Month: May 2022

Warhammer 40,000: Chaos Gate – Daemonhunters, a turn-based tactical XCOM-like, is decidedly unsubtle. A colon and a dash! “Daemon” with an e! The excess! Like Games Workshop’s iconic pumped-up Space Marines, there’s something exuberant about this game. From the soaring cathedral spires of your battlecruiser HQ to your hulking, Grey Knight supersoldiers, Daemonhunters‘ aesthetic is thunderously loud.

Only a few minutes into the tutorial mission, my gruff squad of four Grey Knights are shoulder-barging through blast doors and into a demonic lair in slow motion. I order them to throw a frag bomb at them. A few underlings remain in the corner. The top-down tactical view suddenly and slickly zooms in on the projectile, the camera admiring the grenade’s contours for a split second, before doing a bullet time spin and zooming back out for a devastating overlook. On the same turn, I tell a second knight to slam into a pillar, thereby toppling it over and wrecking another congregation of enemies.

In my long campaign against the forces of Chaos, I witnessed these door breaching, grenade-throwing, and pillar-knocking animations countless times, and yet, after 40 long hours, I still haven’t gotten tired of seeing them play out. My fully-equipped squad of teleporters teleported down to the planet with a lightning flash. It’s something I can’t get enough of. The Interceptor, my favourite toy soldier man, has never bored me. Like many of the game’s classes, he’s melee-focused — but he can also teleport. As a single-man army, he acts as an ally to the enemy, showing up behind their lines and killing weaker enemies. He can also use the Daemon Hammer’s knockback ability to keep larger targets away. (He can knock opponents off cliffs or into pits which is a little like cheating, in the best possible way).

Image: Complex Games/Frontier Developments plc

Much like Gears Tactics, Daemonhunters is an aggressive simplification of the XCOM formula. These percentage-based missed chances are gone, along with much of Firaxis’ sprawling scifi series.

Instead, Daemonhunters deploys a fast-paced system of stuns and executions, where successive attacks drain a meter, force an enemy to their knees, and allow for a melee execution that awards additional Action Points to everyone in the squad. Used efficiently, it’s possible to keep your turn going almost indefinitely. After being psychically enhanced by his Justicar, and given biomancy from the Apothecary, my Interceptor blinks between each execution, which allows the squad’s momentum and energy to build as they crush the enemy below them like an unstoppable Juggernaut.

While the combat in the present is quick, the campaign drags on. As is the case in XCOM, Daemonhunters places a strategic layer on top of its turn-based skirmishes. This layer tasks you with upgrading various sections of the Baleful Edict battlecruiser, from the industry of the Manufactorum to the research of the Libris (as is often the case in the Warhammer 40K universe, the Empire’s proper nouns are Latinized.)

Image: Complex Games/Frontier Developments plc

Using your Strategium map, you will navigate through star systems trying to eradicate the infestations or plagues that have ravaged the cluster. It’s like a game of whack a mole. Daemonhunters‘ antagonists are the Nurgle — grotesque creatures obsessed with disease and mutation, but whose sense of humor makes for a fun contrast. At the micro level — with body-horror creatures sprouting extra limbs — Nurgle are the perfect foil to your sullen Grey Knights. However, in the big picture, having to fight off constant blooms of infection across the galaxy can quickly become tedious.

On top of this, a lot of Daemonhunters‘ missions act as filler. The levels are made up of highly destructive terrain that is chest high and purposely designed for Space Marine coverage. There are many worlds that you will explore, each with its own sci-fi portsacabins. Even though the environments may look slightly different, they feel identical. The most annoying aspect is that many missions will force you to wait for your ship’s teleportation systems to come online before concluding. Suddenly, a quick 15-minute excursion spins out into something twice as long. Tactical repetition is, of course, part and parcel of this genre. It feels especially egregious in this game, as the tactical elements feel so stripped back and the available strategies feel less like XCOM’s vast variety buffet, but more like a base for the story.

Daemonhunters‘ campaign feels like it’s dragging its feet in part because the story is so good. The game’s best attribute, however, is delayed by the tedious combat and the resource collection. It is an evocative Gothic piece, filled with purple prose and grim bureaucratic details about the Grey Knights’ imperium.

Image: Complex Games/Frontier Developments plc

While you play an anonymous commander, there are three central characters on the Baleful Edict: a duty-bound veteran, a slightly unhinged tech-priest tuned to the whispers of the “Machine God,” and an ambitious young Inquisitor whose arrival kickstarts the plot. They are all superbly voiced and directed and each show a remarkable amount of nuance, as the Nurgle spreads across the galaxy. They also seem to be able to bounce off each other as tensions mount onboard and the campaign moves towards an epic end.

Daemonhunters‘ writing, story, and characters are easily its best attributes. Although I was expecting turn-based combat with utmost precision, I ended up wondering if I should be reading one of the tie-in novels. With mentions of “ancient archeotech,” “astropathic whimsy,” and “ruinous algorithms,” it’s exactly the kind of opulent, over-the-top stuff I love. Daemonhunters may only focus on a single faction, but by hyperfocusing on the Grey Knights, it manages to adeptly explore some of Warhammer 40K’s most interesting and expressive elements. From concepts of the “Warp” and the “Cult of the Machine” to thickly laden themes of corruption and heresy — this is that grimdark universe at its very best.

While there’s enough tactical depth and customization to sustain a playthrough, much of Daemonhunters‘ battles feel like vehicles for getting across its great story, and not the other way around. For many, XCOM is as much about the long journey — failures and do-overs included — as it is the destination. And while I don’t think Daemonhunters offers that same kind of obsessive replayability, it does lay a crunchy, thrilling tactical base for its brazen aesthetic and brilliant story to tread upon.

Warhammer 40,000: Chaos Gate – Daemonhunters will be released on May 5 on Windows PC. Frontier Developments plc provided a prerelease code for the game. The PC review was conducted using this code. Vox Media is an affiliate partner. Vox Media has affiliate partnerships. These don’t influence editorial content. Vox Media can earn commissions for products bought via affiliate links. You can find additional information about Polygon’s ethics policy here.

The Star Wars sound design has a history as well as the visuals. Darth Vader’s breathing, the bleeping dialogue of R2-D2, the buzzing of light sabers, Chewbacca’s roars, the Starfighter lasers – all of these sounds and more are instantly recognizable and immediately evoke the related visual imagery.

Apple has shared a 16-minute Behind the Mac documentary on how George Lucas’s Skywalker Ranch facility creates the sound effects that help bring the Star Wars universe to life, and the role which Macs play in this …

Apple’s documentary short Skywalker Sound: Behind the Mac (below) offers a fascinating look into the rarely seen world of movie sound design.

It is often stated that sound at minimum are as important as the movie. Perhaps more than 50%:vPeople will watch a poor-quality video if they are caught up in the story and the dialogue is clear, but they won’t watch great videography with hard-to-hear dialogue.

But dialogue is only part of the story. Background sounds can play an important role in the scene’s life-enhancing qualities. This is what lead Star Wars creator George Lucas to build a huge facility dedicated to this.

This is the site of Skywalker Ranch, the vast facility owned and conceived by George Lucas, the creator of the epic Star Wars universe. Skywalker Sound is the centerpiece of this ranch, which offers world-class audio editing and mixing as well as post-production facilities. The 153,000-square-foot, red-bricked building [is] surrounded by vineyards and the man-made Lake Ewok […]

Soundminer is a sound-library system that allows you to search for keywords almost as poetically in your specificity. It keeps up with Skywalker Sound’s constantly expanding library of over a million sounds.

Macs are absolutely integral to the facility. Ben Burtt, the sound designer for the original Star Wars films, says that he started with a Macintosh SE, which he used for writing. He says that it was this experience that prepared him for digital sound editing.

“Sound editing in a way is really the same as word processing; cutting and pasting files,” Burtt continues. “All the experience I had on the Mac immediately gave me training for what came along in cutting digital sound. I started cutting using a Mac with Final Cut in the late ’90s, and now have four Mac computers. Each handles a different process: one for picture editing, sound editing, manuscript writing, I’m completely surrounded. They’re labeled Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta.”

(Yeah, I also want to know what the fourth one does. )

Today, Skywalker Sound uses 280 Macs.

Sound editor Ryan Frias takes you on a tour through Skywalker Sound’s central machine room. He describes it as the “brains” of the entire stage operation. “When you have a thought and you really want it out there on a blank canvas like that, you really need fast tools that can give you the results as fast as you think.” The studio’s force of 130 Mac Pro racks, 50 iMac, 50 MacBook Pro, and 50 Mac mini computers running Pro Tools all connect remotely to this central power source.

One sound designer even used an old PowerBook!

” I enjoy happy accidents, and I love getting unexpected results from technology,” Nelson says. I love playing with digital systems where the clock is wrong. This means that the bits don’t flow correctly. It’s broken, it sounds like bad radio. I have a really old PowerBook, and it has certain old software I like to use; I can feed recordings into it and digitally break them.”

The full piece is well worth reading, and you can watch the video below.

On a personal note as an amateur videographer, I was fortunate enough to have encountered the concept of sound design before I made my first-ever film, a one-minute film called The Decisive Moment. So much so that after I created the scene-by-scene storyboard for it, I actually sourced the sound effects before I shot the video. They all made it to the final cut, except one.

If you’re looking for Star Wars deals, for collectibles, LEGO, and more, check out the round-up over at 9to5Toys.

The official version of Samsung Internet 17.0 is now ready for download on Google Play or Galaxy Store

Samsung Electronics officially released Samsung Internet 17.0 today,¹an upgrade that brings user-centric privacy and security features to the browser. The latest version includes Smart anti-tracking and HTTPS priority access set as defaults, with new ways of web authentication. Drag and drop tabs and translation options have been added to improve the user experience.

“With each new generation of Samsung Internet, we have committed to engineering a superior browsing experience that never compromises on privacy or security,” said Heejin Chung, Head of Web R&D Group at Mobile eXperience Business, Samsung Electronics. “Samsung Internet 17.0 is the result of years of research that has allowed us to put our most powerful and protected browsing experience yet in the hands of any Galaxy user.”

Privacy by Default

Samsung Internet 17.0 enhances the AI-powered Smart anti-tracking function, which is now turned on by default. ² This feature will help to block third parties attempting to track users’ personal information and users can also default to a safer HTTPS setting when typing a URL on Samsung Internet 17.0.

Smart anti-tracking function turned on by default.

Fast and Easy Access to Privacy Activities

Samsung Internet 17.0 gives users a comprehensive overview of how Samsung’s browser is protecting their web experience. With Samsung Internet 17.0, a visual snapshot of a user’s privacy dashboard is available via the Quick Access page. The Quick Access page provides a visual snapshot of a user’s privacy dashboard. It includes recurring activities as well as settings which can be modified to meet users’ privacy preferences.

Users can check the privacy dashboard on the Quick Access page.

Samsung Internet 17.0 also provides a way to use external security or on-device security keys as an alternative for SMS or App-based two-factor authentication.

A Smoother, More Powerful User Experience

Samsung’s latest browser update includes several enhancements to its overall user experience, including the ability to drag and drop tabs into custom tab groups. This makes navigation and organization smoother and faster.

Easily drag and drop to categorize tabs into groups.

Samsung Internet 17.0 will also bring improved search experiences across bookmarks, history and saved pages. The browser recognizes common user typos and can process word-based matching queries to find phrases or sentences from a database based on bookmarks and saved pages. Phonetic matching also enables searching for specific terms based on how they sound, and translation capabilities have been bolstered with the addition of five languages, bringing the total to 26. ⁴

Improve search experiences with typo recognition feature.

¹ Availability and timing may vary by market and carrier. [******************************************************************************************************************************************************][******************************************************************************************************************************************************][************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************

²Smart anti-tracking is available by default in the following countries and/or regions (as of May 4): Aland Islands, Albania, Andorra, Austria, Belgium, Bosnia, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Faroe Islands, Finland, France, Germany, Gibraltar, Greece, Greenland, Hercegovina, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Macedonia, Malta, Monaco, Montenegro, Montserrat, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, San Marino, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Korea, Spain, Svalbard and Jan Mayen Islands, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom, United States, Vatican City State.

³Supported languages include: Arabic, Bulgarian, Chinese, Croatian, Czech, Dutch, English, French, German, Hungarian, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Portuguese, Rumanian, Russian, Serbian, Spanish, and Turkish, with the addition of five languages: Danish, Finnish, Norwegian, Swedish, and Vietnamese.

Mosyle is announcing the immediate availability of its Apple Unified Platform designed to fully integrate five critical applications into a single Apple-only solution for IT administrators. Mosyle is combining mobile device management, endpoint security, internet privacy and security, identity management, and application management into a single solution. With this announcement, Mosyle has also raised $196 million in Series B funding led by Insight Partners with participation from StepStone Group and all previous investors including Elephant and Album VC.

“Mosyle has been a pioneer in Apple device management. Its focus on product innovation, user-friendliness, and exceptional customer service have made it a top choice for businesses and schools large and small.” said Rebecca Liu Doyle, Insight Partners’ Managing Director. “With the launch of its Apple Unified Platform, Mosyle is one of the first companies to elegantly unify MDM with a broader suite of mobile security solutions.”

Mosyle’s Apple Unified Platform integrates five previously disparate features and functions into a single platform, including:

• Enhanced Device Management: Delivers full device management capabilitys for macOS, iOS, and tvOS, zero-touch deployment and automated ongoing management, support for shared devices, support for BYOD, and integrations with Google Workspace, Microsoft, Active Directory, and more.
• Endpoint Security: Mosyle endpoint security solution provides native antivirus and malware detection and will continuously scan, isolate, lock and wipe infected devices. It automates security and management of privileged accounts using Admin On Demand, which is the only and best privileged access management software for macOS.
• Internet Privacy & Security: This solution from Mosyle provides encrypted DNS functionality that automates web filtering and encryption on Apple devices. By focusing on the device instead of the network, customers get fast, secure, and reliable privacy and security in the office, at home, or a hotel
• Identity Management: Combines Single Sign-On functionality with multi-factor authentication to deliver increased security for all a company’s Apple devices. This solution ensures that every Mac is protected and simplifies the process for employees to use their work SSO accounts in order to authenticate Macs. Mosyle Identity Management supports Okta, Ping Identity, Microsoft 365, Google Workspace, and more.
• Application Management: Allows IT admins to remotely deploy, update and manage any compatible app on Apple devices regardless of if the app is available on the Mac or iOS App Store.

“Over the past year we’ve aggressively rolled out innovative security and management features that used MDM as a medium to extend protection to other layers of the device. Our new Apple Unified Platform is the direct result of this effort, and delivers on our vision of combining cloud-native architecture, automation, usability and best-in-class customer support for a radically new, fully-integrated approach to apple device management and security,” said Alcyr Araujo, founder and CEO at Mosyle. “This funding is validation of this vision and our belief that companies require more than traditional MDM in today’s hybrid work environment.”