An InZOI player has shared how they brought their own cat into the game by using the title's 3D printing feature. The unique ability is something many InZOIplayers have never experienced before, adding a brand-new possibility to the life simulator genre.

I dont think we give John Carpenter enough credit. That might sound hyperbolic, given that were talking about the creator of one the most enduring cinematic horror franchises of all time, but its true. Hes more than just the mastermind behind Halloween; hes a renaissance man, at once the director of such touchstones as The Thing, They Live, and Escape from New York and an accomplished, self-taught composer. Not to mention a passionate gamer, no-nonsense straight-talker, and overall jovial elder statesman of horror cinema.Any of these reasons alone would suffice for why you should make time to watch Prince of Darkness before it leaves Prime Video on April 1. But an even better reason is the fact that its too often given short shrift when compared to the other masterpieces in Carpenters oeuvre.Written by Carpenter himself under the pseudonym of Martin Quatermass, Prince of Darkness centers on a group of quantum physics students who have been enlisted by their professor to work on an urgent project: studying a mysterious glowing cylinder hidden below a monastery in Los Angeles. Working alongside students of other disciplines, like mathematics, radiology, biochemistry, microbiology, and theology, the students eventually uncover the shocking truth: The cylinder contains the sentient, liquified essence of Satan himself, and the Prince of Darkness has just begun to stir from his centuries-long slumber.Prince of Darkness is a slow burn, especially compared to Carpenters other work. While rife with supernatural horror, ghoulish gore, and scintillating special effects, the real thrust of the story is in the philosophical tussle between theology and science in their respective attempts to wrestle with the inherent unknowability, and implicit hostility, of a chaotic universe.Fruit rots, water floats downstream; were born, we age, we die, says Howard Birack, an avuncular physics professor played by Victor Wong, tells a classroom of students near the beginning of the film. None of this is true; say goodbye to classical reality, because our logic collapses on the subatomic level into ghosts and shadows. In Prince of Darkness, the quantum uncertainty inherent to our physical reality is rendered as a demon-haunted world, a solid plane of existence collapsing into a net of particles bound perilously together by the grace of gravity.When the film finally shows its hand and shifts into the full-blown supernatural, its hell on Earth literally. Zombie-like itinerants converge on the monastery, blocking all passage and ruthlessly killing anyone who even dares to escape. The cylinder springs to life, its contents spewing forth like a sentient pathogen, spreading among the scientists and infecting them with a monstrous single-minded bloodlust. Insects writhe, blood flows; heads quite literally begin to roll. And thats not even scratching the surface of the quantum strangeness of a series of visions being seemingly beamed into the minds of the science team from a then-future 1999.Prince of Darkness was panned during its initial theatrical debut in 1987, but has since been rightly reclaimed by fans and critics alike as one of Carpenters most conceptually ambitious films. If you havent yet seen it, its more than worth the time to experience it for yourself.Prince of Darkness leaves streaming on Prime Video on April 1.

Forget the number of hours it takes for a game to get good how am I spending the first 15 minutes?Call me impatient, but a games opening seconds, even those introductory moments as a character comes alive or a world opens up, are make-or-break for how far I am willing to soldier on into what could be 20, 30, or 100 hours of play. So what a relief it was to fire up Atomfall, the new stealth-driven survival adventure from Sniper Elite developer Rebellion now on PlayStation, PC, and Xbox (via Game Pass), and feel immediately dunked into its radioactive mystery.Atomfall takes place in an alt-universe patch of northwestern England where a nuclear disaster has left buildings crumbled and society torn apart. There are paramilitaries operating walled-off towns and pagan cults stalking the open fields. A dash of retrofuture machinery gives the backdrop a Fallout flavor (intentional), while the mannerisms and encounters are delightfully British (press X to pour tea). Theres lots to discover, and enough jank to the physics to build an aura of danger in the zone, youre in the wild.None of this is spelled out when your first-person avatar wakes up confused, underground, and faced with a decision to help or hurt an ailing doctor who dangles the first of the games many mysteries in front of you. You grab a backpack and a few supplies and rush out the door into the devastated but sunny Cumberland countryside, with only a few breadcrumbs scattered to let you know where to go next. My first time booting up Atomfall was at 11 p.m. on a weary Wednesday night; I was terrified by the stillness of the land and thrilled to decide in which direction to run. For all its Fallout and STALKER connections, Myst came to mind more than once.Not too long before jumping into Atomfall, I trudged through the opening hours of Assassins Creed Shadows, the definition of the AAA open-world experience that offers so much at the end of the tunnel. A long, long, long tunnel. Dozens of foundational cutscenes aside, my initial time with Shadows felt like booking a trip to Disney World then immediately beelining to the monorail. Even the tutorial-fueled cold open of Shadows, which finds up-and-coming samurai Yasuke plowing through baddies, felt so on rails as to grind my interest to a halt. Not every game needs a mystery to propel it forward (though Shadows kinda has one), and I welcome a guided tutorial to intricate systems that will soon replace family birthdays and login passwords in my memory. But Shadows first two hours of play lacked the flicker of immediacy. After I adjust brightness and calibrate controls and shuffle through character creation options, I want to accomplish something right away something more than just pressing buttons.Instead of a preface laying out the whos and whats and wheres, Atomfalls opening demands investigation. At first, the only clues are in the scenery an ethereal light beaming from behind nuclear cooling towers, scintillating against the moorland like the Shimmer in Annihilation and a few hints from the doctor that suggest a direction. Typical on-screen prompts explain crafting, combat, and stealth, but knowing how the systems work in Atomfall requires some experimentation. Whats worth making room for in your inventory? Live a little, and youll figure it out. How do you survive a spat with a local outlaw? Pray to god the cricket bat you just picked up is a decent weapon. How do you successfully trespass through a military encampment without tipping off the guards? That stream might muffle your steps. Maybe.Atomfalls investigations leave a similar curiosity gap, relying on clues and coordinates to get you to the next milestone moment instead of obvious map landmarks. Its not a notebook game, but I felt in total control of where my detective brain wanted to go next or didnt. There are a number of bunkers and other dimly lit death traps scattered around the hills of the radiation zone, and early on, when I felt bold enough to flick on my torch (or as the non-Brits say, flashlight), I descended down to ultimately meet my demise. The nuclear fallout has not been kind to every local.I have many more hours to go in Atomfall, but its a relief that it didnt take even an hour to feel absorbed by Rebellions pitch. The setup kicked me out the door. The gameplay dropped me into the unknown. Without a clue, I started walking. Having broken into a mine haunted by shadowy figures, hit the gate of a compound that may unlock the secrets of this disaster, met a vicar who begged me to keep a discovered murder a secret I want to keep digging.Rebellion is right to say that Atomfall is AA punching up. The game is modest in size, but the scope seems to have created greater urgency in the pacing. Games of much smaller scale a retro platformer, a pixel life sim also ask you to hit start and learn as you go. There are AAA games with similar immediacy (Baldurs Gate 3 comes to mind), but many more that prioritize graphical polish and the vastness of their mechanics before getting around to the reason we all showed up.Atomfall lands between the two for me, thanks to genre and a simple bit of cinema logic: show, dont tell. If you see a door, youll run to it. Then youll keep running. Youll figure out the rest or die trying.Atomfall is out now on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Windows PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X.

The reviews train rolls on at Engadget. We've had another busy couple of weeks, and more new devices are arriving for testing every day. For now, catch up on our in-depth analysis of the new base-model iPad, Nothing Phone 3a duo, some incredible sounding headphones and more. iPad (2025) with A16 Apple has been busy updating several devices over the past few weeks, including the "regular" iPad. The company's entry-level tablet now has an A16 chip that offers plenty of power for most people. The iPad Air is still a better option if you can afford to spend more, according to buying advice senior reporter Jeff Dunn. "But for $250 less than the latest Air, the iPad (A16) does well to meet most iPad users where they live," he writes. "Its not the most delightful iPad, but its good enough for the masses." Nothing Phone 3a and 3a Pro The Nothing Phone 3a is much more than an update to the 2a when you consider the company opted to debut a new Pro model alongside it. There are concerns about a limited warranty in the US, but the 3a is a great budget device and the Pro has better-than-midrange cameras. "It's really hard to criticize Nothing for any of the component choices, and if you're willing to take a risk on the company's limited US warranty and want something unique, these are the phones to buy," senior reporter Igor Bonifacic explains. Noble Audio FoKus Apollo $649 is a lot to pay for a pair of wireless headphones. But if you're searching for the absolute best available sound quality, perhaps money is no object. Noble Audio's FoKus Apollo has a unique driver setup that offers a more expansive and detailed soundstage than the competition and long battery life, but that's about it. "For me, to pay $649 I expect more in terms of features," I argue. "The first item would be better ANC performance, but I dont feel like spatial audio support and wear detection are too much to ask." Assassin's Creed Shadows and a cheap tablet battle Contributing reporter Kris Holt spent some time with the new Assassin's Creed title and came away with some mixed feelings on the game. "Assassin's Creed Shadows has impressive technical work, great performances and an expansive, well-drawn story but it's unfortunately weighed down by some frustrating decisions and antiquated gameplay systems," he writes. "Still, I'm eager to keep exploring." In addition to reviewing the latest iPad, Jeff also pit the Amazon Fire HD 8 against Walmart Onn 8 in a battle of the sub-$100 tablets. After a few weeks with the matchup, his biggest takeaway is you should probably just try to spend a little more on a new tablet. "Get an iPad, buy an older refurbished one if you have to, pay even a little bit extra for a more powerful tablet from Samsung, Lenovo or another name brand it shouldnt really matter," he says. "Itll run better, both today and into the future." Upcoming reviews The busy reviews season continues for the team at Engadget. Coming up next, we've got the Pixel 9a, ASUS ROG Flow Z13 and AMD Ryzen 9950X3D. I'll also be taking a look at the Weber Smoque smart grill and Audio-Technica's ATH-CKS50TW2 earbuds. Spring is also the time we typically see a lot of the devices that were announced at CES go on sale, especially home theater gear, so look for some of those items to appear soon as well.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/engadget-review-recap-ipad-nothing-phone-3a-assassins-creed-shadows-and-more-130057384.html?src=rss

From the return of hugely popular shows to new movies, here's what you'll want to watch on Disney+ in April.

AWS has reportedly offered customers a 25% saving to move from Nvidia hardware to its own Trainium chips.

The worst thing that the federal government has done to labor unions in my lifetime happened this week. Donald Trump signed anexecutive ordersaying that the government will no longer recognize and bargain with a huge portion of the unions that represent federal workers. Among theagencieswhere he says he is tossing out the union contracts are the VA, the Department of Homeland Security, the State Department, the Department of Energy, the EPA, the Treasury Department, the Department of Justice, and others. To justify this move, Trump said that all of these agencies are involved in national security. This is a fiction. His statement also said that Certain Federal unions have declared war on President Trumps agenda, which is closer to the true motivation. He doesnt like these unions, so he is just trying to erase them with the stroke of a pen. None of his Republican predecessors in the White House for the past half century ever considered doing something this outrageous. In comparison to this, Ronald Reagans firing of the striking air traffic controllers at PATCO was a calm and reasonable decision.There are more thana millionunion members working in the federal government. I have not seen an official count, but this executive order targets most of them. It is also meant to establish the precedent that the president is capable of destroying entire unions using flimsy legalistic pretexts. Oh, the Environmental Protection Agency is determined to have as a primary function intelligence, counterintelligence, investigative, or national security work, so you can throw out its fairly negotiated existing union contract, and that is okay? Sure. Treating any of this as a legitimate political position is a mistake. This is just running into the middle of organized labor swinging around a chainsaw.You may recall that earlier this month, the Trump administration declared that it was unilaterally tossing out the union contract covering 50,000 TSA workers. When that happened,I saidthat it was the worst thing to happen to unions in America in my lifetime. And it was. This latest action is many times worse. It is multiplying the unilateral attack on workers at a single agency across the entire federal government. When a presidential administration does the two worst things in the past half century within three weeks of one another, that is enough data to understand what ishappening. With two points, you can draw a line. Now is not the time for organized labor to sit in conference rooms with their lawyers going Ermm, well, this is certainly a rather radical interpretation of the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978! My brothers and sisters, this is war. Republicans dont want unions to exist. And they are coming for us. Right now. Rouse yourselves.Here is what is happening: First they are coming for the federal unionsthe lowest-hanging fruit, the most bureaucratic unions, the ones barred from striking. Then they will proceed to come for all public-sector unions. Then they will come for private-sector unions. Understand that the transparently bullshit nature of the justification for this moveUh, everything is national security, therefore Trump is king over youis a preview of what will be more transparently bullshit justifications for them to conduct further outrageous assaults on the very existence of organized labor. They dont give a fuck. They are proving, over and over again, that they dont give a fuck. This is not about law. This is about power.The point of the labor movement is to give working people power. That is what unions do. The unions of America purport to be powerful. If we imagine that all of our power is dependent on the kindness of the presidentand that it therefore can be wiped away in one day because a particular president is willing to stretch the wording of the law as far as his imagination will let himthen we were just bluffing the whole time. In that case, we never really had power at all. We were lying to all the working people who believed that solidarity would produce a sort of power that was not a polite request, but an inherent fact. Do unions have power or not? If they do, the time to exercise that power is now.We, the labor movement, cannot allow individual unions or individual sectors to be picked off by our fascist government as the rest of us stand by, thankful that we werent targeted this time. That is the road to death. It is also an abdication of solidarity, which is, in fact, the source of our power. Naturally, if we do not act in accordance with the source of our power, we are going to be weak. And, throughout these hectic first months of the Trump administration, the unions of America have looked extremely weak. It is time to fucking wake up and act as one, before its too late.It is unreasonable to run around demanding a general strike every time a single union gets in a hard fight. It is not unreasonable to demand a general strike when the very existence of unions is under direct attack by a government that cares nothing about us, and does not respect our contracts, and is attempting to throw in the trash the union contracts covering hundreds of thousands of our fellow union members, as a step toward doing the same thing to millions more of our fellow union members.This is the bombing of Pearl Harbor, against the labor movement. Will we say, We are filing a lawsuit against this illegal bombing, and we will keep you all updated as it progresses? Will we say, Pearl Harbor is way out in Hawaii. Im glad those bombs didnt fall where I live. These are the terms that the union world needs to be thinking in, right now. This is not an exaggeration. If we do not go to war, the husk of American unions that emerges at the end of the Trump administration will be, probably, about half as big as it was when the Trump administration started, and immeasurably weaker. That is not an acceptable outcome if you believe that increasing organized labors strength isthe key to saving this country, which it is.It is trite to use boxing stories as metaphors, and I really try to avoid doing it, but I am going to do it today, as a special occasion. When you start boxing, sooner or later you will experience a moment when you realize in a deep and palpable way thatnobody is coming to save youin there. One day, you will be getting your ass kicked, and you will be getting hurt, and you will look around and see that there is nobody else in that ring but you and the person who is kicking your ass. There is no other authority to appeal to. There is no button to push to stop the massacre. Even though the fight may not be fair, even though the person beating you up may be bigger and stronger than you, the raw fact is that you will either fight back and defend yourself, or you are going down. There are no other choices. This realization has the clarifying effect of wiping away your illusions about the world and leaving you with one clear path forward.That is the position that we, the labor movement, are in. It is all on us. Of course the successive illegal actions of this administration should all be challenged in court, but it is foolish to expect the courts to save us from what is happening. The courts will be, at best, a momentary tap of the brakes. This administration does not care about the law. Nor do they care about the fundamental right of working people to choose to come together as a union for the purpose of collective bargaining. They want to destroy all of that. And they will, unless we, ourselves, stop them. If you are a union member, contact the president of your union today and make it clear to them that inaction right now is unacceptable, and tell them also to contact the AFL-CIO with the same message. Tell them you are ready for a general strike for your brothers and sisters who work in the federal government, and for all of us. Tell them that this administration is an enemy to the existence of unions and that any union that believes that they can be an ally to this administration is undermining the solidarity of all working people.There is a surreal nature to living through drastic thingswatching things unfold that we have only imagined as abstract possibilities. That surreality can be paralyzing. It can turn us into spectators of our own demise. Lets not do that. I dont want to write new the worst thing that has happened in my lifetime pieces every few weeks. The labor movement is supposed to have the power to shut things down. Time to act like it. Or, to prepare to die. Only two things are left on the menu. No substitutions allowed.This piecefirst appeared on labor journalist Hamilton Nolans Substack,How Things Work.

When Todd Willing was 15, he entered a high school work experience program at Fords Australian Design Studio. His father owned a garage, and hed always been around cars. I had a loose understanding of what went into them because of that exposure, and I always had a creative bent I guess, says Willing. I would be drawing cars most of the time, to the frustration of my teachers. The experience is still so vivid in Willings mind: the plane ride to Melbourne, the energy and feel of a space devoted to creativity, the culture and environment of a creative team. That was it for me, he says. I wasnt going to be doing anything else.Now, 22 years later and still at Ford (though this time in Michigan), Willing is Head of Design, leading the design practice for Ford and Lincoln brand vehicles worldwide. Having been the chief exterior designer on the 2017 Ford GT and leading teams responsible for the F-150, Ranger, Bronco, Explorer, Expedition, and more, Willing has been a key part of shaping Ford vehicles around the world. And while his role is fairly big-picture, Willing says he feels a deep responsibility that ties back to his industrial design education: to create something new or improve on something, making peoples lives and experiences better. Willing says so much of that work is creative and connected with various disciplines across the design studio.Turns out, to prepare for that kind of work, Willing still somehow manages to hang around cars. When he isnt working, he races vintage race cars. When youre in a race car, your safety depends on 101% concentration. It pushes everything else aside. Right after that, I feel freer to be creative.As designers we make thousands of decisions on behalf of our customers . . . we need to be armed with deep insights. In our case, its motor vehicles and services. It should be done to make lives better in some waywith thoughtful design, desirability, and being straightforward. Thats really important. We have research groups that help us do that. We have ethnographic research, where we spend time with customers. You need to take that and apply a lot of care and attention to get it right. To solve for unmet needs. In many cases, its doing this before our customers or users even realize they are working around something, or that problem exists to solve. Thats where the real magic happens for me.Im part of a bigger industrial systemmarket trends, legislation; these are constraints to pure creativity. Sometimes that might seem limiting, but also its an opportunity to innovate with purpose. You have something very specific to solve and there are obstacles in the way that forces innovation in a lot of cases.Sometimes when I need to clear my mind, I race vintage cars. Thats super helpful when I want to be creative. I did go karting as a kid, and later on, once I could afford to, I got back into racing cars. I have a few now and its definitely therapy for me.The 2017 Ford GT [Photo: Ford]I like things to be optimized. When things have a clear purpose, you can go deep into that purpose and make sure that the product delivers on that. Its not enough to be visually appealing. If you look at our industry, theres been a heavy bias toward styling and that chemical reaction people have in their brain when they see something thats appealing. Thats critical, but doing it with more meaning and purpose and delivering on the function is critical to me. My personal philosophy, I like to edit things to the point where theres nothing extraneous without function. It allows you to put more content or money into the things that mean something.I surround myself with creative talent as much as I can. This role requires me to be available for different aspects of the business. I make sure I build in the right amount of time to have conversations around creativity, and be with the creative team. I find it helpful to have some specific creative reviews where there is no hierarchy. The person with the most knowledge or the best idea holds the floor, and we park our stripes at the door. Being face-to-face with the team, and giving attention to the designers with the least experiencethey are the ones faced with the challenges of design the most, too. Its a catalyst for fresh and interesting design.I believe good design plays a prominent and positive role in daily life. It should talk to you.Good design should telegraph purpose, capability, proper use, and of course be highly attractive to those whom it is intended to serve. I encourage our teams to avoid false adornment. Having a clear and differentiated mission at the start of a project is a big enabler for success. When we were creating the latest generation of Ford GT, the ambition to race and win at Le Mans was the mission. Using this as a guide for decisions, if a proposed design element had a negative impact on the performance, then it wasnt allowed on the car.Automotive design is part of a complicated ecosystem. The investment required for new products is very high, and the product cycles are much longer than most industries. This means that creating products that are meaningful and have longevity are important. There are many factors that influence our approach: different market trends, global politics, legislation, etc. Although on the surface constraints can seem limiting, they often drive innovation. Affordability is becoming ever more critical in the face of new competition and economic factors. This comes back to my point about the criticality of making the right choices on behalf of prospective customers. Our CEO talks about there being no space at Ford for Vanilla Cars. This means that everything needs to have a clear purpose that is attractive and useful to our customers. Our products should be focused and be the best at what they do.Ideas, until they are proven, can be fragile. But, its important to make sure we draw them out even if they are not obvious home runs. Making sure the ideas have time to breathe a little bit . . . usually that leads to a spark that has potential and it will invariably inspire the rest of the team to grow off of that initial idea. If the inspiration in the team is low, look at what you have and try to flesh it out. Then usually that inspires something in others.I have a motto for my team: Design is not an attribute. There is always a trade to be hada way of spending moneywhat choices you make along the way. Its an intentional product creation that marries purpose, function, and desirabilitynot necessarily in that order, but it needs to consider all of those things. I am frustrated when I hear design being referred to as the darling department. If we turn up around that motto, that perception disappears.

"2025 will be a year where mid-tier and indie studios thrive".

Relive the joys of the 70s and 80s with this 300-game, full-size home arcade machine.