh, creative new worlds and mechanics, becoming a worthy successor to Super Mario Galaxy. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe is one of the best entries in the franchise and deserved a better home than the Wii U. Super Smash Bros. Ultimate celebrates the franchise’s history with an all-star cast and significant gameplay improvements. Despite being a controversial title among longtime fans, Pokémon Let’s Go Pikachu and Eevee sold like hotcakes and introduced the Pokémon Go generation to a more traditional game.

5 reasons to come back to Pokémon Go

Read Now ►

And of course, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is the most critically acclaimed game of the console generation, often entering talks as one of the greatest games ever. The game brings to life the sense of wonder and exploration present in the original Legend of Zelda, truly allowing players to save Hyrule in any way they see fit. The game’s deceptively complex physics and chemistry systems give players freedom in how they approach and overcome obstacles. All of this combines with a world that feels huge and fleshed out without falling victim to the typical pitfalls of open-world gaming. It is arguable that Breath of the Wild alone is worth the price of entry for a Switch.

Lifelong Nintendo fans have been gushing over Nintendo’s first-party titles so far with good reason. Super Mario Odyssey, Super Smash Bros Ultimate, and Breath of the Wild already stand as bona fide classics, and with many more first-party games on the way, the Switch’s already excellent library shows no signs of slowing down.

Animated Super Mario movie is on the way

Read Now ►

Actual third-party support

One of the biggest downfalls of the Wii U was its drought of third-party support. Developers didn’t want to bother adjusting their titles for the cumbersome Gamepad, especially to an audience that was primarily interested in first-party titles. The Nintendo Switch’s portability is a much more seamless gimmick that requires little to no consideration on the part of the developer in terms of game design. This has led to the best third-party support Nintendo has had since the days of the Gamecube. Though the system’s underpowered specs lead to several major third-party games skipping over the Switch, it has still garnered an impressive third-party lineup.

Ports of major titles like Dark Souls, Skyrim, Doom, Fortnite, and Warframe run smooth as butter, with the system’s portability giving them new life. While major third-party support is still far from perfect (the system still lacks certain major sports titles like Madden, for example) the system’s third-party lineup is already solid. Upcoming major third-party titles like Mortal Kombat 11 will also hit the Switch in the near future, so Switch-exclusive owners will miss out on far fewer third-party hits than they did with other Nintendo consoles. Hopefully, popular titles like Apex Legends and Overwatch will find their way to the Switch in the future.

Indie game heaven

If you’re a fan of indie games you owe it to yourself to get a Nintendo Switch. What’s not to love about playing indie games on the go or in bed? The system already has indie juggernauts like The Binding of Isaac, Shovel Knight, Stardew Valley, Overcooked, Terriaria, Dead Cells, and Celeste. If you prefer playing indie games on a console to a PC, the portability and vast lineup of the Switch make it the obvious choice.

Many indie developers create their games nowadays with a Switch port in mind, meaning that the system should see even more indie support throughout its lifespan. Hopefully, classic indie games like Hotline Miami and Spelunky get ported soon to round out the whole package.

Nintendo proves once again they can’t do online

Oh boy, here we go. The enormous and obvious black spot on the Nintendo Switch is its abysmal online service. Even as fans have come to expect nothing about Nintendo and online, we are left disappointed as Nintendo Switch online is baffling at best and unacceptable in 2019 at worst.

At $20 a year, the service is much cheaper than Xbox Live or PlayStation Plus, yet it offers a small fraction of the value of either of those services. Having a bunch of original NES titles available is nice, but at this point, anyone who wants to play these games already has. Having either a Virtual Console or games from other retro consoles available would be of significantly more value than 20 NES games.

Additionally, basic features that were present on the original Xbox Live in 2002 are lacking on the Switch, such as party chat or direct messages. Puzzlingly, Nintendo requires a smartphone app to access basic online features like voice chat. All in all, Nintendo Switch Online is an embarrassing mess that proves Nintendo is not only completely unwilling to learn from past online mistakes, but they are confident enough to start charging money for it. We can only hope Nintendo’s upcoming collaboration with Xbox Live will jumpstart the company’s online evolution.

Looking toward the future

There are plenty of upcoming Switch games to be excited for. From new entries in long-running franchises like Animal Crossing, Bayonetta, or Luigi’s Mansion to brand new IP’s like Daemon X Machina and Astral Chain, there’s plenty to look forward to, no matter what games you play.

Especially interesting is the unprecedented partnership between Nintendo and Microsoft, which will really take shape later this year. Will they fix Nintendo’s online service? Will we get Xbox games on the Switch? The possibilities are tantalizing.

Instagram-powered vending machine gives free food for selfies

Take a selfie, get free food! Brilliant.

Have you ever been hungry while out and about and thought “Wow, I sure would like some food but I hate paying for things.” Well, you’re in luck, as techie food company Foodbeast has teamed up with Nissin Cup Noodles to produce the Foodbeast #DreamMachine.

This bizarre piece of modern engineering gives you a cup of delicious instant noodles in exchange for a selfie. The machines are retrofitted vending machines from the ’70s. Built-in Raspberry Pi’s connect to Instagram to ensure a secure and encrypted noodle-selfie exchange. The process for getting your free food is as follows:

Push the big red button on the machine.
Take an endearing selfie of your beautiful face next to the #DreamMachine.
The #DreamMachine will generate a unique hashtag. Use that hashtag while uploading your selfie to Instagram.
The machine will check to see if you obeyed its online noodle dispensing protocols, and give you your noodles if you followed correctly.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Las Vegas Moms (@lasvegasmoms) on Mar 6, 2019 at 11:07am PST

For such little effort, you too can have free noodles. The machine also can drop video games and gift cards, too, and while you cannot eat these prizes, they are welcome gifts nonetheless.

Initially conceived as a joke within Foodbeast, the #DreamMachine eventually made its way to production as the culmination of humanity’s shared love of social media influence and eating food. If you’d like to try out one of these machines, they’ll be set up at the Del Amo Fashion Center in Torrance, California, as well as the Las Vegas Premium Outlets South. They’ll be up all throughout March, and Foodbeast is considering additional locations in the future.

The Foodbeast #DreamMachine is a strange amalgamation of social media and food that actually seems to work out quite well. Hopefully one pops up in a store near me so I never need to spend pocket change on a cup of noodles ever again.

Think you could run WWE? Fire Promoter lets you try

Fire Promoter brings an immersive new aspect to this top-notch wrestling game.

For the last several years, wrestling fans have been baffled by Vince McMahon’s booking decisions for the WWE. From dropping storylines for no discernible reason, to burying fan favorites, and giving mega pushes to unpopular superstars, many fans wonder just what goes on inside the eccentric billionaire’s head.

Those who truly think they could run a promotion better will be pleased to know that Fire Pro Wrestling World’s Fire Promoter DLC has finally been released. Fire Promoter has been hyped up by fans to be the natural successor to the acclaimed GM Mode from the old Smackdown vs Raw games. After numerous delays, Fire Promoter is here at last. Fortunately, it lives up to the hype. But how does it work?

What is Fire Promoter?

Fire Promoter has players taking control of a brand new wrestling promotion with the goal of becoming the most popular brand in the world. The mode is not a sandbox storytelling device like WWE2K’s Universe mode, but rather a game where the player competes against rival AI promotions to build the most successful wrestling business.

Fire Pro Wrestling World Download Now

Fire Promoter includes a few dozen fictional promotions and hundreds of fictional wrestlers to play with, though these can be substituted with real wrestlers and promotions through Fire Pro’s built-in community creations system. For example, in my playthrough, I chose to play as AEW going up against WWE, NJPW, TNA, CMLL, AAA, Progress, and Ring of Honor. For each promotion, you set the number of wrestlers and free agents, as well as their style. WWE’s flashy and aggressive style fits the “Showman” style for example, while NJPW’s focus on technical in-ring action suits the “Strong” style. Choosing a style for your promotion is important as it determines which wrestlers want to work with you and which promotions will seek you out for partnerships.

Initially, you start with only six wrestlers, though you can enter a cheat code to start with as many as you’d like (hold L1 + L2 while choosing your difficulty and the number of wrestlers). The amount of money you start with depends on the difficulty you choose as well. Rival promotions, especially top ones, start with significantly more money than you do to show that they’re already established. Once you’ve set up your difficulty options and starting roster, you’re ready to go!

Building your roster

The roster-building aspect of Fire Promoter is one of the most dynamic and fun parts of the mode. You can view which wrestler is in which promotion, as well as which free agents exist in each territory (America, Japan, Latin America, and Europe).

To build up your army of talent, you have two main options. First, you can pay scouts to search for undiscovered talent in each territory. You have multiple scouts at your disposal, each one specializing in a certain territory and style of wrestling. If your scout successfully discovers a wrestler they will appear as a free agent in their respective territory. These discovered free agents are eager to be signed, so be sure to pick them up quickly before another promotion snatches them up.

The second option you have is offering contracts to wrestlers directly, whether they be free agents or talent at competing promotions. Whether or not the wrestler actually accepts is dependent on a number of factors. Obviously, the amount of money involved is a big factor, and lowballing their signing bonus hardly ever works for anyone bigger than a mid-card talent. Additionally, the talent is more likely to sign with you if their wrestling style matches your promotion.

Why every wrestling fan needs to play Fire Pro Wrestling World

Read Now ►

Lastly, wrestlers who are already signed to competing promotions have trust levels. If their trust level is high, then they are less likely to leave and sign with you (no matter how much money I offered, the Undertaker refused to leave Vince’s side). Signing wrestlers from other promotions will anger them, causing them to be less likely to want to work with you for crossover events.

Once you actually have your wrestlers, it’s up to you to keep them happy. Wrestlers have different popularity levels in different territories, and they can win over the crowd by winning often, gaining titles, and putting on high-quality matches. As wrestlers get more popular, they will often demand more money or bigger pushes, and it’s your decision as to whether they’re worth the hassle (Bray Wyatt is a huge money-guzzling primadonna in my game, but he’s so popular that I’m forced to oblige).

On the flipside, wrestlers who are fed up with low wages or lower-card matches will sometimes storm into your office demanding change. If they get pissed enough they’ll leave for the free agency. Additionally, there are random events that can affect a wrestler’s reputation. For example, in my game Kurt Angle was involved in a hit and run, causing him to be fired by WWE and allowing me to scoop him up.

Keeping talent happy and booking them right will make sure they stay with you. Be sure to put on good matches to keep them popular, in addition to enhancing your roster with hot free agents.

Here comes the money!

Much like in life, in Fire Promoter you need to spend money to make money. For the first few months, your promotion will almost certainly lose money until you build some momentum. Fortunately, you have many other sources of revenue besides ticket sales. You can produce various kinds of merchandise to sell, which provides a nice supplementary income. Be careful about when you produce merchandise and how much of it you make, however. Merchandise sales really pick up after huge events, so if an event goes poorly or you accidentally manufacture too much merch, it’ll sit on the shelves, costing you a ton of money. At the beginning of my game, I manufactured small amounts of T-shirts and towels for my events, the profits of which definitely saved me from going under before I gained momentum.

The 10 best games on PlayStation Now

Read Now ►

As your promotion becomes bigger, you’ll have the opportunity to sign deals with sponsors and broadcasters, both of which rake in tons of cash. Sponsors will give you money to plaster their logo all over your ring. More lucrative sponsors often come with stipulations that you must follow. For example, one of my biggest sponsors was a pharmaceutical company. They doled out the cash on the condition that I never set up hardcore matches or deathmatches. Sponsors can also offer small benefits, such as a clothing company reducing the cost of producing T-shirts or an energy drink company making your wrestlers heal from injuries faster.

Getting broadcast deals can make or break your promotion. Starting from local television all the way to international broadcasts, these deals will bring in a ton of money and exposure to your promotion. The flipside is that you must cater to their often picky demands, such as having every single event of yours get above an 80% rating.

Putting on a show

The most important part of any wrestling promotion, obviously, is putting on a show. Successful events in Fire Promoter are determined by the amount of money they bring in and how well they go over with fans (displayed with a percentage).

To pull off an event you must carefully arrange the card, from the main event all the way to the lower card. Put your most popular wrestlers in the main event, switching them up every month or so for some variety. By taking a rising mid-card wrestler and putting in the main event, you can make him go over by putting on a good match. It also helps to put title matches in the main event, as they bring in more spectators. There are a variety of match types to choose from, including tag matches, 6 and 8 man tag matches, cage matches, various deathmatches, and MMA fights.

When running through the event, you can choose to play a match (either by taking control over a wrestler or watching the AI fight it out) or sim a match altogether. Note that you cannot outright choose who wins the match, so if you’re really banking on a specific wrestler to win a match, be sure to play as them and whoop the AI’s butt. To ensure highly rated matches, try to keep the fight as even as possible to keep things exciting. Longer matches tend to do better, so pace out the match and have things gradually escalate. Take down your opponent with a finisher for extra style points.

How to break a bad habit

Read Now ►

You can approach other promotions for crossover tournaments (they can also approach you). In these tournaments, each promotion is forced to put at least one of their title belts on the line. For these events, you want your wrestlers to look good, not theirs. Instead of focusing on good matches, feel free to lay the smackdown on the AI’s candy ass and steal their titles away. Having more titles increases the prestige and popularity of your promotion, so these crossover tournaments are very important. If an AI takes one of your titles away, loan wrestlers to their promotion or attempt to put on more crossover tournaments with them to get it back.

Outside of the ring, you must keep track of other factors in setting up your event. To make your promotion look popular and successful, you must fill out the venue whenever possible, so it’s better to get a full house in a small arena than an emptier crowd in a larger arena. The amount of people who attend your event depends on the match card, the ticket price, and the advertising. Lower ticket prices mean more people, but obviously lower profits. By taking advantage of popular talent and well-built match cards you can get away with higher ticket prices. Additionally, advertising makes a huge difference in attendance. Filming TV commercials or starting social media campaigns bring in huge crowds but also burn a hole in your wallet, so balancing venue, advertising, and ticket pricing is key.

Fire Promoter is an extensive mode that rounds out the already excellent gameplay of Fire Pro Wrestling World. It could use some polish; crashes happen, so save frequently. Also, the mode explains itself poorly, so hopefully this article clears things up. Other than that, it is certainly worth the $20, and with additional features and tweaking, may end up being the best wrestling sim mode ever.