Taiwanese Man Set Up 11 Phones On A Bike For Pokemon Go
Have you ever seen those people on Pokemon Go community days that carry around more than one phone to maximize their ability to catch rare Pokemon? Those people are thinking small time. The real hardcore take it to 11.
Chen San-yuan has become a celebrity in Taipei for attaching multiple phones to his bike as he rides around the city. Affectionately known as Uncle Pokemon to locals, Chen's picture was posted to Reddit earlier this month after he was interviewed by a local news station. Until then, Chen did not even know he was particularly well known.
Pokemon Go does require a connection for the phone and Chen isn't riding around with a hotspot for all 11 phones, so this Pokemon journey is costing him about $1290 a month. But considering it is keeping him healthy and helping to stave off Alzheimer's, it seems worth it.
[Source: BBC News]
Every advancement in graphics technology is accompanied by a new, goofy method of showing it off. Whether it’s 128 versions of Mario running around a globe for the GameCube, a million Toblerone pieces scattering around in Knack, or 1-2-Switch’s lockpicking minigame demonstrating all those ice cubes inside the Joy-Cons, developers often design around the possibilities of powerful new tech.
But this raises an important question: What about the food? According to statistics I just made up, we spend about 15 percent of our time eating and another 82 percent of our time thinking about eating. In contrast, I only spend about 10 minutes of my time each day thinking about 128 Marios running around and getting into trouble. Do you think each Mario thinks of himself as the true Mario, and the others as imposters? Hopefully, he recognizes that each Mario has the same right to individuality as himself. I’m getting off track here.
There is a criminal lack of gaming centered around the most important part of our lives, the part where we shove food in our face. Nintendo designed Super Mario Sunshine around the gorgeous water simulations new hardware allowed them, but they could have designed an equally gorgeous milkshake simulator or acorn squash bisque-drinking challenge. VR lets gamers hold virtual objects right up in their face to inspect; mostly, this is used to observe how various guns do, in fact, look like guns. But this ability could also be used to approximate a bakery, with all sorts of different loaves of bread and croissants to observe. Which brave developer is going to be the first to let me scrutinize a perfectly risen sourdough loaf?
Fortunately, some modern designers have heard my cries. The past few years have been a golden age of food-simulation, with new lighting techniques and physic systems being applied to the most noble of goals: making me want to eat while I play games. Make sure you’ve got some snacks in the pantry, because this list is going to make you hungry.
I was a Boy Scout as a kid, and one of the best parts of going on a trip was planning all the garbage my friends and I were going to eat. The official rules of camping state that rules of nutrition don’t matter in nature; all that matters is how peach cobbler tastes when you make it in a dutch oven while huddled around a campfire at night.
No one understands this better than the impeccably dressed Ignis Scientia in FFXV. Noctis and his boys are spending long days on the road, fighting wooly mammoths and throwing swords and whatever else a royal posse does on a cross-country trip. At night though, they settle down and Ignis provides them with some legitimately stunning meal selections. Little can pull a group together like well-made food, so it follows that the friendship between FFXV’s spikey-haired lads is one of the most effective parts of the game.
One of my favorite meals from FFXV is the Taelpar harvest galette, a truly mouth-watering remix of a basic fruit dessert. A galette is a pastry that falls somewhere between a calzone and a pie. It folds in on itself enough to just allow a peek at the deliciousness that resides inside. A properly made galette is downright scandalous.
Tumblr user “My main is a cook” concocted a recipe for the Taelpar harvest galette from Ignis’ cookbook. It involves oranges, goat cheese, cinnamon, and that trademark flakey crust. Honestly, if you just told me it was pie-like and involved goat cheese, I would have already been on board. Put all those ingredients together, and you’ve got a dish I’d smack out of the hands of the prince of Lucis.
Monster Hunter is a game of excess. Characters wield swords that weigh approximately 95 pounds and whack dragons the size of apartment buildings around, just for the chance of getting a scale to make their armor prettier. But stripped down to its essentials, Monster Hunter emphasizes effective hunting by way of preparation and planning. The most important part of hunting prep? A hearty meal, of course.
There are two kinds of living things you don’t kill in Monster Hunter. The first are other human beings. The second are Palicoes, sentient cats that wear clothes and talk to each other who are so cute it should be illegal. No one questions the Palicoes, nor should they. This is simply a beautiful world where humans and cats have similar rights and treat each other with respect.
Of course, the Palicoes are objectively better than humans. This should be obvious – they have whiskers and tails, after all. Even better though, the Palicoes have culinary skills that our meager homo sapien brains can only dream of. Monster Hunter: World’s head honcho is the Meowscular Chef, an intimidating Palico with one eye who commands a small army of other cats. Working as a team, they cut slabs of meat (don’t ask which monster it came from) on a sizzling stone griddle, stir kiddie-pool sized soup bowls, and throw in some veggie skewers for good measure. When the food is ready, hunters tear into it without modern pleasantries like silverware or chewing.
The best parts of Monster Hunter: World’s food is in the preparation. Little touches stand out; the fatty parts of the meat fold over with realistic weight, and blocks of cheese have a satisfying rind. Sure, an Azure Rathalos has been dragging my ass all over the ancient forest. But if I get to come back to this kind of meal every time I lose, failure doesn’t sting quite as much.
I appreciate Breath of the Wild’s approach to cooking because it closely mirrors my own: throw a bunch of tasty-seeming ingredients in a pan and hope they work. Link just takes a big armful of veggies, meats, and spices and tosses ‘em all in. Like me, he sometimes gets “dubious food,” a pixelated concoction which he chokes down out of stubbornness. More often though, those ingredients come together into something healthy and delicious-looking.
Out of all these games, Breath of the Wild’s food feels the most sustainable for a healthy life. Eating isn’t a special occasion, it’s something we do every day. As such, the mushrooms, meats, and soups that Link subsists on feel tangible, the simple-but-hearty diet of a man on the road. It reminds me of the scene in Princess Mononoke when Ashitaka and Jigo sit in a cave and eat rice porridge. The food isn’t luxurious or complicated, but it’s made by a practiced hand and would probably be perfect after a long day.
For my money, the seafood curry in Breath of the Wild comes out as the best all-rounder. With these kinds of straightforward dishes, the difference between adequate and exceptional often comes down to seasoning. Link’s addition of some Goron spice pushes this one over the edge; the shrimp/crab/rice combo also seems very filling, and the description promises that the spice packs a serious kick.
Persona 4Not all food is created for the same purpose. Some provides simple sustenance. Some is for celebration, some for mourning. Other times, food is an expression of dominance. On the show Man v. Food, a single man would attempt to consume inhuman portions of everything from hot wings to oysters to pancakes. After seven seasons, the show continues, but the original host has stepped down; food was ultimately victorious.
In Persona 4, you have just one food-based rival, the mega beef bowl. It is described as a “tidal wave of beef.” You’ve got the opportunity to visit the Aiya Chinese Diner and attempt to eat the entire bowl of in one sitting, a feat you’ll only accomplish with very high stats. If you manage to do so, the bowl is free! Hopefully, Aiya also puts your picture on the wall or something.
Persona 4 has the series’ traditional calendar-keeping gameplay. Every day, you can hang with friends and take pop quizzes and shop, just like non-gaming teenagers presumably do (I wouldn’t know). When it’s raining though, many of these activities aren’t available. But rainy days are incidentally the only days when the beef bowl challenge is available. I love this conceit. Everything in the whole city is shut down, the day is ruined, so why not go eat a metric ton of seared meat?
Have you ever watched a cooking video on YouTube where they don’t try the food at the end? It’s infuriating. Watching someone prepare food is an emotional investment, and if I can’t eat it, I want to be able to live vicariously through someone who does. In gaming, motion capture and animation have recently brought us to a place where characters can give believably rapturous reactions to well-crafted foodstuffs. Unfortunately, one of the best reactions to food in games comes from an absolute piece of garbage.
In Wolfenstein 2, BJ Blazkowicz must meet a character who runs an old-timey diner in the middle of the Nazi occupation of America. This diner has everything: cheap burgers, coffee, and a true vintage soda fountain. I should point out that a good soda fountain isn’t the blocky thing they have at every McDonalds and Bojangles. It’s a flexible instrument with the ability to produce drinks like an egg cream and a ginger yip, a throwback to a more personalized era of carbonated drinks. The diner also has the proper kind of milkshake; individually blended in a giant metal cup that the owner might let you drink from once your glass is empty.
So when a Nazi captain who’s even more weasel-y than the typical Nazi walks into the diner and orders a strawberry milkshake, it hurts me in my soul. Not only is this punk in a state of not-being-punched, but he’s ordering a handmade dessert that tastes the way summer memories feel. I’ve had a strawberry milkshake. In fact, I’ve had a strawberry milkshake made by the exact same lime-green blender, from a place called Ox and Rabbit in Durham, NC. That place is now shut down. So now I can’t have a strawberry milkshake, but this Nazi can? It’s an absolute injustice. He closes his eyes and takes a long drink, savoring the chunks of strawberry mixed in with the piercing cold of the ice cream. He looks like he enjoys it.
He also gets his brains blown out about two seconds later. No milkshakes for fascists.
The Legend of Zelda's massive following and consistently stunning soundtracks make it a frequent source of inspiration for gaming musicians. We covered a bluegrass cover of Skyward Sword's iconic theme a while ago, but a new album is now getting in touch with Link's more hardcore side.
The Temples is a new album from Ro Panuganti, and features eight tracks that manage to be atmospheric while still encouraging some serious head-banging. The songs, all tributes to Ocarina of Time, mix metal and prog-rock influences to form a surprisingly listenable compilation (even if, like me, you're not typically a fan of the genre).
The album is available on bandcamp, Spotify, and iTunes. Now is the time to start campaigning for its inclusion in the Super Smash Bros. Ultimate soundtrack.
Wreck-It Ralph: Ralph Breaks the Internet takes the animated movie out of the realm of video games and into the world of internet jokes and Disney licenses. Check out the short but cute trailer below.
There's more than a little Fast & Furious in the trailer and we also get to see Vanellope’s further interactions with the other Disney princesses. Wreck-It Ralph: Ralph Breaks the Internet will attempt to break the theaters on November 21.
A day after Doom Eternal's extensive gameplay reveal at QuakeCon, I sat down with id Software's Marty Stratton, who serves as the project's executive producer, and Hugo Martin, creative director, to talk about how the sequel will shake things up for the campaign, combat, multiplayer, and mod scene. Stratton and Martin wouldn't give away every secret, yet but did dive deep into what we can expect from certain aspects of this sequel.
Take me back to the conclusion of Doom. You finished it up and started thinking about the future. What was that aftermath like? What kind of discussions did you have?
Marty Stratton: It was quick. We started planning and pre-production right away. We had post-mortem discussions about what we did right and wrong and what we wanted to do better. There was a lot of research on reviews, YouTube, everything. We took it all in, and tried to figure out where to go from there.
Hugo started with the creative team right away; trying to figure out where we would go next.
Hugo Martin: We also hoped to get the chance to make another one, so the story arc started in 2016. We laid the groundwork for the sequel. There was a ton of work to be done across the board, but in that regard, it was about continuing what we started.
At that point you were showing the world what a new Doom could look like. Now you say you are creating an entire Doom universe. That screams of extensive plans. Can you discuss what we can expect from the Doom universe?
HM: We're so excited. It's what we always wanted. It just means [Doom Eternal] has depth and a lot of substance. That's mostly it – that it's something that is worth your time.
MS: There's thought and depth behind every decision, visual, level, and weapon. We tried to build a lot of lore into the codex in Doom 2016. A portion of the audience dives into that. Some people don't even know it's there. We think people that do invest in it appreciate it. With Doom Eternal, we want to make sure it's within arm's reach if you want it. It's all there. There are answers to your burning questions.
A lot of people are affected by the game on a visceral level. They love killing the demons. None of that is changing. What is exciting for me are the conversations that happen around this stuff as we build it. They are so amazing and fun. The ideas and lore are thought through by really creative people. We haven't really put [the lore] out there where people can be a part of it. That's what I love about story games, stuff like Elder Scrolls. They put it out there where people can get it at varying levels. We want to bring people into that conversation a little bit more. We think what we have is exciting.
Is that lore mostly going to be off to the side in the codex again?
HM: It's not just lore or backstory. If you want to surf the main game, we have what we call the A story and B story. The A story is the main game, and what the average consumer is going to experience. The B story is context for everything, like who am I talking to, why did that guy interact with me in that way? The key thing when we say "universe" is we want to take the Doom player to places they've never been before. That serves the A story. It's not just about making juicy codex entries, it's about, as you saw with those locations, taking you to new places. As Marty said, Doom is about killing cool bad guys in amazing places with awesome guns. That's it. The amazing places part, and the cool demons part, and the awesome guns part fit into that stuff.
"The ballista is kind of an ancient looking weapon. Where does that come from? Do I get to go to that place?" We just want to make sure that Doom has some fantastic set pieces in it. We're swinging for the fences with this one. We're going to go to some cool places. Doom universe is just about making the game more awesome and fun.
Let's talk about the slayer himself. You guys gave him an upgrade...a few upgrades.
HM: It's the evolution of who he was in Doom 2016. He's still the same guy, but fictionally speaking, he is constantly modifying his armor. Many people call out: If he is this ancient warrior who has been in this eternal struggle between good and evil, why does his armor look modern? There's a good answer for that. He's changing his armor all of the time. He's upgrading it. Superheroes do it. That's a part of that genre. We think of him like a superhero. When he upgrades his stuff, he does it with efficiency in mind. From a gameplay perspective, we always think of that first.
The blade in particular is something we thought a lot about. It's hard for us to glory kill enemies with [the slayer's] bare hands. Some of the demons are the size of elephants. We would talk about the glory kills, and [the development team] would be like "I can't do this." They would put the slayer's hands on the baron's face, and they would look like baby hands. We had to give him a tool. He always had to pull parts off of enemies, which he still does, but now he has a utensil to take out large enemies more efficiently. The first glory kill he does in the demo is faster than any in Doom 2016. [The blade] is faster, it can take out big enemies, it looks cool, and adds variety.
MS: We really tried to maintain the dance, flow, and feel of combat. Everything we've added is centered around that same dance, just giving you new moves to use on the dance floor. That was always important that it was the same dance. We want it to be a tight game loop where the player is thinking of what to do next. The flamethrower, I don't know how much it got noticed, but when you shoot a guy who is on fire, there's a benefit – you get armor shards. It works a little like the chainsaw. It isn't just cool looking, you get gains from it.
HM: Destructible demons are the same. Is [the destruction] all cosmetic only? No. Some of it can be strategic. For example, you can shoot off the gun turret on the Arachnotron. That's his primary attack, and it can be pretty devastating. If you have good aim, and you want to nerf his abilities – he still has other attacks, though – you can take out that gun. As long as something feels like it is promoting the player to be aggressive, it's Doom. All of these things, the doom blade, equipment launcher, it's about being aggressive.
The thing that surprised me the most about the gameplay you showed was how open the spaces were. Are most areas that large?
HM: If the race car gets faster then the race track has to get bigger. That's basically it. Our race car can do a lot of things now, so the track he's on has to be bigger. Talking about our traversal combos, when you double jump to a dash into a monkey bar swing use the meat hook and then wall climb, it makes the ambient spaces more dynamic. Having the tools in place as game designers allows for some really interesting moments, and that includes combat.
MS: The stuff happening around you in these levels is crazy; whether you're experiencing hell on earth on the edge of collapsed buildings or fighting under the BFG 10,000 on Phobos. We're not just taking you to new places. The experiences you're getting in places you've been, like the UAC, you've never seen before in a Doom game. We've really taken that next step. The worlds were great in 2016, but the level of s--- going on around was never at 10. The sky box was never at 10. This time around, when you look around, you're going to see you're in the middle of something big going on.
Can the meat hook latch onto anything?
MS: Just demons.
It has to be made of meat then?
MS: Yup. Exactly.
The meat hook is attached to the super shotgun. Does that mean you need to have that weapon equipped to use the hook?
MS: Yup. The way works is when you have the super shotgun out, you hit the mod button and it shoots it out.
You didn't go into multiplayer, SnapMap, or mods during your presentation. Can you talk to me about your plans for those things? Todd Howard took Escalation Studios, the team that made SnapMap.
MS: Todd takes everyone. (laughs)
I'll start with SnapMap. We decided to move away from it. We loved it and thought it was great, but it didn't scratch the itch we thought maybe it could for people. We touched on the Invasion stuff. That's a whole part of game we think people are going to have fun with. That was a high-level goal for [Doom Eternal]. We're also working on a PvP component. We'll talk about it later. It's also very Doom, as we like to say. It isn't a sidecar experience. We are doing that internally. We've taken all of that in.
HM: (whispers) It's awesome.
MS: [The multiplayer] is new and different. We're also planning for probably the thing that was most requested, which is post-campaign content that we create, not through something like SnapMap.
HM: The campaign, Invasion, PvP, it all feels like Doom this time. There isn't kind of a separation there where you're like "I kind of like the MP, but it doesn't feel like Doom." We were aware of that. We're making it internally now. We're excited about what we have.
Octopath Traveler doesn't shy away from its inspirations. The turn-based combat, character classes, and pixel-art designs are all firmly rooted in classic JRPGS like Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy. However, as evidenced by the many modern graphical filters layered on top of its pixels, the game plants one foot firmly in the present even while emulating the past. In our review, we said that it feels like "a game from an alternate timeline."
YouTube channel Game Score Fanfare tackles this apparent contradiction in a new video focusing on Octopath's orchestral soundtrack. Through a detailed analysis of how composers created themes for 16-bit JRPGs, the video demonstrates that simple melodies and specific instrumentation can evoke a powerful emotional response from the player.
Mathew Dyason, creator of Game Score Fanfare, was one of the creators we talked to in our feature on Patreon-funded YouTube channels. Check that piece out here.
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