Kelley graduates from Canada. Josh discovers Tactics Advance is an isekai. Meanwhile Chris calculates the skill check for suplexing a train.

The post RPG Cast – Episode 619: “That One Time I Got Reincarnated as a Canadian Yankee in King Arthur’s Court” appeared first on RPGamer.

Kelley thinks like a cat. Chris experiments with broccoli. Josh sells weed with Snoop Dogg. Don't tempt the mouse.

The post RPG Cast – Episode 639: “Can We Just Kill This Guy and Get a New Hero” appeared first on RPGamer.

It's Extra Life Weekend baby! Phil puts Chris in a closet while Anna states that it's not because she's Canadian, it's because she's a cheap bitch. Meanwhile, the treasure chest looks back at Kelley with an expression that says "...Bruh."

The post RPGCast – Episode 654: “You Canadian” appeared first on RPGamer.

Kelley doesn't want to bang Gambit that bad. Chris wants foilage in games. Jason discovers a new service at the spa. And Josh tells everyone, "Go away, I'm brooding."

The post RPG Cast – Episode 687: “Can I Interest You in 50 Slices of Kemco RPGs?” appeared first on RPGamer.

Chris is hunting bears, because of course that's what you do. Kelley hangs out with Chadley and the massively annoying individual. Robert is all about that exquisite fraisier cake.

The post RPG Cast – Episode 716: “Canadian Telephone Game” appeared first on RPGamer.

Kelley eats radioactive sushi. Chris tries to learn what a "zound" is. Josh goes to the Millennium tower one last time and rips off his shirt. Johnathan makes his bi-annual visit to Suiko-shame Chris.

The post RPG Cast – Episode 724: “Can I Sell You a Battle Pass Warranty?” appeared first on RPGamer.

Kelley builds a fan mod alternate LEGO Sonic build. Josh learns not to read the wiki...any wiki. Matt digs through Infinity's trash to find out when the money ran out. Chris is watching the anime...but it's not good either.

The post RPG Cast – Episode 733: “You Don’t Have to Go Home but You Can’t Fish Here” appeared first on RPGamer.

Kelley hot boxes her cat. Chris authorizes Lunar to bring back Bill Clinton jokes. And Robert suffers feline gacha girls for us all.

The post RPG Cast – Episode 742: “Hard Candy Wii U Discs” appeared first on RPGamer.

Sony president Hiroki Totoki in a Q&A session with investors was asked about the failure of Concord, which was shut down less than two weeks after it released.

"Currently, we are still in the process of learning," said Totoki (via VideoGamesChronicle). "And basically, with regards to new IP, of course, you don’t know the result until you actually try it.

"So for us, for our reflection, we probably need to have a lot of gates, including user testing or internal evaluation, and the timing of such gates. And then we need to bring them forward, and we should have done those gates much earlier than we did.

"Also, we have a siloed organisation, so going beyond the boundaries of those organisations in terms of development, and also sales, I think that could have been much smoother.

"And then going forward, in our own titles and in third-party titles, we do have many different windows. And we want to be able to select the right and optimal window so that we can deploy them on our own platform without cannibalization, so that we can maximize our performance in terms of title launches. That’s all I have."

Sony senior vice president for finance and IR Sadahiko Hayakawa discussed the success of Helldivers 2 and the failure of Concord.

"We launched two live-service games this year," he said. "Helldivers 2 was a huge hit, while Concord ended up being shut down. We gained a lot of experience and learned a lot from both.

"We intend to share the lessons learned from our successes and failures across our studios, including in the areas of title development management as well as the process of continually adding expanded content and scaling the service after its release so as to strengthen our development management system.

"We intend to build on an optimum title portfolio during the current mid-range plan period that combines single-player games – which are our strengths and which have a higher predictability of becoming hits due to our proven IP – with live-service games that pursue upside while taking on a certain amount of risk upon release."

Concord released for the PlayStation 5 and PC on August 23, and it was shut down on September 6.

A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012 and taking over the hardware estimates in 2017. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel. You can contact the author on Twitter @TrunksWD.

Full Article - https://www.vgchartz.com/article/463026/sony-discusses-what-lessons-can-be-learned-from-the-failure-of-concord/

EA Sports FC 25 has debuted in first place on the Canadian charts for September 2024, according to data from Circana (formerly The NPD Group) reported by the Entertainment Software Association of Canada (ESA).

There were four other new releases in the top 10 with NHL 25 debuting in second place, The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom in third place, Astro Bot in fourth place, and NBA 2K25 in 10th place.

Star Wars: Outlaws is in fifth place, Hogwarts Legacy is in sixth place, and Madden NFL 25 is in seventh place. God of War: Ragnarök is in eighth place following the release of the PC version and Elden Ring is in ninth place.

Top 10 best-selling games in Canada:

1. EA Sports FC 25 - NEW
2. NHL 25 - NEW
3. The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom* - NEW
4. Astro Bot - NEW
5. Star Wars: Outlaws
6. Hogwarts Legacy
7. Madden NFL 25
8. God of War: Ragnarök
9. Elden Ring
10. NBA 2K25* - NEW

*Digital sales not included

A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012 and taking over the hardware estimates in 2017. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel. You can contact the author on Twitter @TrunksWD.

Full Article - https://www.vgchartz.com/article/463027/ea-sports-fc-25-debuts-in-1st-on-the-canadian-charts/

Donald Trump pulled out of another mainstream interview Thursday–this time nixing a sit-down with NBC News.

The interview, CNN reported, would be in Philadelphia with NBC News' senior business correspondent, Christine Romans. CNN’s Brian Stelter said one source suggested that it had only been “postponed.”

It was the second time in a week that he had canceled a scheduled appearance outside the conservative news sphere, CNN’s Reliable Sources reported Thursday. He had canceled an in-studio appearance on the CNBC flagship show, Squawk Box, which was due on Friday.

Read more at The Daily Beast.

Inflexion Games are closing their UK office, laying off staff and restructuring their main Canadian studio after failing to find commercial success with their Victorian fantasy survival game Nightingale. Reportedly, at least 22 people have been let go.

Read more

Some days, I wonder if every word written before a trailer is actually superfluous. It’s a visual medium, after all. What can a description achieve save to clumsily gesture at the true shape of something; a dog-eared tour brochure for a thrilling weekend spelunking in Plato’s cave? I can usually shake this feeling, but gory zombie action game Showa American Story is my breaking point. There is nothing I can impart about this thing that will not be conveyed better by allowing its new trailer to wash over you like a tide of sheer videogame. Here’s it:

Read more

Typing Of The Dead released in arcades 25 years ago remains a masterpiece - funny, absurd, tense, and novel. I am keen on any game that aims to follow in its footsteps, and there are a few. The latest is Blood Typers, a horror game where you tippity-tap on your keyboard to fight montsters in a spooky mansion, but this isn't a rail shooter, so you'll be typing to explore and navigate, too.

It's now got a release of February 2025, and there's a demo you can play now.

Read more

One of my lesser quality tests for an RPG is whether the shopkeepers complain at you for not buying anything. Grumpy shopkeepers, good RPG. This most specific of litmus tests has served me well, although I must admit that I’d happily upgrade it to ‘shopkeepers you can attack’, would that not disqualify 99% of games. But not turn based dungeon crawler Thysiastery, it turns out. This “dungeon crawler RPG featuring traditional roguelike and turn-based gameplay” apparently trusts you enough to let you recklessly batter its friendly wandering lizard merchants. You’d be a monster for it, of course, but it’s nice to have options.

Read more

Steam's built-in game recording feature has been usable in beta since the summer, but it has now been properly launched for every user, following a client update to Steam yesterday. It's basically another method of capturing funny ragdoll glitches and posting them on the "lol-games-are-dumb" channel of your friend's Discord. Or for posting that flukey knife throw in Call Of Duty to Twitter, as if you really meant to kill the man from across the map all along. Or saving a clip for your personal records, like the footage of that time you yeeted an innocent citizen off the 50-foot wall of a castle town in Dragon's Dogma 2. We all do that, right? Right?

Read more

Call Of Duty: Black Ops 6 has been out for a little while already, what with me giving its multiplayer largely a thumbs up. Still, it's an ever-evolving thing and Activision have announced the game's first seasonal drop. It's a hefty one with a lot of additions, so I'll try my best to break down the good stuff. TLDR: there's some new maps for multiplayer and zombies, new modes, and a few extra bits. I'm mildly excited for more. More in this case is good.

Read more

Watch Video | Listen to the Audio

JUDY WOODRUFF: It’s been almost a month since Hurricane Maria destroyed much of Puerto Rico and killed at least 48 people. The island and its residents are still coming to grips with the scale of the devastation.

William Brangham brings us the latest.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Many Puerto Ricans are still in the dark, without electrical power. Hundreds of thousands still have no access to running water, and the rebuilding of the countless damaged homes, roads and facilities is just beginning.

The Associated Press reported yesterday that almost half the sewage treatment plants on the island are still out of service, increasing the risk of contamination and disease.

I’m joined now by David Begnaud. He’s a correspondent from CBS News who’s been doing some very strong reporting there from since when the storm hit, and is just back from his latest trip to the island.

David, welcome to the NewsHour.

I wonder. We saw many of your reports and others of people still three weeks out from the storm who are still drinking from streams and creeks. You heard — I mentioned this AP report about fears of contamination.

Can you just tell us what is going on there? How are people getting water now?

DAVID BEGNAUD, CBS News: Well, let me tell you this.

The governor of Puerto Rico said this morning that he’s aware of those reports and that they’re looking into it. What’s concerning, William, is that three weeks after the storm and at least a week after the allegations first surfaced that people might be trying to drink from toxic wells at what’s known as Superfund sites, the governor of Puerto Rico is still saying, we’re looking into it and telling people to stay out of rivers where sewage may be spilling into the river.

And, he said, we want them to stay away from the coastal areas.

How are people doing? They’re still desperate to get water. No one seems to be able to figure out how to get enough water to every single person on that island who needs it. And as long as people need water, it’s still an emergency phase.

Nearly four weeks later, no one seems to be able to move from the emergency to the recovery.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: So, people who are — we see them drinking out of these PVC pipes that they have kind of rigged and sort of poked into the side of a creek.

People are just drinking that water straight, without purification, without boiling it; is that right?

DAVID BEGNAUD: Absolutely.

Look, they have got the PVC pipes tapped into the mountains so that it’s coming out of the stream that way. And they literally are — I saw a woman walk up to a potable water tank that the military had brought in, and she had a Clorox bottle.

And I said, “Ma’am, you’re putting drinkable water in a Clorox bottle?”

And she said, “It’s all I have got.”

Now, that was a good scenario. The other scenarios are people right now who are drinking from streams and creeks and rivers who have no water filters, who have nothing, right? They’re just taking this water.

Now, listen, the government got a million water-purifying tablets within the last week. It took almost three weeks to get those. Now there’s a large push to bring in water filters.

I have got to tell you, most of the water filters I’m seeing brought in are coming from the private sector, and civilian samaritans who are getting 1,000 or more from the mainland and flying them over to Puerto Rico and personally hand-delivering them.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: That’s really incredible.

Medical facilities were another big — just a huge devastation on the island. I know you have been doing a lot of reporting on the USS Comfort.

DAVID BEGNAUD: Yes.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: This is the huge Naval hospital that is now just offshore Puerto Rico.

But I understand it hasn’t been fully utilized. Can you tell us what your reporting has found there?

DAVID BEGNAUD: The two men running the ship told us that nearly 87 percent of the ship is empty. Sounds alarming, right? They have 200 beds, and 87 percent are empty.

Now, here’s what they said: We stand ready for whatever the government wants to do. We are waiting to be told by the government.

So, I went to the governor, and said exactly what’s happening. And he said: “Look, I’m not satisfied with what the protocol was from the beginning.”

He said, initially, they were prioritizing only the most critically ill patients go to the Comfort. And he said there was a layered process that was complicating things.

So, the governor, Ricardo Rossello, said: “I started to take out some of those layers, and I, said, listen, take people on the ship who may not be critically ill, but need good medical care and can’t get it at the hospital, where the lights are flickering and the A.C. is not running.”

That’s what the governor said.

Within a matter of hours, I got a tweet from a third-year medical student who said: “Let me tell you what a nightmare it has been to reach the Comfort.”

He said: “We have got a pediatric patient who desperately needs to get off this island, either to a hospital on the mainland or to the Comfort.”

And he said: “I went through Google and the local newspaper to find the number. I couldn’t find it.”

Now, here is how things work. Within about 30 minutes of that tweet going out and that medical student’s story being posted, the governor’s spokesperson responded with numbers that should be able to help.

The bottom line here, William, is that asking relentless questions and the good work of journalism is what’s making a difference there. It’s no one person. There’s no heroic work that’s being done by any journalist, other than people who are going back to the same officials and asking some of the same questions, relentlessly seeking the right answer that will make a difference.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: One of the other pieces of reporting that you did that was very early in the story was this backlog of supplies trapped in container ships on the ports in Puerto Rico.

I understand some of that — some of those supplies are now moving. Can you tell us, are they getting to where they need to be throughout the island?

DAVID BEGNAUD: So, the shipping containers you’re talking about, about 3,000 sitting in the Port of San Juan, have been moved out, not all of them, but a majority of them.

And they were intended for grocery stores around the island. Right? So, those were private companies that had brought in these shipping containers, paid for the supplies, but couldn’t move them because their truck drivers were either at home, because the home had been destroyed, or the road was impassable.

More and more supplies are getting out. But let me tell you, the grocery stores around the island, they have a lot of nonperishables, Pringles, candy, cookies, all on the shelf.

But when you go to the meat section, it’s nearly 75 percent empty at the stores we have been to, the produce section 90 percent empty. And finding bottled water there is almost like playing a game.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: David Begnaud, CBS News, thank you so much for your reporting. Thanks for your time.

DAVID BEGNAUD: You bet.

The post Puerto Ricans still don’t have reliable drinking water, and fears of contamination are rising appeared first on PBS NewsHour.

Chancellor Rachel Reeves has torpedoed the UK's economic recovery with her tax-and-spend Budget but Ed Miliband is the one who worries me.

Lightning strikes near Earth give rise to electromagnetic waves called “whistlers” that can carry energy high enough above our planet to pose a risk to satellites and astronauts

News of the asteroid 2024 RW1 impacting near the Philippines may have come as a shock this week, but space agencies and astronomers around the world are keeping an eye out to protect us

In between two spacecraft visiting Jupiter’s moon Io, a volcano spreading material over hundreds of kilometres has appeared

As the space industry evolves, we need a new set of international regulations to decide who is responsible for safety, the number of satellites in space, and more

Nearly imperceptible quantum flickers used to limit how precisely we could detect the way space-time ripples, but squeezing the laser light used in detectors overcomes this and doubles the number of gravitational waves we can see

A detector on the International Space Station found signatures of unexpectedly abundant antimatter – which may have been created in clashes of dark matter particles

A small world in the outer solar system appears to have volcanic activity possibly spurred by liquid water

A Spot robot equipped with a blowtorch can locate weeds on farms and precisely heat them up to stop them growing, offering a possible alternative to herbicides

Combining two neural networks has helped researchers predict potentially disastrous collapses in complex systems, such as financial crashes or power blackouts

Electromagnetic radiation leaking from the cable between your computer and monitor can be intercepted and decoded by AI to reveal what you are looking at

To address the problem of AIs generating inaccurate information, a team of ethicists says there should be legal obligations for companies to reduce the risk of errors, but there are doubts about whether it would work

AI tools could help eliminate human bias in forensic investigations, say UCL scientists, who are using eye-tracking technology to study decision-making in skeletal analysis and crime scene examinations

After their initial training phase, AI algorithms can’t update and learn from new data, meaning tech companies have to keep training new models from scratch

Researchers trained a polymer gel to play the computer game Pong by passing electric current through it and measuring the concentration of ions

Computers made from DNA have previously only been able to store information or perform computations on it – now a new device can do both

A cyberterrorism charge in Pakistan connected to riots in the UK illustrates how authorities are reaching across borders to tackle disinformation, but bringing overseas suspects to justice won't always be possible

CAPTCHA tests are supposed to distinguish humans from bots, but an AI system mastered the problem after training on thousands of images of road scenes

It has become trivially easy to use artificial intelligence to edit images or generate video to remove unwanted objects or beautify scenes, but doing so leads to people misremembering what they have seen

Hurricane Helene hit a quartz mine in North Carolina that is key to global semiconductor production, which could impact the entire tech industry. Here is everything we know so far

Motion sensors in smartphones can be turned into makeshift microphones to eavesdrop on conversations, outsmarting security features designed to stop such attacks

It is thought that humans can only maintain relationships with around 150 people, a figure known as Dunbar's number, but it seems that AI models can outstrip this and reach consensus in far bigger groups

AI models have safeguards in place to prevent them creating dangerous or illegal output, but a range of jailbreaks have been found to evade them. Now researchers show that writing backwards can trick AI models into revealing bomb-making instructions.

Google’s NotebookLM tool is billed as an AI-powered research assistant and can even turn your text history into a jovial fake podcast. But it could also tempt you into narcissism and nostalgia, says Jacob Aron

A lithium-ion battery made from three droplets of hydrogel is the smallest soft battery of its kind – and it could be used in biocompatible and biodegradable implants

Scientists used AI to transform tourist photos into a 3D digital map of Antarctic penguin colonies – even as researchers debate whether to harness or discourage tourism in this remote region

An off-the-shelf millimetre wave sensor can pick out the tiny vibrations made by a smartphone's speaker, enabling an AI model to transcribe the conversation, even at a distance in a noisy room

An AI-assisted robot can listen to spoken commands and assemble 3D objects such as chairs and tables out of reusable building blocks

The finale doesn’t look to provide a definitive answer to what drove Aaron’s actions, much to the show’s credit.

Emma Raducanu struck a deal to return to one of her favourite tournaments.

As we share our truths and witness each other's, we build unity and community.