Granted, I haven’t played it myself yet, but Mega Man Star Force 2 is that for a lot of fans of that series. The first game already got a lukewarm reception because of how it was simultaneously “just more Battle Network” and “not simply more Battle Network”, but it has a very heartfelt story and some people are turning around on it when they can judge it on its own merits instead of constant comparisons to Battle Network, which has better gameplay. It still sold a decent number of copies.

The second game basically killed whatever momentum the series had by then. The story got dumbed down significantly which made it feel even more like Battle Network (although it still has its moments), the space theme was lost to “lost civilisations” shenanigans that many fans weren’t interested in, the gameplay changes were meh and you frequently had to navigate through a maze-like “Sky Wave” with a too high encounter rate. Sales numbers were well below expectations.

The third game has the best gameplay by far and a story close to or as good as the first game, but the damage was already done. It sold the least of the three games. But at least the series ended on a high note with very few loose ends.

Had to throw a jab at China at the end of the video. Ugh… They wouldn’t even have been been lying about the surveillance cameras, but they just HAD to bring up “social credit scores”

Recall requires a computer that is compatible with Microsoft’s Copilot chatbot:

Only a small portion of the most recent laptops are “Copilot+ PCs”.

This means that for everyone else, this information is irrelevant. It will mostly impact business employess and higher-income dupes. Also…

“Total Recall”

Apparent magnitude is a logarithmic scale, so 4.0 over 4.7 makes the Qianfan satellites 5x brighter than the 1st-gen Starlink satellites.

The researchers hope that by raising alarm early, they hope things can change for the better, like how SpaceX redesigned their satellites after public scrutiny. One of the mitigations is to just constantly point the shiny surface away from the surface. But it sucks that any legitimate and good-faith criticism gets hijacked by sinophobes.

The article actually spends the latter half talking about interference by Starlink and another American one, BlueBird, including in the radio wavelength. It’s really only the headline that’s problematic.

I wonder why these constellation satellites are always so bright. I never heard such things sabout other satellites, or is it just their large numbers that suddenly makes it a problem?

Notions like “the best defence is offence” and a preemptive/preventive war have existed for a long time, to be fair. It’s just that this isn’t the first time Israel or the US have pulled that card and it never worked. Hezbollah was founded the first time Israel invaded Lebanon ffs.

Even if it did work in this case, it would be short-sighted, as the injustice in Palestine would continue and it’s just a matter of time before things blow up again. “No justice, no peace” and all that.

The paragraph is titled “Sounds Familiar” for crying out loud

Of course, the obligatory China mention. “Digital totalitarianism”.

They’re picturing a depressed person as a nihilistic killjoy that doesn’t want to do anything and lives without a purpose, I’m assuming.

It’s just branding, because it’s a shuttle service between a mainline stop in a nearby village and their Gigafactory outside Berlin.

The best part is that this train isn’t made by Tesla, it’s just them leasing battery trains from Siemens, and they don’t even operate them:

Tesla plans to switch to operating battery-electric trains from the Mireo Smart family, manufactured by Siemens, replacing diesel trains currently transporting employees to their factory near Berlin.

[…]

The trains will be leased from the newly established leasing company, Smart Train Lease, founded by Siemens in early 2024. The operation of the trains will continue to be managed by the passenger transport operator Niederbarnimer Eisenbahn (NEB).

whataboutism

See my other comment here: https://hexbear.net/comment/5333660

They added a general disclaimer at the start of the game that some dialogue is inappropriate for modern times and not representative of Capcom’s current values. Some examples, courtesy of the ESRB:

The game contains some suggestive material in the dialogue (e.g., “Stop peeking! You Pervert”; "Her measurements are 33,22,33”; “You missed out on seeing [her] naked.”).

There’s nothing visual going on, it’s just “spicy” dialogue, but I support their decision to add a disclaimer. But merely acknowledging this is too much for these people…

Ranked-choice voting probably wouldn’t do much. Australia has ranked-choice voting, and their political landscape isn’t much different from the UK or Canada, with two status quo parties dominating everything (Labour and Liberal+National), only now you have smaller parties and independents they have to deal with sometimes.

Maybe that’s because it still has single-member constituencies, which really hurt electoral diversity. The House uses single-member constituencies, and only 12 percent of seats belong to third parties. Meanwhile the Australian Senate also uses ranked-choice voting, but with the nationwide vote share for seat allocation , and there third parties have 30% of seats, with mainly the Green Party benefitting.

Why on LINKEDIN of all places!?!?

The primary driver of Wukong’s sales success is its popularity in China, where developer Game Science is based. Games industry analyst firm Niko has an in-depth article by Daniel Ahmad breaking this down. 93% of Wukong’s Steam reviews are in simplified Chinese, and Steam shattered its previous download bandwidth record (set during Cyberpunk’s launch) by a whopping 28 terabytes per second on Wukong’s August 20 launch⁠—82% of that traffic originated in East Asia. Gameplay videos and previews of Wukong have also been dominating Chinese social networks like bilibili.

peekaboo

MEGA MAN STAR FORCE REFERENCE

The Transer (heh) […] is a mobile terminal that appears in Mega Man Star Force as an evolution of the PErsonal Terminal from the Mega Man Battle Network series. Most people wear their Transers on their arms[, but it can also be detached from the wriststrap].

The Transer is just a wearable Nintendo DS in form, because that’s the platform the game is on, and instead of apps, you insert different physical cards, as the battle system has card game elements. Gimmick-based worldbuilding.

Coincidentally, it was released in Japan in December of 2006.

For a decade we’ve heard rumors about a liva-action Mega Man movie and then a Netflix series, I guess this is what came out of that. I couldn’t give a piss about the rest of this series, because I really don’t like the “serious AAA ” aesthetic.

I think they did a good job at converting him into a realistic style (wonder what his voice will be like), for something like this, I think they should have gone with the X series instead, not the cartoony original series.

Also, Capcom willing to put Mega Man in anything but a new game lol.

My guess is they’re trying to build an audience for a new game, so essentially pre-emptive advertising? His appearance in Smash did bring him to the foreground again for many people, I think that’s how I first encountered him even.

What am I supposed to be looking at? I couldn’t find anything of the sort in the edit history. I did find this in the “Talk” page, however:

I was waiting for Mega Man 8 to make an appearance lol

I remember holding a presentation about perovskite and multi-layer “tandem” solar cells for a green science fair in secondary school. I did it together with someone and the presentation was well received. I have fond memories of learning about this.