As longtime camera makers like Nikon and Canon struggle to adapt to a rapidly changing market now dominated by mirrorless options and even smartphones, there’s at least one way to boost the sales of dying DSLRs: partner with Takara Tomy and make them transform into fan-favourite Transformers like Optimus Prime.
Transformers toys are arguably one of the original pop culture mashups, pairing the appeal of towering robots with everything from exotic sports cars, to fighter jets, to even dinosaurs. Over the years we’ve also seen consumer tech and robots-in-disguise partner up to create everything from a functional Optimus Prime phone charger, to Soundwave transforming into a tablet.
Nerds and geeks are a lucrative target, and as originally spotted by the TFormers blog, first as leaked images and then in an official reveal by Takara Tomy, the Transformers have teamed up with Canon for a couple of collectibles that could be as hard to find over here as they are to resist.
Image: Takara Tomy
Here, an impressively detailed but sadly non-functional Canon EOS R5 DSLR that could easily pass as the real thing (were it not a slightly smaller scaled down replica) instead converts from a dying piece of tech into a highly-articulated Optimus Prime figure who even uses the camera’s lens cap as a shield and comes with his own matching-scale snapper.
Image: Takara Tomy
And for those who prefer to root for the baddies (the Decepticons could all fly, so why wouldn’t you choose team Megatron?) an alternate version of this collectible will also be available, with the Canon EOS R5 instead transforming into the Decepticon Reflector , who was, as many longtime fans may remember, the first Transformer with an actual camera as their alt mode.
Pre-orders are available now in Japan until September 28, with each bot going for just shy of $US150 ($208). However, they won’t be officially available until February 25, next year, which is when many of us will have a chance to try to find them extremely marked up on eBay or through an online store happy to ship them overseas for a premium.
Apex Legends Season 14 is finally out, and with it comes a huge number of changes to the battle royale. With Hunted, you can expect map changes, buffs and nerfs to weapons and characters, and tweaks to the ranked system.
As such, we’ve recapped the Apex Legends season 14 patch notes here so you can quickly go through and see how the game has shifted.
Watch the latest Apex Legends trailer here!
Vantage release and abilities
Vantage is the new sniper brought to Apex Legends season 14, and comes with a variety of unique abilities that you need to know about!
passive: Spotter’s Lens. Vantage can reveal enemy information when you zoom in on them. This information can be shared with your team by pinging.
tactical ability: Echo Relocation. Vantage can send out their pet bat to a chosen location. When re-activated, Vantage warps to the bat’s location, allowing you to shift vast distances in a pinch.
Ultimate: Sniper’s Mark. Vantage has a custom sniper rifle with a unique ability. Hitting an enemy with this rifle will deal 50 damage and mark them. Follow up shots will deal 100 damage per hit, and your allies can also rush and and deal bonus damage to marked enemies too!
Level cap increase
With Apex Legends season 14, a massive change is coming to the level cap: Three tiers of 500 levels are being added. This means the new max level is now 2000plenty of room for dedicated players to progress and interestingly enough to guarantee a heirloom drop for those who hit max.
Weapon changes, nerfs, and buffs
New Attachment – Laser Sight
Equippable on pistols and SMGs
barrel attachment
Increases hipfire accuracy
wingman
Now uses sniper ammo and sniper magazine attachments
spirit fire
Now uses light ammo and light magazine attachments
Eva-8
Recoil improved
Fire rate increased to 2.3 from 2
Pellet damage increased to 7 from 6
Bolt rate of fire bonuses have increased. Blue went from 1.5 to 1.2, and purple now 1.3 from 1.2
Can now use stocks
Removed one pellet from weapon fire.
Bocek Compound Bow
Damage at full draw increased to 70 from 60.
Tempo draw speed increased to 0.38 from 0.32.
Shattercaps pellet damage increased to 12 from 11.
Fired arrows can no longer be collected.
Arrows spawns have been removed from the floor.
Rampage LMG
Damage increased to 28 from 26.
Rampage comes with a Thermite Grenade.
Volt SMG
Damage reduced to 15 from 17.
CAR SMG
No longer takes barrel attachments.
G7 Scout
Damage reduced to 34 from 36.
Headshot multiplier reduced to 1.75 from 2.0.
Double Tap hop-up burst fire delay increased to 0.4 from 0.375.
LSTAR
Increased projectile speed.
Increased number of shots before overheat at base to 24 from 20.
Removed bright red flash when hitting non-armored targets.
RE-45
Increased ironsight FOV to 70 to be consistent with other pistols.
Increased strafe speed by 5% to be consistent with other pistols.
spit fire
Recoil adjustments to increase vertical barrel climb.
Spitfire now uses light ammo and magazines.
30-30 Repeater
Dual Loader has been worked into the base 30-30 Repeater.
Now takes Skullpiercer Rifling.
mastiff
Projectile growth reduced.
Base fire rate reduced to 1.1 from 1.2.
DualLoader removed.
Sentinel
Deadeye’s Tempo has been worked into the base Sentinel.
sniper ammo
Sniper ammo inventory stack increased to 28 from 24.
Sniper ammo boxes now contain 14 rounds instead of 12.
SMG’s
Base hipfire spread increased.
Assault Rifles
Base hipfire spread increased.
hop-ups
Double Tap – Adds burst fire mode to EVA-8 and G7 Scout.
Skullpiercer – 35% headshot damage increase on Longbow, Wingman and 30-30 Repeater.
Removed Deadeye’s Tempo & Shatter Caps from floor loot.
Boosted Loader has been reduced to Epic quality from Legendary.
Crate Rotation
G7 Scout returns to the floor.
Volt SMG returns to the floor.
Bocek Compound Bow enters the crate.
Rampage LMG enters the crate.
Crafting Rotation
Wingman returns to the floor.
CAR SMG returns to the floor.
Devotion LMG enters the crafter.
RE-45 + Hammerpoint combo enters the crafter.
Gold Weapon Rotation
Longbow D.M.R.
G7 Scout
Mozambique
R-99
hemlok
Backpack Gold Perk
New Perk: Deep Pockets.
Deep Pockets: Large medical supplies stacks higher in your inventory.
Batteries and Medkits now stack to 3 in inventory.
Phoenix Kits now stack to 2 in inventory.
Knockdown Shield Gold Perk
New Perk: Guardian Angel (Previous Backpack Perk).
Self Revive removed from the game.
Arc Star
Reduced stick damage on armor to 10 from 40.
Remove aim slow on stick, remains on detonation.
Detonation damage increased to 75 from 70.
Explosive Holds
Added Blue attachments to possible spawns.
Added Laser Sights to the pool.
Reduced spawn rate of gold magazines.
Season 14 Ranked Changes
With Apex Legends season 14, a whole bunch of new changes to the ranked system have been made. These are:
Entry Cost: +5 to all.
Kill RP: Removed diminishing returns on eliminations.
Rank Reset: No change. Summarizing ranked reset of 6 divisions.
Apex Legends season 14 legends buffs and nerfs
You can expect nerfs and buffs across the board for the many characters of Apex Legends. They are as follows:
Valkyrie
VTOL Jets:
Acceleration on activation decreased by about 8%.
Fuel consumption on activation increased by 33%.
Aerial boosting & strafing take a 20% debuff when hit by slowing effects.
Added a third orange state to the fuel meter UI between green and red.
Swarm Missile:
Aim/turn slow removed.
Move slow duration decreased from 2.5s -> 2.0s.
Reducing the explosion radius from 175 -> 125.
Skyward Dive:
Height reduction of 25%.
Launch time reduced from 5.5s -> 5.0s. Coupled with the height reduction, players in Valk ult now travel upward at a slightly slower speed.
Horizon
Black Hole: Adjustments to NEWT’s hitbox to make destroying it more reliable.
Black Hole: NEWT takes 50% more damage from explosives.
Wattson
Improvements to Perimeter Security placement system.
newcastle
Retrieve the Wounded:
Increased move speed during revive by 25%.
Reduced turn slow while reviving by 50%.
Increased White Knockdown shield health from 150 -> 200.
Increase Blue Knockdown shield health from 250 -> 300.
Mobile Shield:
Increased hp from 350 -> 500
Doubled max movement speed.
CastleWall:
Added turn slow to electrical barrier effects and increased the severity of the slow effect to movement.
Mad Maggie
Riot Drill:
Projectile Launch Speed doubled.
Wrecking Ball:
Will travel twice as far while dropping the same amount of magnets.
Duration increased from 5 sec → 10 sec.
Magnet Spawn delay increased from 0.4 sec → 0.8 sec.
Wrecking Ball will deal damage to enemy placeable objects: Black Market, Castle Walls, Exhibit, Death Totem, Mobile Shield, Black Hole, Amped Cover, and Gas Barrels. It will also destroy Gibraltar’s Dome of Protection.
Fixed Wrecking Ball not blinding and slowing enemies.
Rampart
Now ignores friendly collision on Amped Cover placement (ie placing walls around teammates will feel more smooth).
caustics
Fixed gas ramping bug where transitioning from friendly to enemy gas would initially damage for more than intended.
Mirage
Mirage Decoys will now be scanned by Valk when skydiving.
Mirage Decoys will now be picked up by Seer’s Heart Seeker.
Fixed a bug where Mirage Decoys were picked up by Seer’s Exhibit as AI and not players.
Revenant
Death Totem will now show a placement preview when activated instead of placing immediately.
Crafting changes
Team-Use Harvesters: When any player interacts with a Materials Harvester, all players in their team will be given the Materials..
Removed Shatter Rounds from crafting.
Removed Hammerpoints from base crafting and added to RE-45 Weapon Craft.
Heavy, Energy, and Sniper mags price increased from to 35 from 25.
Laser Sight added to crafting: 25 materials.
Stock and Barrel price reduced to 25 from 35.
Added Skullpiercer Rifling Hop-Up to crafting.
Added Double Tap Trigger Hop-Up to crafting.
Added Kinetic Feeder Hop-Up to crafting.
Increased Shotgun Bolt price from to 30 from 25.
Reduced 2-4x ACOG optic price to 30 from 35.
Map rotation and changes
With season 14 of Apex Legends, the maps you can play are Kings Canyon, World’s Edge, and Storm Point!
General changes
Replicators and Crafting Materials have been rebalanced across the maps.
Ring Adjustments:
Ring 1 Damage increased from 2 to 3 hp/tick (equivalent to Ring 2)
Ring 1 Preshrink Time decreased from 180s to 60s.
Ring 1 Closing Time:
Kings Canyon – 4:10 -> 4:32
World’s Edge – 3:42 -> 4:32
Storm Point – 4:15 -> 4:35
Olympus – 4:10 -> 4:32
World’s Edge
Removed some frustrating final rings at Staging that were causing heal offs.
Fragment East Loot buffed from Low Tier to Medium.
Added OOB to west rocks at Lava Siphon.
Quality of Life changes
New Mode/Map name UI element on load screen and start flow.
“Winning” and “Champion” tags added to the scoreboard.
Added ability to use “tap” interact prompts when they conflict with “hold” (eg reloading near downed teammates is now a lot more reliable on controller).
Added flourish to the crafting materials in the top right of the HUD when they increase.
Added a flourish to items if they become craftable while in the crafting station UI.
Added accessibility switch for turning on and off TTS (Text-to-speech), defaulting to what your console or system has it set to (where available)
When dropping from the dropship, the location of the POI player lands in is now displayed.
Bug fixes
Hipfire reticles now change size based on the FoV.
Fixed bug where canceling a Lifeline revive would cancel it for other teammates also being revived by Lifeline.
Fixed bug where players could not deal melee damage to Caustic Gas Barrels or Octanes Jump Pads.
Fix for issue where the buy menu would close each time a teammate completes a purchase/and or closes the buy menu.
Crypto’s Ultimate now destroys Wattson’s Pylon.
Fix for issue where Crypto’s heirloom animation audio would play globally when using a survey beacon.
Fix for issue where players could sometimes get stuck while crouched between a Replicator and Black Market after crafting.
Fixed bug where players could not unlock the “Fully Kitted” badge.
Fix for issue for Legends losing functionality like meleeing, using an ability, etc, while mantling.
Fix for bug where players could not switch ammo types for the CAR SMG.
Newcastle – fix for issue where Newcastle could get stuck in their Ultimate animation while riding a zipline.
Newcastle – Fixed bug where throwables placed on a Mobile Shield would start floating after the Mobile Shield disappears.
Newcastle – fix for cases where players wouldn’t take damage from ordnance or activate Caustic’s barrels when positioned between a Tactical Shield and its drone.
Newcastle – fix for bug where throwable abilities placed on a Mobile Shield could float away after the Mobile Shield disappears.
Wraith – fix for bug where Wraith would still take damage in the Ring while phasing.
Fix for a reload bug with the Mastiff and 30-30 Repeater where players could not ADS until reloading animation was finished.
Fixed bug where Crypto’s melee animations wouldn’t show his heirloom while in third person.
Vending Machines in Big Maude now have buyer protection.
Fixed an issue that could cause some stuttering and framerate spikes on consoles, especially PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S.
Fix for bug where the Dropship would sometimes spawn players outside the ship.
Fixed a bug where Heat Shields would disappear when placed under a respawn beacon, or mobile respawn beacon, and then the beacon was used.
Fixed a bug where Pathfinder’s zipline would be destroyed if placed on top of a respawn beacon and then the beacon was used.
Fix for cases when a Heat Shield could disappear when set under a Respawn Beacon that is activated.
Fix for a bug where Mirage decoys would not show up on scan for a few Legends.
The new version of Inertial Drift for PS5 and Xbox Series X|S will include a new soundtrack and four new cars.
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POV: you’re going for a night drive in your old, beat-up Honda, the sun is setting along the horizon and you pop in a cassette with your favorite ’90s music.
Some vibey Eurobeats, to be exact.
Life is good, especially when you hit that corner by the gas station down the street, and drift ever-so-smoothly into retro bliss.
Inertial Drift: Twilight Rivals Edition – King Bison
Along with some sublime tunes, the arcade racing game will add four fresh fictional vehicles when this new version launches for your cruising pleasure, too.
As always, each new whip will feature exclusive characteristics, unlike anything you’ve seen in the real world. Of course, the distinctive twin-stick controls will challenge any seasoned vet yet allow for intuitive handling that truly highlights what makes this game a unique experience.
Inertial Drift: Twilight Rivals Edition – Urus
NEW CARS
king bison – This car looks like an NFL running back: a bit on thicker side, with a strong hood (almost Camaro-esque), fancy spoiler and piercing flashers
terra rai – Picture the rear of a Honda S660; that’s exactly what the Terra Rai reminds us of with a bubbly exterior and almost futuristic look while speeding away
Urus – The Urus gives off an exoskeleton-like aesthetic with a light surface and darker outlines around each individual feature of the body
XX-82 – Does anyone remember the cartoon Darkwing Duck? This car has that same feel of a disguised superhero with a bit of a devious side and a fascinating spoiler
The line-up of cars, updated content and freshly squeezed soundtrack from Turbo will be accessible to pre-existing PC (via Steam or Epic), Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and Nintendo Switch users as a new DLC, coming later this year.
Inertial Drift: Twilight Rivals Edition – XX-82
Intertial Drift: Twilight Rivals Edition is set to release on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X, as well, and gives users an opportunity to pick between 4K resolution or a 120 FPS frame rate plus the new content is included.
There’s a bit of catch, however; we’re not exactly sure of the release date at this time. A quick peek on Steam shows the following announcement, though:
Inertial Drift: Twilight Rivals Edition – Terra Rai
“Hey everyone, We are very happy to premiere our brand new animated opening for the Twilight Rivals DLC Pack, coming later this year.”
Don’t worry – we’ll be sure to update you when we know more. Until then, happy drifting!
Some players have poured hundreds of hours into splatoon 2. Thankfully, Nintendo recently revealed that all of that hard work won’t be wasted when fans boot up Splatoon 3. Instead, they’ll be able to transfer their save data and reap big rewards in the process.
Nintendo unleashed a torrent of info about what’s new in Splatoon 3 during its latest Direct yesterday, including the idol trio Deep Cut and Tricolor Turf War Splatfests, but one of the party shooter’s coolest features is actually about its predecessor, splatoon 2. Players who have already played the previous game will be able to transfer some of their data to the new one, leapfrogging new players in rank and matchmaking.
A fan spotted the feature on Nintendo’s website and long-time players immediately started celebrating:
The perks for transferring save data include three Gold Sheldon Licenses that can be used to immediately unlock main weapons no matter the player’s level, as well as being able to play Anarchy Battles from the very start. Splatoon 3 will also carry over some portion of players’ rank in splatoon 2, and match them against more skilled players. It’s a smart way to ease the transition between games and also a nice way to recognize players who are already veterans of the series.
Online multiplayer shooters are more like platforms than individual games. Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, for example, has been updated for a decade now. games like Call of Duty, on the other hand, get replaced with sequels every year. We’re already seeing some fatigue with this in Overwatch 2which seems for now like more of an upgrade of Overwatch 1 than a completely new game. But on the bright side, Blizzard is still letting players carry over all of their paid collectibles from the first game.
Splatoon 3 is in a similar boat, with many of its core maps and modes returning from the previous game. and unlike Overwatch 2, whose PVP mode is free-to-play, It will be a full-priced sequel. It still might not have in-game voice chat, but at least splatoon pros will be able to unlock their favorite pair of Dualies as soon as they get started.
Google Accompanied Reading website: Google has introduced a browser version of its “read along” Android app. The website is currently in beta, but it’s still working. The site offers stories with many illustrations at different reading levels. Once kids have selected a story, they can start reading the story into their device’s microphone. After reading the words, they are highlighted in blue and misspelled words are underlined in red. After that, virtual assistant Diya shows it by pronouncing it correctly.
Read Along works like this
When you visit the website, the Diya virtual assistant gives you the option to choose the language. After that, after completing a few steps, kids can start reading stories. After reading the words of each story, they are highlighted in blue. In addition, incorrect words are underlined in red. After selecting the underlined words, the virtual assistant Diya pronounces it correctly
The website provides these facilities
You can easily open this website on Chrome, Firefox, and Edge, while it will soon be introduced on other browsers including Safari. The stories on the website are available in English, Hindi, Gujarati, Bengali, Telugu, Marathi, Tamil, Spanish and Portuguese. Google has also added new stories to the Read Along collection, which will be available in web and Android versions later this year. These include content from children’s video creators USP Studios and Chuchu TV, as well as alphabets and phonics from education company Kutuki.
Read Along was launched in 2019
Read Along was launched in 2019. Read Along’s Android app has been used by over 30 million children since its launch in 2019. Now the move to the desktop version will not only give children more options devices, but it will also allow them to read on a larger screen.
All information related to iPhone 14 so far, know iPhone 14 price here
Microsoft has confirmed that a high-severity, zero-day security vulnerability is actively being exploited by threat actors and is advising all Windows and Windows Server users to apply its latest monthly Patch Tuesday update as soon as possible.
The vulnerability, known as CVE-2022-34713 or DogWalk, allows attackers to exploit a weakness in the Windows Microsoft Support Diagnostic Tool (MSDT). By using social engineering or phishing, attackers can trick users into visiting a fake website or opening a malicious document or file and ultimately gain remote code execution on compromised systems.
DogWalk affects all Windows versions under support, including the latest client and server releases, Windows 11 and Windows Server 2022.
The vulnerability was first reported in January 2020 but at the time, Microsoft said it didn’t consider the exploit to be a security issue.
This is the second time in recent months that Microsoft has been forced to change its position on a known exploit, having initially rejected reports that another Windows MSDT zero-day, known as Follina, posed a security threat. A patch for that exploit was released in June’s Patch Tuesday update.
Charl van der Walt, head of security research at Orange Cyberdefense, said that although Microsoft could perhaps be criticized for failing to consider how frequently and easily files with apparently innocent extensions are used to deliver malicious payloads, also noted that with several thousand vulnerabilities reported each year, it’s to be expected that Microsoft’s risk-based triage approach to assessing vulnerabilities won’t be infallible.
“If everything is urgent, then nothing is urgent,” he said. “The security community has long stopped believing vulnerabilities and threats will be eradicated any time soon, so the challenge now becomes the development of a kind of agility that can perceive changes in the threat landscape and adapt accordingly.”
Tower of Fantasy has a unique summoning system, in that you can find tokens (or Nuclei) to summon simply by exploring the world. There are two types of Nuclei—Black and Gold. Black Nucleus allows you to spin the Black Nucleus Cache, while Gold Nucleus allow you to spin the Gold Nucleus Cache gachas. Red Nucleus are very rare indeed, but allow you to spin the specialty gacha.
Black Nucleus is a lot more common to come across than Gold, and Gold is more common than Red — it’s not possible to find Red Nucleus out in the overworld. Black and Gold, however, can be found by simply exploring the land. Astra, your starting island, is chock full of locations to find these Nuclei. Here are all of the Black and Gold Nucleus locations on Astra for Tower of Fantasy.
We’ve broken the starting island up into two halves. Each star marks a Nucleus location. It’s random if you will get Black or Gold from interactable locations, such as Tar Pits or Kerosene Plants. However, there are set Gold Nucleus spawns, typically in the middle of Strongholds or hidden in tough-to-reach locations.
You can also gather Nuclei from Caches scattered around the island, so always make a trip if you see one in the distance. Purple Caches (or Type 1) will grant Black Nucleus, while Gold Caches (or Type 2) will grant Gold Nucleus, in addition to some Dark Crystal as well. 1500 Dark Crystal gets you 10 spins on the Red Nucleus Gacha, so make sure you save up for that.
We recommend always carrying a flame weapon with you, such as the starting bow you receive, to more rapidly gather from certain locations. Keep in mind that some locations require time to pass before they will activate, so it’s impossible to gather everything from the get-go. Furthermore, this map isn’t comprehensive — with so many locations, it’s possible we missed a few.
Enchanting is inarguably one of Minecraft’s most powerful systems. Enchanting will give players access to beefed-up abilities such as looting, which makes rare mob drops more common. Other enchantments include fortune, which turns a single ore into several items, mending, which makes items unbreakable so long as the player gets consistent XP, and riptide, which allows players to fly from water and in the rain.
While most of Minecraft’s enchantments can be applied to items through an enchanting table, there are a few that will never be available through the table, no matter how many bookshelves the player puts near it. These are known as treasure enchantments, and the methods to acquire them are detailed below.
How to get all six of Minecraft’s treasure enchantments
Curse of Binding, Curse of Vanishing, Frost Walker, and Mending
All four of these treasure enchantments can be acquired using the same methods. These methods include being found in both jungle temple loot chests and stronghold loot chests. They can also be acquired from fishing through the fishing treasure table.
Although this is exclusive to the Bedrock Edition of the game, all four of the enchantments can be acquired as loot from illager raids on villages. Additionally, Curse of Binding, Curse of Vanishing, and Frost Walker are offered as trades by librarian villagers exclusively on the Java edition of Minecraft.
Mending can be acquired through villager trades and is not exclusive to the Java edition of the game.
soul speed
The Soul Speed enchantment is unlike the prior four treasure enchantments as it cannot be acquired through villager trading, fishing, as raid loot, or in a large majority of Minecraft’s lootable chests.
The main method for acquiring the Soul Speed enchantment is piglin bartering. This is a system that can be used to get many of the game’s most useful items, such as ender pearls, enchanted books, and enchanted armor. Piglins can barter both enchanted books and iron boots with a random level of the Soul Speed enchantment for players.
Piglins also have the potential to spawn wearing golden boots enchanted with Soul Speed. If a player then kills the piglin wearing the item, there is a small chance that the boots will be dropped for the player to collect.
The last way for players to gain access to the Soul Speed enchantment is by looting a bastion remnant. Any of the non-main treasure chests within a bastion remnant can contain either enchanted books or golden boots with a random level of the Soul Speed enchantment.
Swift Sneak
An ancient city, the only place to get the swift sneak enchantment (Image via Minecraft)
Swift Sneak is similar to Soul Speed in that it cannot be acquired via the same methods that apply to the other four treasure enchantments. This means that Swift Sneak cannot be acquired through fishing, raid loot, villager trading, or most of the loot chests found throughout Minecraft.
Swift Sneak can only be found within loot chests contained within 1.19 The Wild Update’s new underground structure, The Ancient City.
The loot chests within ancient cities have a 23.2% chance of containing an enchanted book with the Swift Sneak enchantment. The level of Swift Sneak enchantment found on the book is completely random, meaning players might need to search for the highest level of the enchantment.
Telegram’s CEO, Pavel Durov, is lashing out against Apple over the company’s “obscure” App Store review process that is delaying Telegram from releasing an update to its app that will “revolutionize how people express themselves in messaging.”
In his Telegram channel, Durov says that an update to Telegram for iOS that will change how people communicate has been stuck in Apple’s App Store review process for over two weeks, with no communication from the company over why or when it will be approved. Durov points out that if an app as popular as Telegram receives this treatment, one can “imagine the difficulties experienced by smaller app developers.”
For example, our upcoming update – which is about to revolutionize how people express themselves in messaging – has been stuck in Apple’s “review” for two weeks, without explanation or any feedback provided by Apple.
If Telegram, one of the top 10 most popular apps globally, is receiving this treatment, one can only imagine the difficulties experienced by smaller app developers. It’s not just demoralizing: it causes direct financial losses to hundreds of thousands of mobile apps globally.
Durov, a vocal critic of Apple and its App Store in the past, points out the controversial “Apple tax,” which gives Apple a 30% cut of certain in-app purchases from eligible apps that make over $1 million annually. Durov calls Apple’s behavior “abusive” and says that damage inflicted by the company “can’t be undone.”
This harm goes on top of the 30% tax Apple and Google take from app developers – which, according to them, is supposed to pay for the resources needed to review apps. The regulators in the EU and elsewhere are slowly starting to look into these abusive practices. But the economic damage that has already been inflicted by Apple on the tech industry won’t be undone.
It’s unclear why Apple is delaying Telegram’s app update from reaching the millions of Telegram users. Most apps are typically reviewed fairly quickly, so the long wait in this instance is particularly interesting. Telegram is one of the most popular messaging services on the App Store, competing with the likes of WhatsApp, Instagram, Signal, and Apple’s iMessage service.
On its website, Apple says, “every week, over 500 dedicated experts around the world review over 100K apps,” adding that over 1 million submissions are rejected.
College management sim Two Point Campuswhich just came out on pretty much every gaming platform and Xbox Game Pass, is the sequel to 2018’s Two Point Hospital. Both games use an identical art style, similar UI, and contain the same mix of zany, weird sight gags and jokes. but-while Hospital was all about stressing you out over choices, Campus is more chill in how it lets you care for the students coming to your schools. The change works, but the game still has some UI issues and performance problems to iron out.
Two Point Hospital could get surprisingly intense. While the world is colourful, silly, and filled with weird diseases and jokes, balancing patient needs, staff demands, profits, and more during more intense moments isn’t funny at all. It’s hectic and exciting. However, it was also a game built for PC, and was intended to be a spiritual successor to the beloved Bullfrog classic ThemeHospital. While I loved Two Point Hospital, others were put off by how intense things could get, as well as the PC menus and UI. It was a great game, but built for a certain type of person.
Two Point Studios built Two Point Campus from the ground up to be a different type of management sim, removed from the demands of history and with console players in mind. This leads to a different kind of game. Two Point Campus isn’t here to stress you out. Instead, it offers a more relaxed and personal management sim in which you worry more about your students’ physical, social, mental, and emotional needs than say balancing the books or making sure nobody dies. The stakes here are certainly lower than when running an emergency room, and with breaks between school years, Campus will feel calmer and more inviting to folks who might not have grown up playing the old PC sims.
Some might be disappointed in the slower pace, but I’ve greatly enjoyed the change. This is a game where you can (and will) spend a lot of time fiddling with things. Moving objects, re-shaping classrooms, building lecture halls, adding dorm room decorations, and tinkering with layouts and hallways are all in your purview. And compared to the previous game, all of it is now much easier to do on a controller.
In my experience with the game’s first few levels, money isn’t too hard to come by if you are careful early on not to go into debt by building everything possible at once. So instead of worrying about profits, Campus quickly becomes a game in which you spend a lot of time just making sure your students are as comfy, healthy, and smart as they can be.
It’s quite a contrast to Two Point Hospital, in which your patients were merely walking piggy banks and you never really stopped to think about them as people. In Campusstudents feel more like actual humans, and because they stick around for a few years before graduation, you’ll start to develop more of a connection with a lot of them.
Your end goal is to help all your goofy students graduate. (Screenshot: Two Point Studios / Kotaku)
When my institution’s grades started to slip, I felt more invested in improving the college’s facilities to make sure all my young charges could get back to achieving higher grades. And when the kids got lonely, I’d make sure to listen to their individual needs and help them meet other students, so they could develop new friendships and romantic relationships.
It all culminates when they finally graduate. I felt an odd sense of pride as I watched them all march off to the nearby bus stop, diploma in hand. Well, I also felt a pang of fear, as I watched a ton of tuition fees vanish, too.
OK, so yes, this is still a management sim, and while the stakes are lower and the overall vibe of Campus is more chill, you still will need to keep an eye on your money if you want to build the biggest and most amazing three-star schools in the county. And because I cared more about my students, it made it harder for me to cut corners or hold back on things they all wanted, like more bathrooms or working showers. I mean, I still didn’t give them what they wanted all the time, and did have a tendency toward cramming them into tiny dorm rooms. But I felt bad about it, I swear!
Unfortunately, I also felt bad when playing on PC, as I ran into some performance issues and UI problems. None of them made the game unplayable, mind you, but still worth mentioning.
Laying out your campus becomes an exercise in managing space and function. (Screenshot: Two Point Studios / Kotaku)
With a controller, the UI feels good, but mouse and keyboard suffer some quirks that I think can be fixed in a patch. At the moment they cause some annoyance. More than once I ended up selling a whole room by accident or misclicked the wrong item. And when my campus got too big, I noticed some slowdown, something I never noticed in Two Point Hospital or other similar games I’ve played on this same, very fast computer.
Hopefully, all of this can be fixed in the future. Considering how much support Two Point Hospital got post-launch, with tons of updates and DLC packs, I expect Campus to only get better over the next few months and years.
Two Point Campus is a worthy follow-up to Hospital. While some may find Campus‘less hectic and high-stakes nature a drawback, I enjoyed the change of pace. I can always play Hospital if I want to save lives. Instead, Campus let me connect with students and a school in a way I really appreciated, which also subsequently made squeezing the kids for every penny they had a lot more challenging. I still did it, but I didn’t enjoy it. OK, I enjoyed it, but I never cackled about it. Not very much at least.
Image: Takara Tomy
Image: Takara Tomy
Your end goal is to help all your goofy students graduate. (Screenshot: Two Point Studios / Kotaku)
Laying out your campus becomes an exercise in managing space and function. (Screenshot: Two Point Studios / Kotaku)