Swing that axe
Iconic video game God of War has been dusted off, polished up and given a modern makeover, and we’re having a hard time putting down the controller. DT gaming editor Mike Epstein has been hacking away at the game for a while now, and has a lot of praise for the rethink of the franchise, which dates back to 2005.
Now re-skinned and remade, the new version of God of War tracks central figure Kratos to his quiet mountain retreat, where he lives with his adolescent son, Atreus, and wife, or his late wife, who has recently passed away. Kratos looks a little worse for wear, and his new look has some players calling the game “Dad of War,” but be advised: there’s no shortage of combat situations. There also no shortage of great voice acting, amazing locales, and an interesting, involving storyline. Check out Mike’s full review.
Game over, dude
More quick videogaming bits: Servers powering the massively popular online shooter Fortnite went down this morning, locking out players, and Epic Games says they’re working on a fix, but they also said the outage stemmed from a “critical failure” to a key database. Check here for the latest updates.
And one more video game thing: Remember how video game top score compendium Twin Galaxies booted Todd Rogers for allegedly cheating his way to a supposedly impossible-to-equal score on the Atari 2600 version of Dragster? Now, gaming icon – or gaming villain, depending on who you ask – Billy Mitchell has had ALL of his gaming records – including those for Pac Man and Donkey Kong – purged as well.
Twin Galaxies says that it appears Mitchell’s famous “King of Kong” Donkey Kong gameplay tape wasn’t from a licensed console, but was instead from a software emulator of the game. So who’s the top Kong now? Robbie Lakeman, who posted up a score of 1,247,700 at a contest earlier this year.
Broken, bright, frozen and bricked
If you’re an iPhone or iPad user you’ve probably updated your device to iOS 11.3 by now, and if you’ve had your screen replaced in the past, you may have a problem. Reports are coming in that screens that were not repaired by Apple – that is, they were repaired by a “third party” – have stopped working after users installed the latest update.
It’s not the first time i-devices with repairs by someone other than Apple have had problems following an update, and an iPhone repair shop owner in Ohio says the bricked screens are due to a small, apparently non-compatible controller chip that powers the display.
There are also reports that the ambient light sensor, which adjusts the screen’s brightness, is also not working on some devices, regardless of where it was repaired. It’s just the latest chapter in Apple’s battle against aftermarket repair parts and shops, and it’s even spurred a legal fight in California and beyond. Will there be a quick fix? Hard to tell, but we’ll update you when we know more.
We’ve got more news on our Facebook page and YouTube channel, and be sure to tune in to this week’s DT podcasts: Trends with Benefits (general tech shenanigans) on Thursdays, and Between the Streams (movie and TV topics) every Friday.
