Tag: dreams
Google kills Glass Enterprise, but big tech’s AR dreams live on
After a run that lasted for a decade, the end has come for Google Glass, with the announcement this week that the tech behemoth will discontinue the enterprise version of the augmented reality (AR) glasses.
Sales of Google Glass Enterprise were halted as of Wednesday, though support will continue for another six months, according to a company announcement.
“After September 15, 2023, you will continue to be able to use the Glass Enterprise Edition device and existing software. No software updates from Google are planned,” Google said in a FAQ.
Google kills Glass Enterprise, but big tech’s AR dreams live on
After a run that lasted for a decade, the end has come for Google Glass, with the announcement this week that the tech behemoth will discontinue the enterprise version of the augmented reality (AR) glasses.
Sales of Google Glass Enterprise were halted as of Wednesday, though support will continue for another six months, according to a company announcement.
“After September 15, 2023, you will continue to be able to use the Glass Enterprise Edition device and existing software. No software updates from Google are planned,” Google said in a FAQ.
Barotrauma, the sci-fi submarine sim inspired by Dwarf Fortress and fever dreams, gets a full release
Quick question: what’s scarier than the incomprehensible depths of our oceans, where totally undocumented sea life roams in a life of perpetual darkness and where human life is simply impossible? That, but on an alien planet’s frozen moon, whose topside we also haven’t documented and is ram-packed with unspeakable, harmful things. And what’s scarier than both of those things? Being stuck in a submarine with other people.
That’s the setup, more or less, to hardcore multiplayer sci-fi submarine survival sim Barotrauma. You and a team of 15 other players – or AI, since there is a singleplayer mode too – descend the depths of Jupiter’s moon Europa, keep the sub operational, moving between underwater biomes to complete missions and fend of the aforementioned unspeakable, harmful things. You communicate. You delegate. You each work diligently in your assigned roles, and you complete the missions as a team.
I mean, presumably that’s happened at least once since Bartrauma released in Early Access in 2019. I don’t have the figures in front of me, but even though it’s got over 2.5 million players, I think it’s safe to say that 99.99991% of play sessions have not turned out that way. In reality, Barotrauma is a game about the most outlandish, chaotic and hilarious sabotage, subterfuge and skullduggery ever committed below sea level. It’s got a little bit of Among Us about it in that way, if Among Us was a grindhouse horror where crewmates injected each other with deadly parasitic viruses that paralysed and muted them.
Now that the full release has arrived, players have the chance to check out new tutorials and and a totally overhauled campaign, replete with a scripted event system. Like there wasn’t already enough to worry about down here with some guy singing to you while simultaneously holding a shotgun to your face, and giant shrimp-like creatures destroying the deck below you.
Graphics and environments have also been polished considerably over the course of Barotraum’s Early Access phase, leading to a V1.0 that looks genuinely unsettling, moody, and distinct from just about anything else out there. Light and darkness are the key theme here, visually: light is a rare commodity down in the waters of a frozen moon, and awful, awful things happen outside it.
Barotrauma’s community is closely involved in the game’s development, all the way along. Lead developer Joonas Rikkonen had been toying with the idea of making a totally unscripted, sandbox-style experience in the vein of Dwarf Fortress, and first put a playable public build live way back in 2016. It was the encouraging player response to that build that led to Rikkonen taking a job at Finnish studio Fakefish to continue its development.
Barotrauma’s Discord community is now more than 30,000 members strong. Their feedback has shaped the game over the last four years, and they’ve been active in expanding on the game’s framework, too. Fakefish made the source code and all the dev tools used to create the game available to that community, which has spawned quite the modding community. Its Steam Workshop has 60,000+ different entries. I’ve yet to find one that stops me being terribly frightened. Fakefish have included one of those player-made ships in this 1.0 release of the base game, as part of a community competition.
Also new to players who haven’t submerged since v1.0 arrived are explorable outposts, wrecks of other submarines and improved alien ruins. There are more monsters and missions out there, and character progression goes deeper thanks to a talent system. Barotrauma’s full 1.0 release is available now on Steam.
Oscar Winner Hattie McDaniel’s legacy and yet to be realized dreams
In its 94-year-long history, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has bestowed an Oscar, one the industry’s most coveted acting awards, to just 10 Black women. This year, actor Angela Bassett could become the 11th name on that short list, continuing a legacy that began with trailblazing performer and Hollywood legend Hattie McDaniel in 1940.
Bassett is nominated for Best Supporting Actress, the same category in which McDaniel won for her role in the 1939 adaptation of Gone with the Wind. McDaniel’s story has become synonymous with a long, complicated battle in Hollywood for equitable consideration and proper respect for the careers of Black performers. It’s a pursuit that represents a reality yet to be seen, often glossed over by the victorious, hope-inspiring moments, like McDaniel’s Oscar win.
Dreams: Your final nominees for the 4th Annual Impy Awards
Key Words: Biden vows he’ll turn Republicans’ dreams for Social Security and Medicare into a nightmare
Our Titanfall 3 Dreams Might Be Dead – Unlocked 581
A busy week of Xbox news has us discussing the recent cancellation of a secret Titanfall single-player project at Respawn and why we sadly may never see Titanfall again. Plus: live-service multiplayer games are getting shut off left and right, so what does it mean for the industry? Also: how will DC’s plan to integrate video games into the DCU go over with developers, MLB The Show 23 adds a wonderful new feature that celebrates a key part of baseball history, Tim Schafer heads to the Hall of Fame, and more!
Subscribe on any of your favorite podcast feeds, to our YouTube channel, or grab an MP3 of this week’s episode. For more awesome content, check out our interview with Todd Howard, who answered all of our Starfield questions after the big reveal at the Xbox Showcase:
For more next-gen coverage, make sure to check out our Xbox Series X review, our Xbox Series S review, and our PS5 review.
Ryan McCaffrey is IGN’s executive editor of previews and host of both IGN’s weekly Xbox show, Podcast Unlocked, as well as our monthly(-ish) interview show, IGN Unfiltered. He’s a North Jersey guy, so it’s “Taylor ham,” not “pork roll.” Debate it with him on Twitter at @DMC_Ryan.
Have you played… Jigsaw Puzzle Dreams
I’m running out of pictures to use when I write about Jigsaw Puzzle Dreams because I’ve only completed two puzzles in it. I’ve been doing the third one for about a year, because it’s, I think, six thousand pieces. I say “i think” because it’s been long enough that I can’t remember if I told the game to generate it as five or six thousand. But it’s a lot of thousand.
I really like jigsaws (I am in the middle of doing a real life one that is a big copy of the London Underground map) but, even though I have one of those special mats to do puzzles on so you can fold them away, they’re quite inconvenient. At the same time, though, there are very few digi-jigsaws that capture the kind of tactile experience of sifting and sorting through pieces. Jigsaw Puzzle Dreams really does, though.
Jonathan Majors is a bodybuilder yearning to be truly seen in Magazine Dreams
When Jonathan Majors takes to the bodybuilding competition stage in writer / director Elijah Bynum’s arresting new drama Magazine Dreams, it’s impossible not to feel as if the movie’s in direct conversation with the way that its lead star’s fame has become wrapped up in the public’s fascination with his body. Magazine Dreams’ deep dive into the life of an obsessive, aspiring pro lifter longing for a shot at fitness fame is one of the most difficult pieces of cinema to debut at this year’s Sundance Film Festival. But as it’s breaking your heart and making you sweat, Magazine Dreams is also laying bare many painful truths about what it means to be trapped in a world where objectification and dehumanization are the prices you have to pay…