Fossilized vulture feathers that were stunningly preserved in volcanic ash were a mystery until now.

The Euclid space telescope has spotted 26 million galaxies in just one week of observations.

Mount & Blade 2: Bannerlord is taking to the seas, as the game's first expansion, War Sails, will introduce naval warfare to the unique medieval action-RPG sandbox on June 17.War Sails will expand Mount & Blade 2's world map and introduce an entirely new region to the world of Calradia: the Northern Kingdoms and its surrounding sea. It's there the Viking-themed Nords call home, and they can be traded with, recruited, or battled against, just like Mount & Blade 2's other factions. But the real star of the expansion is the introduction of naval battles, where players can master the wind, upgrade and customize ships, and defeat their enemies on the high seas. Rivers come into play as well, with players able to sail up them to strike into enemy territory, cut off supply lines, and blockade enemy towns.Continue Reading at GameSpot

Reviewing InZoi without mentioning The Sims, which is easily its most direct influence, comparison, and competitor is, quite simply, a fool's errand. There was a part of me--a very naive part, mind you--that thought it might be a bit fun to see how long I could go without making mention of the game in this review as a sort of challenge for myself. Clearly, I have already failed.However, the context in which InZoi exists matters. Whereas the world is filled with cozy games, life sims, and plenty of other titles that reside somewhere between the two, extremely few play quite like The Sims. It goes without saying that Maxis created something extremely special back in 2000--something so creative, charming, innovative, and intricately designed that seemingly no other game studio has even attempted to put an end to its quarter-century long reign over the life-sim genre. There is no denying that the franchise's reputation has taken some hits over the years, primarily due to its perceived stagnation and parent company EA's predatory monetization tactics. As this discontent has grown, so too has the number of people looking for a viable competitor. And now, thanks to InZoi, we have a fresh-faced and utterly gorgeous new challenger.Four Zois meet up to have a chat in Bliss BayConsidering its good looks were among the first of many things that made InZoi such a highly anticipated title, I'll start by saying that it is just as mind-blowing to look at as it seems. From its UI to its city streets to its pouty-lipped, pop star-esque characters, everything about InZoi is visually remarkable. Vast amounts of customization options, an immersive and ever-changing open world, and an intense focus on making things feel true-to-life yet just slightly more grand further polish this gem. And I was relieved that, despite all its luster, the game ran perfectly fine on my less-than-great gaming PC (AMD Ryzen 5 3600/NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 Super). And yet, I was ultimately forced to reckon with the fact that, in my 20 or so hours with InZoi, I missed out on something incredibly important: having fun. Though InZoi is impressive, immersive, and brimming with potential, in its current state there is a sterility and lifelessness that is hard to move past. This paired with stale gameplay ultimately made InZoi a game I desperately wanted to enjoy, but seldom did.Continue Reading at GameSpot

Connections is here once again to challenge your brain and get you thinking. In order to win, you need to study all sixteen of the words given to you and infer the four categories they need to be sorted into.

Connections is here with another daily puzzle, challenging you to group sixteen words into four secret categories. The only clues you get to what the categories could be are the words themselves, and you have a very limited number of mistakes you can make.

Developers at Nightdive Studios will be the first to tell you no two projects are alike. Nowhere is this more true than the soon-to-be-released remaster of System Shock 2. Announced six years ago as System Shock 2: Enhanced Edition, Nightdive reannounced the project under a new name System Shock 2: 25th Anniversary Remaster.Play VideoThis name change offered eagle-eyed fans a clue as to the remasters release window, which is only accurate preceding August 11 when System Shock 2 celebrates its 26th birthday. Sure enough, during todays MIX Spring Showcase, Nightdive shared the exciting news that System Shock 2: 25th Anniversary Remaster will release on June 26 for PS4 and PS5.As exciting as its been for System Shock fans to hear theyll soon be able to play Nightdives long-awaited System Shock 2 remaster, one key question remains: why did it take six years?Good things take timeNightdive has been chipping away at its remaster of System Shock 2 in the years following its announcement, working on it in conjunction with other projects. While many of these harbored their fair share of challenges, System Shock 2 was unique in regards to the number and type of complexities the team encountered.One of the biggest according to Nightdive developer Alex Lima was a lack of access to the games complete source code. To piece everything together, extensive reverse engineering was required.The codebase is a complex amalgamation of various legacy libraries developed by Looking Glass, along with some more recent contributions from both Irrational Games and Looking Glass, Lima explains. Theres virtually no consistent coding standard. As a result, we had to depend extensively on debugging and breakpoints to understand its functionality.Working with System Shock 2s original engine was also tricky, especially when it came to porting the game to consoles.The game engine that System Shock 2 uses is large and complicated, notes Nightdive developer, Lexi Mayfield. It was originally designed for PCs from the late 1990s with a mouse and keyboard, and was only used for three games. As a result, porting the game to PlayStation was a long and arduous process, from both a coding and interface perspective.In general, remastering a beloved classic like System Shock 2 naturally takes time and attention to detail to get right, as highlighted by Larry Kuperman, VP of Business Development at Nightdive.While the game remains a classic, the code and graphics needed a considerable overhaul. The Dark Engine, developed by Looking Glass Studios for System Shock 2 and the Thief games, provided features way ahead of its time, which is one reason these games remain classics, but which also made the game challenging to work with. To fulfill our vision, it required meticulous re-coding in order to preserve all the aspects of the game that are important to players. Our team worked very hard over a long period of time to accomplish that goal.Old game, new tricksNot only did the rigorous six-year remastering process allow for more effective improvements, it allowed the team to better leverage modern features on consoles.The porting process allowed us to make improvements along the way and take advantage of some of the modern features PlayStation offers, allowing us to run the game with a level of fidelity and playability that was previously out of reach, says Mayfield.Fans will have no trouble spotting these improvements on PlayStation. The games graphics have received a significant boost with the addition of advanced shader support, enabling previously unavailable graphical effects and improved lip-sync animation. GPU-accelerated 3D transformations and high refresh rate support also lend to smoother performance, particularly on modern displays.System Shock 2 was originally a PC release, but dont worry, the 25th Anniversary Remaster features full controller support for DualShock 4 and DualSense controllers.If youve played FPS games with a controller, youll feel right at home playing System Shock 2, confirms Mayfield. Abilities like leaning, quick-swapping between weapons and psi powers, and toggling weapon settings were all streamlined for the DualSense. We also added a customizable quickbar, allowing players to quickly swap between individual weapons and psi powers.Inventory items now offer a context menu to allow players to quickly examine, equip, apply and split items. From there, it was a matter of going through every security computer, every replicator, every access keypad and weapon modification screen ensuring the player could interact with the world in every way they could in 1999 except now from the comfort of their DualSense.If theres still doubt over whether System Shock 2: 25th Anniversary Remaster lives up to the amount of time its taken to complete, Nightdive founder and CEO, Stephen Kick, assures:Ive been closely watching the development and have been particularly close with the art team to ensure the original art direction and designs are brought to their horrifying conclusion. I cannot wait to share what weve been working on and hope fans and newcomers enjoy their time aboard the Von Braun.Get ready, insects System Shock 2: 25th Anniversary Remaster arrives June 26 for PS4 and PS5!

After Bloober Teams excellent Silent Hill 2 remake, Im willing to give the developer the benefit of the doubt when it comes to its brand of horror games. It certainly helps that its next effort, Cronos: The New Dawn, looks incredible and is giving off gory Dead Space vibes.Cronos: The New Dawn co-directors Wojciech Piejko and Jacek Ziba make their inspirations pretty explicit in a new look at the sci-fi survival horror game. Cronos draws on John Carpenters The Thing, German TV series Dark, and Terry Gilliams 12 Monkeys for inspiration, the duo say, as well as games like Dead Space and Dark Souls. Cronos shares some familiar attributes from Dead Space, including terrifying human mutations as enemies, an over-the-shoulder shooting perspective, and a limb-severing mechanic though Piejko says Bloober Team is taking a different approach to dismemberment than Visceral Games did.In a follow-up to a cinematic reveal trailer for Cronos: The New Dawn released last October, Piejko and Ziba showed off some gameplay in a new dev diary Bloober Team released Thursday. The pair explain how protagonist the Traveller, who they liken to a deep-sea diver who plunges into the depths of time, is sent into the ruins of human civilization to extract survivors. The alternate-reality world of Cronos has been ravaged by an event called the Change, which in the games fiction, destroyed our world in the 1980s.Piejko and Ziba previously worked on Bloober Teams Observer and The Medium, so they have plenty of experience with sci-fi and psychological horror. Cronos: The New Dawn is an original property for Bloober, which is also working on a follow-up with Konami.Cronos: The New Dawn is coming to PlayStation 5, Windows PC, and Xbox Series X sometime in 2025. Its a welcome new entry in the AAA sci-fi survival horror space, especially since the Dead Space remake team is now working on the next Battlefield and EAs Iron Man game.

Remedy Entertainment is no stranger to unconventional ballistics. The Finnish game developer is well known for its eclectic, boundary-pushing approach to third-person shooters with titles such as Max Payne, Alan Wake, Quantum Break, and Control. But a co-op first-person shooter where you fight, among other threats, a sentient swarm of Post-it notes? Thats a new one.On Thursday at Future Games Show, Remedy debuted a new trailer for FBC: Firebreak, the studios upcoming first-person shooter set in the Remedy Connected Universe. Taking place six years after the events of 2019s Control, the game centers on Firebreak, a team of volunteer first responders who act as the first and last line of defense between the remaining members of the Federal Bureau of Control and the Hiss, the hostile supernatural resonance thats possessed their former co-workers. FBCs Firebreak team finds itself trapped inside the extradimensional office building known as the Oldest House, with the Hiss trapped alongside them, waiting to attack.The trailer, titled Paper Chase, shows a three-player team working together to clear out an infestation of malevolent sticky notes that have overtaken the executive sector of the Oldest House, along with a swath of Hiss-possessed FBC employees. Using improvised weapons and tools including what appears to be an electrified pneumatic jump firearm, a high-pressure water cannon to blast away sticky notes obscuring a players field of vision, and an explosive Object of Power resembling a piggy bank, players move between various containment zones and safe rooms collecting ammo and items.The trailer culminates with players fighting against a group of anthropomorphic masses of sticky notes before facing off against a massive monster referred to simply as Sticky Ricky. Its impressive, exciting, and unabashedly bonkers.Polygon attended a virtual press event on March 11 where Remedy showed off an extended playthrough of the mission featured in the trailer, as well as a presentation on the games core pillars led by FBC: Firebreak game director Mike Kayatta.From day one, we asked ourselves this question over and over again anytime we had an idea we wanted to pitch out to the others in the team: Could this happen only in Control, and could this happen only at Remedy? Is this something that only us weirdos on the team were willing to put into a game with the Remedy label on it, and if the answer was yes, then we thought we were on the right track, Kayatta said.At its core, FBC: Firebreak is designed to prioritize pick-up-and-play potential, ditching the engagement stress of daily check-ins, monthly grinds, and battle passes that bifurcate experiences between casual and hardcore gamers. However much youve played or your friends have played, no matter how good you are versus how good they are, it doesnt matter, said Kayatta. We want to have some way of playing this game with anyone who wants to play it with us, and well give you a lot of options to kind of create that experience.Those options boil down to three major factors at the outset of the game. The first are jobs, FBC: Firebreaks in-game terminology for missions that players can choose to tackle. Each job is set in one of the sectors of the Oldest House with its own unique objective. The second is Threat & Clearance Level, which are essentially modifiers that players can select before embarking on a job that determines the combat difficulty (Threat) and the number of combat zones from one to three (Clearance). The Threat & Clearance Level you choose can afford for greater challenges and the possibility of greater rewards. Finally, there are Crisis Kits weapon and skill loadouts that give players the ability to emphasize one of three unique play styles that players can switch between mid-job.In addition to all these options, players can also collect and equip Research Perks that entail different abilities that modify your skills, la Controls Personal Mods, and become stronger when paired with perks of the same type. The result, in theory at least, is an interoperable core experience that emphasizes teamwork, creativity, and moment-to-moment spontaneity.When prompted as to whether or not players would have to play Control in order to fully understand or enjoy FBC: Firebreak, Kayatta emphasized that Remedys 2019 action-adventure game is intended to be complementary to this new game, not compulsory. Its really important to us to kind of protect two groups of players with this game. One are the Control people. We dont want you to feel as though you have to divert into a genre you dont feel comfortable with to follow the story of these characters and to understand what happened. We also want to protect non-Control players by making sure that they dont need to have that backstory to fully understand anybody that we present them with.All post-launch downloadable content, such as new jobs, will be free for all FBC: Firebreak owners, with optional cosmetic items available to purchase. Cross-play will be supported, allowing those who own the game to play with one another regardless of whether they own the game on console or PC. While Kayatta and co. were cagey about the exact details of what Remedy has in mind for the games post-launch content map, its likely that FBC: Firebreak will at some point in the future bridge the gap between the events of 2019s Control and the upcoming Control 2, which is currently in production.As a longtime fan of the studio, Im impressed with what Ive seen of the game so far and eager to dive back into the paranatural shenanigans of the Remedy Connected Universe when FBC: Firebreak launches on PlayStation 5, Windows PC, and Xbox Series X this summer.

We may earn a commission from links on this page.Welcome to Cookbook of the Week. This is a series where I highlight cookbooks that are unique, easy to use, or just special to me. While finding a particular recipe online serves a quick purpose, flipping through a truly excellent cookbook has a magic all its own.I love cookbooks that combine comfort food with a smattering of unfamiliar recipes that make me think, Ooh, I wonder what that's like. This mingling of brand-new dishes with ones that stir a bit of nostalgia is usually a hit for me. This week, I chose Salt, Sugar, MSG to feature for my cookbook of the week. Not only does it tick those boxes above for this Asian-American kid, but this book is also a reliable resource for those dinners when you're in the mood for a little bit of everything.About the bookSalt, Sugar, MSG is hot off the pressesit was published on March 18and comes from chef Calvin Eng along with Phoebe Melnick. It may be Engs cookbook debut, but if youve ever tried his food at Win Son or Bonnies, you know that he is no flash-in-the-pan recipe developer. Hes been charming New Yorkers with interesting and bold flavors for some timeand there are many great examples of exactly that in Salt, Sugar, MSG.As you might guess from the title, this cookbook is not MSG-free. Quite the opposite actually: Youll find MSG popping up here, there, and in unexpected placeskind of like how MSG and other glutamates naturally pop up in a lot of our food. Eng uses MSG like any other seasoning in this cookbook, because thats exactly what it is: A cheap, easy, and harmless solution to boosting umami in your dishes, like Fuyu Cacio e Pepe Mein and MSG Caramel.Not only does the actual food benefit from the addition of monosodium glutamate, but I appreciate him using MSG in the title. It normalizes an ingredient and an entire community that once heavily suffered from the complete bullshit toxic myth of Chinese restaurant syndrome. Chef Eng has even teamed up with Ajinomoto to help dispel the myths surrounding MSG. If youre just stretching your MSG wings, this cookbook offers plenty of opportunities for you to start getting your reps in.A great cookbook for mix-and-match pairingsThroughout the book, in the headnotes and in chapter introductions, youll read anecdotes from Calvin Engs childhood and his current shopping habits in Chinatown. His stories about the smell of warm soy milk and shopping for vegetables reminded me of grocery shopping with my mom at our local Asian market in New Jersey. One of my favorite parts of that shopping trip was (and still is) the fresh bakery section. Everything in that area of the store had been freshly made that morning, and wed pick up a little bit of everything. Wed grab congee, pork buns, soy milk, hot noodle dishes, vegetable stir fries, and armfuls of scallion pork floss buns. At home, my mom would unpack everything and wed all snack and basically chow down on this kitchen table banquet. Salt, Sugar, MSG welcomes this mix-and-match style of eating.Many of the dishes in this book are satisfying as single snacks or parts of a greater meal. Somehow, they all seem like theyd pair well with each other. If you picked three recipes out of this book blindfolded, youd likely have a well matched meal. To test that theory, I just did exactly that and heres the menu I came up with: the Lemon Cola Chicken Wings, Perfect Pot of Steamed Rice, and Shrimp and Pork Wonton Soup. See? You need some vegetables? Same technique in the vegetable chapterHot Salad (romaine lettuce with a sweet and salty soy sauce dressing). Done.While other cookbooks might give you a single recipe that includes the meat, veg, and carbs all together, Salt, Sugar, MSG gives you space to formulate the perfect meal for what youre craving. This style of eating reflects how you might order at a dim sum restaurant or banquet halla plate of greens, a dish of steamed prawns or roast pork, steamed egg custard, and some rice. Its actually a great cookbook for small appetites (just make a few plates for snacking) as well as for big family meals.The dish I made this week Credit: Allie Chanthorn Reinmann I did my own version of mix and match for lunch this week with the Piggies in Scallion Milk Bread Blankets and Yeun Yeung (milk tea with coffee). I dont much care for the average American hot dog on a bun, but dammit, if you change that bun to milk bread and add scallions, its a whole different ball game for me.The milk tea recipe, as simple as it is, was the first thing I decided on. It asks for orange pekoe tea, so I grabbed the Twinings Ceylon at my Shoprite and set up my boiling water, evaporated milk, and condensed milk. I was a little nervous that it would be too sweet (sometimes Thai iced tea overwhelms me) but it was perfectly creamy and sweet with a welcome bitter edge. I saved the rest for the morning so I could make the Bonus Recipe Yuen Yeung, which is just the addition of black coffee.The piggies were fantastic. I should have made all 12 like the recipe told me, but I turned the other half of the bread dough into a large milk bread loaf. (I was such a fool.) The milk bread recipe starts with a simple tangzhong (roux) which helps keep the bread dough soft and spongy. The sugar, egg, and butter enrich the dough and give the finished bun that perfect balance of richness along with the salt and umami from the hot dogs. Scallion hot dog buns and milk tea coffeemy new favorite lunch.Where to buy itSalt, Sugar, MSG is available as a hardcover, or as an e-book for a reasonable price. Since its brand new, you will definitely be seeing this one at the big box book shops and likely even at the local independent bookstores. Even if you dont see it on their shelves, ask to see if they can order it to their location. Salt Sugar MSG: Recipes and Stories from a Cantonese American Home $14.99 at Amazon Shop Now Shop Now $14.99 at Amazon