Its all known now that the PlayStation Network (PSN) has been hacked. Hackers in underground forums claim to have access to credit card details from the PSN. During the attack hackers claim to have copied 2.2m credit cards which forced Sony to shut down PSN. At the same time, about 77 million PSN users have begun to report fraud charges on their credit cards (although Sony says it is just a coincidence). The fraud claim have been said to include about $1,500 spent on a German grocery store and dozens of people said charges where made to German airlines and Japanese stores.
Kevin Stevens, a security analyst with Trend Micro, said in a Tweet that "the hackers that hacked PSN are selling off the DB (database). They reportedly have 2.2m credit cards with CVVs" - the latter being the three-figure number required for "card not present" transactions. But Stevens added that he couldn't be sure the claim was true. The hackers were also claiming to have offered to sell the database back to Sony, but that the company declined it. Sony spokesman Patrick Seybold said that as far as he knew there was no truth in that claim. However, one man was contacted by Sony saying his credit card may have been compromised, shortly after, he discovered two new charges that piled up to $400.
Sony insisted on a blog post that the credit card data it stored was encrypted: "While all credit card information stored in our systems is encrypted and there is no evidence at this time that credit card data was taken, we cannot rule out the possibility.
"If you have provided your credit card data through PlayStation Network or Qriocity, out of an abundance of caution we are advising you that your credit card number (excluding security code) and expiration date may have been obtained. Keep in mind, however, that your credit card security code (sometimes called a CVC or CSC number) has not been obtained because we never requested it from anyone who has joined the PlayStation Network or Qriocity, and is therefore not stored anywhere in our system."
The hackers seem to be European given the names they give themselves in there forums and seeing where the money is being spent.
Keighley (journalist) heard directly from Gabe Newell (Company Founder) and Erik Johnson (Project Manager) that:
"Portal 2 will probably be Valve's last game with an isolated single-player experience," Keighley wrote in Final Hours, "What this all means is something Newell is still trying to figure out."
Single player games outside Valve have all but disappearing, God of War had a good run with single player yet the developers are thinking on making a multiplayer mode for it as well (not sure about how this will work). Resident Evil also is jumping aboard the muliplayer bandwagon as they to are about to add a co-op like game experience.
The comment from Valve is striking, though, in that it doesn't sound like Newell and Johnson said they'd probably never ship a game that didn't have a multiplayer mode somewhere in it. Rather, they told Keighley they "probably" wouldn't make a game "with an isolated single-player experience." That would mean no more modes that couldn't connect in some fashion to other people (maybe co-op Half-Life?).
Either way Valve and other companies go. I do love singleplayer games a little better than multiplayer games unless it is just focused on that. C:SS and TF2 are both good multiplayer games; Assassins Creed and God Of War are good singleplayer games. While others such as BadCompany 2 where triumphant in multiplayer but lacked a good singleplayer campaign, same with the COD games (although the people it attracts also sways a games appearance).
First of all, this game had lots of hype then when it came out it suddenly died. I heard nothing of it and couldn't find much to read about it. Realizing this now I must add to the collection of the few "reviews."
The story pretty much takes place exactly after the first Force Unleashed (assuming the player picked the good ending) with Vader using part of Kamino's cloning technology to clone Starkiller and re-use him like he did before. However, the cloning process has a problem, the cloned Starkiller has visions related to the previous Starkillers all including death and of course Juno, the original Starkiller's love. This clone (a.k.a. the player) is one that has lasted longer than any other clone before him yet still has the visions, right when Vader tells him what the visions might make of him (leading to death) the clone then has a vision of Vader "killing him" as he did in the first game. Thus leading to the clone to rebel and fight his way out of Kamino to find Juno (That hot British chick).
Now at first playing this game it is really intense, the first thing you do is destroy platforms and TIE fighters as you are falling down using only electricity and force push in the middle of a lightning storm. Instead of the one lightsaber you have two which can be custom colored such as green and yellow to give different advantages in battle. The force powers and combos are extreamly more over powered but only against some enemy foot soldiers. Otherwise, you must build up on your "Force Fury" to quickly bring down robots, AT-ST's, etc.
The new enemies force the player to think quickly at times but often there is a quick exploit that can be used over and over again for a quick kill. The story line itself does gives a better understanding on Star Wars History that actually makes sense in the end (unlike that dreadful "Clone Wars" 3D animated shit). Over all it is a very good game but one major problem I can point out.... IT'S REALLY SHORT!! I'm a laid back type of guy that just takes video games as a relaxant and shouldn't really be hardcore looked upon but damn is this short. However, the upgrades and finding the costumes/crystals give that "why not play it again" thought which is good in this case, don't have to go through a lot to get to a certain level.
It is a great game but only worth it if you either got it for free or only paid 20 bucks for it. Otherwise just wait around for the price to drop.
AT&T currently wants to buy T-Mobile and their explanation into wanting to do so is that the network wasn't ready for any of the new Smartphones or Tablets that come along.
Smartphones generate 24% more mobile data trafic than the "dumbphone" and a Tablet (such as iPad) generates either equal or even greater to that of the smartphone. AT&T's data volume went up 8,000% from 2007 to 2010 thus giving the company more capacity restraints than any other wireless provider. The problem is surly getting worse for the market is now using more video and enterprise apps, the company guesses that the network traffic they carry will increase for the first five to seven weeks of 2015.
AT&T says that with the new T-Mobile deal:
"...will thus benefit consumers by reducing the number of dropped and blocked calls, increasing data speeds, improving in-building coverage, and dramatically expanding deployment of the next-generation mobile technology."
Anonymous (as everyone should know by now) has been since of April censored by Google. Operation Sony, Operation Sony update, and Operation Black Out have all been censored and taken off YouTube as of April; Claiming to have been a violation of "YouTube's Terms and Service."
Along with this some information that has caught the eye of many internet users (or should have) is the New Zealand law that passed a "3 Strikes-style law" to deal with online file-sharing that will effect everyone in the world. It claims to have Internet Service Providers (ISP) to send letters to a person "at the behest of rights of holders." Forcing a stop to the internet for that individual after the third strike.
A protest of the New Zealand government is already underway and according to some information received by TorrentFreak, Anonymous has yet another plan to help protest against New Zealand. Other anonymous source (not The Anonymous) have claimed that a DDoS is to happen but one with a technical twist that hasn't been used by the group at all before.
Fear 3 just recently released a look into its Multiplayer over in PAX East. It so far has four modes for muliplayer which include:
-Fucking Run
-Contractions
-Soul Survivor
-Soul King
Fucking Run: A "normal" type setting which has players fighting waves and waves of enemies to see how many kills and points one can get and eventually out kill the other players. One major difference is that there is a giant wall of fog with faces embedded into it showing that Alma is still in control; and if you lag behind, it will kill you. No matter where you go this wall of death will chase after you thus naming the mode Fucking Run (which is what you might be yelling into your mics when you play). The ending of the game is determined when a player is killed by the wall of death, if one player is to die, the game ends for everybody (Not sure if this is the only way to end the game).
Contractions: Again, players survive waves and waves of enemies that just keep getting tougher over time. There are weapons and ammo crates littered around the map in which players must get at the same time keep the defenses at the safe house in shape (fixing doors/barricades). Enemies will be spawned when Alma has contractions due to her pregnancy. She can be seen around the map once in a while walking around but when one takes a shot at her, you get blinded for a short time. Over all, another survival mode.
Soul Survivor: A team of players start off in a room where Alma chooses to corrupt one player at random. That player turns into a "Spectre" and possesses the bodies of AI-controlled Armacham soldiers in order to attack human players. The goal of the "Spectre" is to incap the players and corrupt them and turn them over to Alma's side.Over all it seems to be more of a one-sided fight no matter what. Unless you have some sort of hacks.
Soul King: Is a mode that is similar to Soul Survivor but instead has the Spectre's fight it out against each other for souls. Souls can be obtained by killing each other and/or killing the enemies spawned around you. With each round (of four) a new enemy enters the map. When a possessed host is killed, it drops half of the Spectre's collected souls. The mode ends with the winner having more souls than the rest.
All of these modes all have a "Survivor" thing in common much like Left 4 Dead but so far, lets hope that it all works out in the end (it better, I'm paying a pretty penny for this!).
Valve released a Hatless update (which is a surprise for players) and instead added a few things from Team Fortress beta (such as the backburner airblast), nerfed some weapons, and added crits on some weapons but instead did a -25% damage.
Now out of all these changes one thing stuck out more than anything. On their website is where the page talking about the update is at, and at one point it said:
"Because Team Fortress is no one-trick pony. As you can clearly see from the embarrassment of miscellaneous improvements making up the Hatless Update, this pony easily—easily—knows seven, possibly even eight tricks. We went and looked through some equestrian training manuals, and it turns out that's avery respectable number." Seems someone is Valve headquarters has taken a fancy to Ponies, specifically the Friendship is magic season (Blue pony is best pony).
ANYWAY: The update includes voting (choosing who to kick and next map), Dynamic Model Loading (Improving on how much memory TF2 uses [yey!]), Steam servers now associate themselves through STEAM ID (Servers will be noted on how many players there are "Rewarding the good and punishing the bad") Class duels, which both players choose and play the same class till the end of the duel New chat and better sound when using in-game voice Paint improvements (fixing the bugs) and now will work better with the world lighting KOTH badlands (Smaller than normal Badlands!) Coaching, you can enter to coach someone or to be coached New offline training sessions for spy, engineer, and demoman
These updates are awesome yes but the problem so far is that no-one can access their backpack nor change what is equipped at all. You can still use new weapons only if you equipped them BEFORE the update. (Fixed with a patch a day later) Valve I love you guys but no-one can play your games till 2 days after the update release.
Apperently thanks to the wonderful world of Vavle and Sony. If you buy Portal 2 for the PS3 you will get a free copy of Portal 2 for the PC/Mac. You will get STEAM cloud for both platforms and can play with any player regardless if they are on the PC or PS3. All you have to do is connect your PSN and STEAM accounts!
So here we have a side-scrolling MMO called Glitch. Which is being worked on my Stewart Butterfield (Co-Founder of Flickr) and Team Tiny Speck. It has just entered the Beta stage and yet is still to be said to be as famous as Farmville with all the Social Networking in it as well.
The Story begins with the player(s) being inside the minds of 11 giants who all imagine the world in which you live in. Your actions and other players actions will determine on how big the world will be, affecting everyone who is apart of the game. It also has no random killing of things, and you can't wage war on other players. Which can be a huge letdown for some and might be just that relaxing type of (odd) game others need. Not much is known about it so far other than you can do quite a bit such as make smoothies, have perks, buy a house, plant, etc.
Okay, first thing that got me into this film was the fact that it had the stuff that turned me into a geek in the first place. Dragons, Steampunk,WWI tech, and of course those ladies in corsets.
"The Girls" (In Order) Sweet Pea; Rocket; Babydoll; Blondie; and Amber
(I can't say much or I'll ruin the movie) So the movie begins with a female (nicknamed Babydoll) going into a insane asylum around the 1960s and later hatches a plan to escape. Aiding her are four others that go by the nicknames Sweet Pea, Rocket, Blondie, and Amber. Together they go through and complete each task one at a time of getting five items needed for the escape; during these times is where the film and... well, everything take a turn to a crazy badass battle.
Now, this film has a lot of those thinking moments even if the whole film seems like its all just eye candy (well it can be just eye candy if you want it to) but it doesn't get you thinking till the end of the film. Its like that slap to the face that you don't feel all but a few seconds after. If you know a lot about psychology you will get this movie better than others, but it has quite a few "what the hell" moments in which make sense at the end of the film later relating back to psychology. Over all its all about the adventure (such as Indiana Jones, LOTR, etc.) and has quite a few meanings in the story which one major one being "sacrifice for the greater good."
I highly recommend this movie if you are okay with things being different, meaning in a way that a film just goes in its own direction to tell its story rather than "copy paste" the methods of story telling that all other movies use. And if you don't mind giving the plot a good think over before overall judging it. It is an odd movie, but the kind of odd that just completes it in a way others can't.
(On a related note: the music works really well with the movie too, especially when presenting actions and certain charters.)
Magica is a game made by Arrowhead Game Studios which (up to 4) players are wizards that are sent out to save the world. Yet this adventure is stranger than your usual Lord of the Rings trip. It is a satirical adventure with many movie references ranging from the first released Star Wars to 300. The fun about it is that the players are in control of eight elements which are Water, Life, Shield, Ice, Electricity, Arcane, Earth, and Fire. To which the player can mix and match these elements to create Magica Spells or just one powerful attack. The beauty of it is that the negatives (such as water and fire) still apply to the spells and will negate each other if they come in contact. Team work is greatly involved due to this and the fact that friendly fire is always on. For example: if one where to create a lightning bolt, they run the chance of hitting a friendly player. The story is nice and long with plenty of challenges.
The developers especially released a new DLC (downloadable content or add-on) which was supposed to be free of charge (now its 5 bucks) and includes the same style of game play except put right in the middle of Vietnam (with swords being replaced by guns).
Overall the game is really fun, there might be a few bugs such as long start up, but thanks to STEAM's news page it is shown that it is currently being worked on. The game is also only 9.99 for one copy on the STEAM store. Its a great buy, awesome and affordable.
