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تقييم: The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening
The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening إعادة تطوير بالكامل للعبة التي صدرت على جهاز Game Boy في ١٩٩٣ وكانت أول لعبة زيلدا على جهاز محمول، جديدة كليُا وجميلة مع الاحتفاظ بتصميم وطريقة لعب اللعبة الأصلية. تجربة كلاسيكية فريدة بشكل عصري وجذاب.
معلومات اللعبة
الناشر: Nintendo
المطور: Grezzo
تاريخ الإصدار: 20/9/2019
النوع: أكشن
التصنيف العمري: GCAM +7 (التصنيف العمري السعودي)
عمر اللعبة: 20+ ساعة (تقريبي)
الأجهزة الخاصة باللعبة ↓ Switch (جهاز التقييم)
تحتاج إنجليزي؟: نص ونص
الايجابيات
رسوم اللعبة رائعة ومبهرة، فلازالت تحافظ على الكاميرا العلوية والجانبية، ولازال العالم بالضبط كما كان في النسخة الأصلية، لكن الرسوم تم بناؤها بالكامل بشكل جذاب ولطيف يحافظ على روح اللعبة الأصلية، وشخصية Link بالذات ظريفة. نجاح تام في اختيار توجه فني يحافظ على روح اللعبة الأصلية مع كونه عصري وجديد.
كونها لعبة قديمة على جهاز محمول يعني أنها تركز على اللعب، بنظام بسيط متقن، وعالم كثيف بالأعداء والشخصيات والتحديات والفعاليات الجانبية. كذلك مناطق التحدي dungeons غنية وسريعة وكعادة السلسلة هناك مهارات وأدوات جديدة تجدها مع التقدم في اللعبة تساعدك في الوصول لمناطق جديدة وفي التغلب على تحديات جديدة. اللعبة قد تكون قصيرة نسبياً لكنها من زمن كانت الألعاب تركز على اللعب بدون حشو وفراغات ويجعلها تستحق اللعب حتى بعد ٢٦ سنة.
لاتعطيك اللعبة تلميحات كثيرة سوا الهاتف داخل اللعبة الذي تستطيع الاستعانة به من وقت لآخر، لكن بسبب طولها القصير نسبيًا يجعلها تجربة تعتمد فيها على نفسك ومهاراتك مع قليل من الحظ.
بالإضافة إلى الرسوم الجميلة، الموسيقى تم تحسينها وإضافة مقطوعات جديدة، وهي من أجمل الموسيقى في السلسلة، خاصة انتقالها من حماسية إلى مرعبة بكل سلاسة.
اللعبة كانت بداية إضافة طابع الغرابة والفكاهة لعالم وشخصيات اللعبة، والقصة والحوارات وإن كانت بسيطة فهي ساحرة وظريفة وتضيف الكثير لجو اللعبة وتميزها، خاصة كون أحداثها في جزيرة نائية بدلًا من Hyrule وعدم وجود الأميرة زيلدا أو Triforce.
التحكم تم تحسينه حيث هناك زر دائم للضرب بالسيف وآخر للصد، بالإضافة إلى زرين تستطيع إسناد أداتين لهما، بينما في الأصلية كنت تحتاج للتبديل بين استخدام السيف والدرع و الأدوات أخرى. أيضًا تمت إضافة طور تستطيع تكوين مراحل تحدي dungeons لتلعبها وتحصل على جوائز منها.
السلبيات
الأداء متذبذب، فهناك لحظات كثيرة يسقط فيها الأداء لثواني ثم يرجع، مما يفقد اللعبة جزء من بريقها وإن لم يؤثر على لعبها.
كلعبة في أساسها لعبة محمولة من التسعينات فهي قصيرة نسبيًا، خاصة كلعبة بدون محتوى جديد، وأحيانًا التقدم يعني تجربة كل شيء والرجوع لجميع المناطق والتبديل المستمر بين الأدوات المسندة لزري X و Y.
جدير بالذكر
تستطيع استخدام Amiibo للحصول على مكونات لمراحل التحدي dungeons في الطور الجانبي الجديد.
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لا وجود لطور اللعب الجماعي في The Last of Us Part 2
رغم التقارير التي ظهرت في الفترة الماضية بخصوص المنافسات الجماعية في The Last of Us Part 2 مثلما حدث في أول جزء، إلا أن تلك الأخبار تم نفيها جملة وت... View More
Mario Kart Tour review: Mario Kart just doesn’t feel right on a phone
Nintendo’s mobile games always feel just a little bit ... off. The games, like Super Mario Run, Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp, and Dr. Mario World, never come close enough to the polish and pleasure of playing a Nintendo game on a console or handheld. The same is true of the new Mario Kart for phones, a free-to-play racing game that looks and sounds like Mario Kart, but lacks the joy of its fully-featured counterparts.
Mario Kart Tour is unsurprising in how it plays. It features many of the karts, characters, and race tracks seen in Mario Kart 8, but strips down mechanics and controls to suit touchscreen devices. To play, I need only swipe left or right on the screen to steer and drift. I swipe up and down to throw items ahead of my driver or behind them. I can touch the screen to get a boost off the starting line, but otherwise the accelerator is pressed down automatically.
Steering and drifting can feel awkward at first, and Nintendo offers a couple control options if I want to focus on simplicity or a little more finesse. Sometimes, though, steering feels almost inconsequential, as the game can feel as if it’s playing itself. I’ve come in third place in 150cc-class races without steering or touching the screen at all, in fact.
Currently, Mario Kart Tour consists of a variety of cups. Each cup contains three two-lap races and one challenge course, ostensibly designed to teach players a skill or gameplay mechanic. There are a huge number of cups, and the grind required to earn stars to unlock those cups is daunting.
Mario Kart Tour is a single-player experience. I race against bots — bots with what appear to be actual Nintendo Account usernames, initially giving the impression that you’re playing against real humans — and they’re easy to beat. It’s unexciting; I don’t feel compelled to keep racing against computer-controlled opponents to earn stars, unlock cups, earn gear, and spin the prize wheel (a warp pipe) to get a loot box.
Maybe it’s the monetization, so rote and familiar at this stage in mobile gaming, that’s demotivating me to play this particular Mario Kart. I can earn gold coins in races to eventually acquire something from the shop, or I can use rubies (a premium currency that I can earn a pittance of freely, but must buy with real money if I want a usable amount in a rational amount of time) to launch a random prize high into the air.
But I also have Mario Kart 8 Deluxe within reach, where I already have dozens of characters and kart parts unlocked. Grinding out currency to hope for a 0.3 percent chance to unlock Peachette is not reward enough for churning through a lesser Mario Kart experience against bland computer-controlled opponents.
Souring the experience somewhat is Mario Kart Tour’s bizarre Gold Pass, a $4.99 per month subscription fee that unlocks the 200cc racing mode and offers some gold-colored rewards. It’s optional, yes, and its value is highly questionable. But it feels like an outlandish purchase in the face of Apple Arcade, the game subscription service that seems designed to counter heavily monetized free-to-play games like Mario Kart Tour.
Mario Kart Tour stalls right from the starting line. It lacks the competitive thrills of other Mario Kart games, focusing more on an endless series of unlockable virtual things to acquire.
But it appears that a full multiplayer mode is coming to Mario Kart Tour, which may provide more thrills than chasing AI-controlled kart racers and the daily drip feed of currency. For now, however, this is hardly a vital addition to Nintendo’s library of games, mobile or otherwise.
September 27, 2019
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Konami shows it’s still willing to fight for soccer
A partnership means Manchester United isn’t PES 2020’s only Premier League team, but the game still leans heavy on unlicensed ringers
PES Productions/Konami
It seems unfair to the game and its developers, but it’s hard to evaluate Pro Evolution Soccer outside of the context of EA Sports’ FIFA series. But it’s also the most favorable light in which one can view eFootball PES 2020, a formidable, strong-playing rival that has thrown some sharp elbows in a licensing game dominated by the bigger publisher.
Deep inside PES’ machinery is, once again, a stronger and more challenging game of football, though it does expect some familiarity with the franchise’s systems, or a long re-acclimatization to them (I was the latter). Something seemed ... off about the pace of play, which slows down players somewhat but really made passing and shooting feel clumsy. Then I realized that PES 2020 has subtly woven in mishits to both systems, and it’s not just a dice roll tied to a player’s attribute ratings. Whether I’m facing a passing target (or the goal) or how fast I am moving with the ball make both tasks a lot less certain.
This plays to PES’ long-standing strength: that it’s a much more thoughtful soccer experience that rewards player spacing, deliberate passing and rock-hard focus, and informed decisions on both offense and defense. You can skirt these expectations at lower difficulty levels, but why would you? Play FIFA if you want nine shots on target and an easy 9.0 match rating for your best player.
My standard for a sports video game that isn’t my strength is whether a stripped-down, basic approach — none of the right-stick razzle dazzle of NBA 2K or NHL, in other words, just solid ball movement and pressure defense — can still deliver victory. It can in PES 2020, provided I show the game a lot of respect in how I care for my scoring opportunities and respond to the AI’s. But there is enough sizzle in the right stick, contextually applied (unless the player is trained up in a specific trick using that stick) to create separation against weak defenders, too. That in turn calls attention to the game’s stronger clubs, whose defenders can’t be broken down with simple feints.
One year after anchoring FIFA 19’s box cover, Cristiano Ronaldo is on a club — Juventus — that is exclusive to PES 2020, forcing EA Sports to put a ringer name on a big club for once.
PES Productions/Konami
They’re easier to break down, though, when they’re the ones feeling the pressure of a late score. The first fixture of my Master League career, with Serie A’s Lazio against Juventus in Italy’s Supercoppa, I managed to score around the 75th minute (which itself seemed divinely inspired, a high cross to a no-doubt-about-it header). Now Juve was concerned, pushing hard into my defense but similarly exposed to a counterattack — making the second goal (a simple through-ball to the center of the field) seem easy by comparison. I’d like to think this is how an elite side loses 2-0 in real life, too (although Lazio is not a garden-variety club, either).
For comparison, I picked up sentimental favorite and recently promoted Hellas Verona to see if I could get the result in their Serie A opener. Nope. This is around the time I realized what the game was doing with its passing and shooting, especially for middling players. If headed shots on goal are more viable, then other volleys are less so, even at angles I felt like I’ve been able to make in the past. Just messing around in the game’s tutorials and blowing clean shots will demonstrate this. My player’s momentum and direction matter a lot more, or at least give the game more reasons not to place my shot perfectly.
CHANGES TO PASSING AND SHOOTING CUT DOWN ON PING-PONGING THE BALL WITH PERFECT ACCURACY.
There are some other under-the-hood things that, in retrospect, inform the more distinctive play in PES 2020, match to match. Some players have an “inspirational” quality to them — meaning teammates in the area get more involved, either going on runs through the defense or coming over from the wing instead of waiting, and the standard AI plays rather passively without this (most on display in the single-player Be A Legend mode, which received no discernibly new features or improvements).
Again, while I appreciate the differentiation, all of this stuff is buried deep inside the menus and other reports on your own players, such that you need to scout your own team as much as the opponent until you build up enough familiarity at the end of a season. PES 2020’s menus are no fun; they rarely explain themselves or highlight important information, making such preparations feel tedious and chorelike as opposed to the realistic obligation of any winning manager. The game assumes you know a lot already — about it, about the team, about its real-life strengths and weaknesses (not just their reputations). It’s still playable for newcomers early into a season or a career, but until I complete a Master League season, I’m probably going to feel like I’m missing some key strength or player through which I should really be running my offense.
PES 2020 is one of those iterative works that doesn’t show major changes or shiny new features in its core modes, instead deriving most of its improvement from better gameplay that serves all areas. MyClub remains a more sedate and proportionate response to FIFA’s Ultimate Team, with a focus on developing players long-term as opposed to opening pack after pack. The mode also smartly presents the odds of getting a player through the “agent” you use to sign them — in MyClub, an agent is effectively a marker, earned through play, to get a player at a particular position. There’s still a surprise mechanic (there’s that term again) in finding out who the agent signs. But if the mode overall is less flashy, less stimulating, then it’s also not as money-grubbing as FUT.
Now in the 16th season with Barcelona, Lionel Messi is still a considerable presence both within, and over, Konami’s PES franchise.
PES Productions/Konami
It’s also encouraging to see that Konami is still committed to licensing, as much with deals for big-name clubs (Juventus, Manchester United) as whole tournaments like UEFA’s Euro 2020. EA Sports has, over the years, added in official branding for Italy’s top division, taken over the Champions League, and made modest progress in adding Brazilian and Argentine clubs. But a cost-conscious, franchise-mothballing Konami is stubbornly sticking with its soccer project despite the skin necessary to stay in this game. Forcing EA to call Juventus “Piemonte Calcio” is a huge coup, and feels like payback for every “Merseyside Blue” or “North East London” that PES has been stuck with over the years.
As to that, while Manchester United and Arsenal remain the only licensed Premier League clubs in the game, PES 2020 has actually gotten bolder about what it names its ringer clubs, though English football fans will still likely download and apply user-created names, kits, and the like (and on console, can do so only with the PlayStation 4). It’s kind of a subtle thing, but it is striking to see Konami fighting for any game after bailing out so comprehensively on its biggest names over the past four years.
And PES cognoscenti — there still are many — have a game that is again worth the fight. I know that to sit down for a PES match is to be challenged as much in my thinking about soccer as in my ability to play it as a video game. Pro Evolution Soccer’s best quality is also its dirtiest secret: It makes me a better FIFA player. eFootball PES 2020 doesn’t make me forget about its competition, but it does force me to reckon with what I really want from a soccer video game, and who really meets those needs.
eFootball PES 2020 is now available on PlayStation 4, Windows PC, and Xbox One. The game was reviewed using a final “retail” PS4 download code provided by Konami.
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Official Call of Duty®: Modern Warfare® – Story Trailer
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On October 25th, when the world is threatened, you’ll have to get your hands dirty so the world stays clean.
In a desperate mission, Captain Price and the SAS will partner alongside the CIA and the Urzikstani Liberation Force to retrieve stolen chemical weapons. The heart-racing fight will take you from London to the Middle East and other global locations, as this joint task force battles to stop full-scale global war.
Lines will be drawn, your resolve will be tested, and the world will look to you to do what needs to be done.
Follow us for all the latest intel:
Web: http://www.CallofDuty.com ;
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The Last of Us Part II – Release Date Reveal Trailer | PS4
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Watch the all-new trailer for the The Last of Us Part II, launching on PlayStation 4 on February, 21, 2020.
Learn more and pre-order http://thelastofus.com
September 25, 2019
118 views
Two engineers from Midway pulled their truck up to an arcade, threw open the shutter door, and rolled out a plain black cabinet. They wheeled it into the cool, dimly lit den of flashing screens and plugged it in near two of Capcom’s Street Fighter 2 machines. Then they waited.
“It was like stepping into a ring against Mike Tyson at his prime. But, we flipped the switch and sat back and watched,” said John Tobias, co-creator of Mortal Kombat.
At first, the cabinet just sat there. Then the attract mode ran. Grainy clips of digitized actors running through sequences of martial arts moves played out. The screen faded, and two characters squared off atop a narrow stone bridge set against a cloudy night sky. They moved toward one another, throwing kicks and punches — and then one crouched down and swung a right hook that connected under his opponent’s chin, launching him into the air and splattering blood all over the walkway.
One of the players at the back of the line to play Street Fighter 2 stepped out of place, walked over to the black cabinet, and dropped in a quarter. A few seconds later, someone else wandered over. Two more joined them. Three more. By the end of that weekend, the Street Fighter 2 cabinets had been abandoned. “That’s when we knew MK had the potential to become a phenomenon of its own,” Tobias said.
On the surface, Mortal Kombat was one in a growing line of Street Fighter 2 clones. All were gunning for Capcom, the king of the one-on-one fighter. Thus far, no one had even come close.
“I was a Street Fighter 2 fanatic. I was competitive,” said Sculptured Software’s Jeff Peters. “I would go to tournaments at local arcades, and it was, all right, how long can you hold the machine and take on all comers? It started the whole fighting-game frenzy: Everybody was knocking off Street Fighter 2.”
None of the knockoffs seemed able to capture SF2’s perfect storm of vibrant graphics, unique characters, and fast gameplay. Until Mortal Kombat. “From the game’s inception we knew that it would not be a clone,” Tobias said. “If we looked at Street Fighter, it was to study how not to do something in Mortal Kombat. I remember we just sort of conceded to the raw look of digitized footage. I think that was the right choice because it went a long way in making sure that our game would stand-out visually from Street Fighter 2.”
MK’s most notable difference was its aesthetic. Where SF2 looked like a cartoon, MK looked like an R-rated film. Its environments were grungy and dark. Its characters were lifelike thanks to a process that involved recording real actors performing all the moves. “I also think that the time we spent developing the characters and story, which was an odd thing to do in an arcade product, helped build a larger world in the minds of our players,” said Tobias. “That impact lives with MK even in its most recent iterations. Of course, our brand of violence is in large part what gave us a seat at pop culture’s table.”
And Mortal Kombat had blood. The red stuff sprayed and splattered when players punched, kicked, and knocked each other into the air. But it was most abundant at the end of each match, when victorious fighters were given a short window of opportunity to perform a Fatality on their dizzied opponent. If the move was entered correctly, the screen darkened, and the blood flowed: the blue-clad ninja Sub-Zero tore off his opponent’s head with the spinal cord attached; movie star Johnny Cage, a nod to Jean-Claude Van Damme from when MK’s original design starred the popular martial-artist-turned-actor, punched his victim’s head clean off; and Kano, a master criminal with a metal plate covering half his face, ripped his opponent’s still-beating heart from their chest.
Mortal Kombat’s fatalities were so graphic that they had to literally be seen to be believed. One kid would hold court on a playground and strive to convince a jury of peers that he’d seen one character rip off his face and breathe fire, reducing the other guy to ashes and bones. Another kid swore up and down that a fighter in a white jumpsuit and straw hat could zap characters’ heads off with a bolt of lightning. “That breeds interest and foot traffic,” later GamePro editor Dan Amrich said of the rumors surrounding MK’s gory finishing moves, “and before you know it, you have people looking closer because that controversial thrill was so unexpected. And that’s going to be very powerful with kids whose media is largely — and rightfully! — gatekept by their parents. Here’s a game you’re know you’re ‘not supposed to play,’ even if you haven’t been strictly forbidden to play it. It tapped into the lure of the forbidden.”
At first, Jeff Peters didn’t know what to make of Acclaim’s offer to contract Sculptured Software for a Super NES version of Mortal Kombat. Midway’s bloody brawler seemed like just another SF2 imitator. Yet below the surface, he saw something special. “Finishing Moves were different and funny, so that was another attraction point. And as a fighting game, it worked.”
Putting his pro skills to work, Peters played the game for hours and wrote up a detailed analysis of what MK had going for it, and what he saw as the biggest hurdles standing in the way of a successful port.
Pros: It wasn’t a shameless Street Fighter 2 copycat; it had a unique art style that would resonate with older players put off by Capcom’s cartoonish visuals; and the violence was so over-the-top, so absurd, it was humorous and charming. There was no harm in fatalities and uppercuts, Peters concluded, because no one could possibly take them seriously.
Cons: The game’s art style, hundreds of frames of animation, detailed backgrounds, and flashy special attacks, would be a bear to port. Nintendo’s 16-bit hardware had its advantages, but paled in comparison to Midway’s coin-op innards.
“My first analysis was that it would not reach the same level of Street Fighter 2 because of how different it was, the audience Street Fighter 2 had already built, the number of units it sold, all that stuff,” Peters said.
Still, it was settled. Acclaim hired Sculptured to do the SNES port, while Probe, a studio based across the pond, would handle a Sega Genesis conversion. Farming out the same port to more than one studio was an unorthodox move, but one that Peters understood.
“By separating the two SKUs, Acclaim was hedging their bets,” he said. “They were compartmentalizing the work that each developer would do. So, although it cost Acclaim slightly more money to have two different developers making two versions of the same game independently, it at least allowed for more focus. I think that helped get the project done within their timeframe, because there definitely wasn’t much time.”
Peters enjoyed his quiet life. The peace and quiet of the suburb where he lived provided a pleasant contrast to the long hours and crazy demands of his work at Sculptured Software. His neighbors were friendly, and tightly knit by the bonds of Mormonism, the dominant religion for large swathes of Utah, including Peters’ neighborhood. Every morning on his way to the office, he’d make small talk with friends out watering lawns, fetching the paper, or getting ready for their own commute.
One morning, Peters said hello to a neighbor and got a chilly stare in return. Peters went cold. They know, he thought.
“I was ostracized in the neighborhood I lived in because they found out I worked on Mortal Kombat,” he said.
Peters didn’t realize he’d been cut out of the inner circle right away. Every now and then, his doorbell would ring, and he’d find one of the neighborhood kids peering in. “Do you guys do drugs?” one blurted. Startled, Peters said no. The kid scampered home.
“Do you worship Satan?” another tyke asked.
“Are you really gay?”
“My mom says you’re going to hell. How come she says that?”
His all-time favorite question never failed to brighten his mood. “My mom says we can’t play Mortal Kombat, but can we come in and play it at your house?”
Mortal Kombat’s violence bled into every aspect of the lives of developers assigned to its conversions. “One of the key things that Sculptured and Probe had to solve completely differently was the whole violence thing,” Peters recalled. “This gets into the backdrop of things going on with the gaming industry.”
Things were touchy at the office. One of the programmers went to Peters and insisted he could only work on Mortal Kombat if his name was not attached to the project. “If his family came to visit the studio, we’d tell them he was working on something else,” Peters said. “Half the studio had grown up here in Utah and refused to have anything to do with Mortal Kombat. This stigma, depending on your worldview, made Mortal Kombat something either really cool, or Satan incarnate.”
Mortal Kombat’s blood, as seen in the arcade version of the game
Warner Bros.
Mortal Kombat’s gore was a sensitive subject for American society at large. The moment word of fatalities spread beyond arcades and into schools, homes, and churches, parents and politicians went on the warpath. Editors at magazines like Time wrote special features that questioned whether video games, formerly the domain of happy-go-lucky cartoon characters like Nintendo’s Mario, had finally gone too far by depicting graphic death with character models that resembled real people instead of mushrooms and turtles. Senator Joseph Liebermann of Connecticut joined forces with other politicians to crack down on Mortal Kombat and other adult games, opining that their gruesome content was no different than an R-rated movie and shouldn’t be marketed toward children.
Nintendo was firmly on the side of politicians like Liebermann. The Japanese game maker had built a reputation as a purveyor of fun for the whole family. True to form, Sega opposed its rival, but only to a point. A number of court hearings that devolved into reps from Sega and Nintendo hurling insults at each other eventually led to the formation of the Electronic Ratings Software Board (ESRB) in the summer of 1994. Moving forward, games were assigned ratings intended to gives parents a heads-up about their content.
But late in the summer of 1993, with Mortal Monday fast approaching, the ESRB was still nearly a year away. Sega and Nintendo gave their consent to hosting Mortal Kombat on their platforms as long as Probe, Sculptured Software, Midway, and Acclaim held to certain rules. Sega’s compromise was sticking an “MA-13” rating on the Sega Genesis version, the rough equivalent of a PG-13 rating on a movie.
Nintendo went further than trusting parents to decide if their kids were mature enough to handle MK’s bloodshed. An internal division called The Mario Club exercised nearly total control over the publishing process. “You’d actually get game and feature criticism as well,” said Peters. “You’d get it from their gaming analysts. First, you’d get approval to make the game. Then you’d submit the game for approval. Then they would give you bug reports, and then they’d give you qualitative reports of, ‘Here’s the stuff that’s good, here’s the stuff that’s bad.’”
While content creators such as Midway owned their IP, the Mario Club, on behalf of Nintendo exercised control over what form that IP could take on Nintendo platforms. Content the analysts deemed unfit, for any reason, had to be changed. “Nintendo’s goal of their new publishing agreements was to avoid what happened with the [the market crash of ‘83],” Peters said, “by controlling and regulating the content so that shelves weren’t filled with unsold crap again.”
Nintendo’s Mario Club team sent word to Acclaim and Sculptured Software that Mortal Kombat had to be sanitized on Super Nintendo. Blood was changed to gray “sweat” that didn’t splatter on the ground, unlike blood from the arcade version. The change benefitted hardware concerns as well as satisfied Nintendo’s strict guidelines. “It was more like real sweat because it disappeared, and that made Nintendo happy,” Peters explained, “but [dissipating instead of splattering] also got sprites off the screen. There were only so many sprites we could render per frame. Having sweat linger on the ground meant more sprites, meant flashing or other issues with the characters.”
Sega operated under looser guidelines. Higher-ups knew that catering to older players would make Sega’s version more appealing to that demographic. A Sega engineer, Paul Carruthers, helped make it happen. Carruthers was on-site to help with bug testing near the end of production when permission to sneak blood and gore into the game came down from on high. “I moved down there for a period of maybe a month, three months at the worst,” he said. “They would put me up in a bed-and-breakfast in Croydon, and I became an honorary employee. It was close to the end that we found out things like Nintendo wouldn’t allow blood in the SNES version, and they wouldn’t allow blood in Germany. There was this backlash against what was, at the time, a very violent game.”
Mortal Kombat’s blood in the arcade version, the Super Nintendo version and the Sega Genesis version
Warner Bros.
By default, Mortal Kombat on Genesis was clean, without even a drop of the sweat found in the SNES version. Sega had voluntarily scrubbed out blood and replaced fatalities with replacements even tamer than those designed by Sculptured Software: Johnny Cage kicks his opponent across the screen, and Sub-Zero simply uppercuts them, sending them flying higher than usual before they crash to the ground. That would satisfy the politicians and parents up in arms over the game’s violence, and it was the responsible thing to do. But at the main menu, players could press down, up, left, left, A, right, and down, spelling out DULLARD, to reveal a cheat menu. In the secret screen, they could do things like enable blood, which also reinstated the original arcade fatalities, and choose which arena to fight in. “I came up with DULLARD, because it just amused me to arrange everything that was at your fingertips: A, B, C, and D, U, L, R for the movement. There’s not much more you can do with that,” said Carruthers.
Later, someone at Acclaim worried that DULLARD would be too hard for players to remember. “The ABACABB code was forced upon me: I was instructed to put in a code word that only used A, B, and C,” said Carruthers.
He wanted a mnemonic, but the limited number of buttons on the Genesis controller — three by default, though players could pay extra for a six-button controller — left him without much wiggle room. He settled on ABACABB, a nod to the album “Abacab” by rock band Genesis. At a screen just before the main menu, players could press A-B-A-C-A-B-B to enable all the blood and gory fatalities from the arcade hidden behind the thin veil of censorship. (All other cheats remained hidden in the DULLARD menu.) Carruthers’ last-minute addition became known as “the blood code” among fans and journalists, and remains one of gaming’s most infamous cheats.
Sega and Probe knew the existence of ABACABB and DULLARD would incur the wrath of Liebermann and parental groups. They kept both codes secret, trusting that some enterprising player would discover them. From there, word-of-mouth would imbue the Genesis version with a mystique that — fingers crossed — would give Sega an advantage over Nintendo in the 16-bit “console war.”
Dan Amrich and a friend were among the first to use the DULLARD code. Amrich had just graduated college and had pre-ordered Mortal Kombat for the Genesis, his console of choice. It was due to release on September 13, but his local store broke the street date and sold Amrich’s friend Carl a copy of the game early. Carl called up Amrich and mentioned that someone on Usenet, a bulletin board system where users could post messages about virtually any topic, claimed there was a blood code for the Genesis that made it nearly identical to the arcade. Carl wasn’t able to test the code, so he asked Amrich to do it.
“DULLARD opened a developer debug menu that let you not only toggle the blood on and off, but several other dev-test things, like making Reptile appear,” said Amrich, referring to Mortal Kombat’s secret character.
Amrich entered the menu and found switches that could be toggled on or off. Some, like “Blood,” were obvious. Others were head-scratchers; Flag 0, Flag 1, Flag 2, and several others were set to on or off, but contained no context as to what they enabled or disabled. “The only way to determine what they did was to go through, methodically, and test them. So I did that basically all weekend and came up with the definitive guide for what seven of the eight flags did.”
As seen in GamePro, the DULLARD code opened all sorts of options for players of Mortal Kombat on Genesis.
IDG/Warner Bros.
Amrich wrote up an exhaustive document that detailed the functionality of each flag. He asked his dad to fax it to GamePro, his favorite magazine, which gave a free t-shirt to anyone who sent in a cheat that could be verified. “A few days later I got a phone call from one of their editors, asking me how I got the code and if I was using this on a retail copy of the game. They had the EPROM for review, but they hadn’t gotten final retail versions yet. I assured them that it was legit and told them how I’d figured out all the flags.”
The editor who called was Lawrence “Scary Larry” Neves. (It was GamePro policy for each editor to write under multiple pseudonyms to make the magazine’s scrappy editorial team appear larger than it really was.) Neves thanked Amrich for his submission, and complimented him on his writing. Neves informed him that the cheat would run as a two-page spread due to all the hype surrounding Mortal Kombat. As a bonus, he paid Amrich the ultimate compliment. “We don’t usually get cheat submissions that are this clear and complete,” he said.
Amrich mentioned that he just happened to be looking for freelance work. Neves said the magazine didn’t have the budget for it at the moment, but he was welcome to try again in the future.
Several weeks later, Amrich’s t-shirt arrived in the mail. It was too small. A few years later, Amrich landed a job at the magazine. His first official act as a GamePro editor was to claim what was rightfully his. “I remember finding a GamePro shirt in a storage area and loudly proclaiming, ‘This is mine! You owe me this!’”
Xbox One game streaming service Project xCloud goes public in October
Microsoft’s Xbox One game streaming service, Project xCloud, will get a public preview test in October, letting select testers play games like Gears 5 and Halo 5: Guardians on phones and tablets.
The public preview of Project xCloud will initially be limited to players in the United States, United Kingdom, and Korea. Halo 5: Guardians, Gears 5, Killer Instinct, and Sea of Thieves will be playable as part of the preview, and Microsoft says it will add more titles over time. Testers won’t need to own the Xbox One games available during the Project xCloud preview in order to play them.
Players interested in taking part in the Project xCloud public preview can register for the closed beta based on their country. Microsoft says it will roll out invitations in a phased approach, starting with a “small number of participants,” and opening it up to more players over time.
Project xCloud’s public preview test will initially be limited to Android devices running Android 6.0 or higher with Bluetooth 4.0. Participants will also need a Microsoft account and a Bluetooth-enabled Xbox One wireless controller. Project xCloud will be compatible with WiFi and cellular networks, and Microsoft says it’s working with a number of cellular providers worldwide: SK Telecom in Korea, T-Mobile in the U.S., and Vodafone in the U.K.
Microsoft unveiled Project xCloud in 2018. The streaming platform aims to let players enjoy Xbox One games on mobile devices from the cloud, and will eventually let players stream their games from their own Xbox One consoles.
“Public preview is a critical phase in our multi-year ambition to deliver game streaming globally at the scale and quality of experience that the gaming community deserves and expects,” said Kareem Choudhry, corporate vice president for Project xCloud, in a statement. “It’s time to put Project xCloud to the test in a broader capacity, with a range of gamers, devices, network environments and real-world use-case scenarios, and this is where you come in. At Xbox, we’ve made it a priority to engage with all of you to help in the creation process. We now want you to play with us and share your feedback on Project xCloud so we can iterate and improve, week after week. Join us, have fun playing, share your stories and feedback, and be part of the journey.”
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لماذا بطاقات Geforce RTX Super هي خيارك الأفضل في عالم الألعاب؟
لا يختلف اثنان أنّ شركة Nvidia هي واحدة من أفضل الشركات حالياً في مجال إنتاج البطاقات الرسوميّة وتقنيّاتها سواء الخاصّة بالحواسيب المكتبيّة أو المحمولة، وفي كلّ عام تطلق الشركة مجموعة من البطاقات بتقنيّات وخصائص جديدة تجعلها تتربّع على عرش المنافسة أمام الشركات الأخرى لتكون في النهاية الخيار الأمثل للاعبين الذين يرغبون في الحصول على أفضل أداء ممكن.
شركة Nvidia أرادت الانتقال بالألعاب إلى مستوى مختلف تماماً العام الماضي من خلال إطلاقها لسلسلة البطاقات الرسوميّة GEFORCE RTX التي حملت معها تقنيّات ثوريّة جعلت التجربة البصريّة في الألعاب أقل ما يقال عنها بأنّها خياليّة لتكون أقرب للواقع الحقيقيّ بتفاصيلها الصغيرة.
ثلاث بطاقات جديدة حينها حملت أسماء: GEFORCE RTX 2060 ،GEFORCE RTX2070، GEFORCE RTX 2080، Geforce RTX 2080Ti دعمت تقنيّات RTX الجديدة التي شملت Ray Tracing و DLSS ولكن لتزيد Nvidia من حدّة المنافسة ولتقدّم للاعبين أداء أفضل مع هذه التقنيّات أعلنت في شهر يوليو الفائت عن بطاقات ضمن سلسلة جديدة حملت اسم RTX Super لتكون أفضل خيار للاعبين متوفّرٍ في الأسواق لحد اللحظة.
بطاقات Nvidia Geforce RTX Super
ثلاث بطاقات جديدة قدّمتها Nvidia ضمن عائلة RTX Super وهي:
Gefroce RTX 2080 Super
Gefroce RTX 2070 Super
Gefroce RTX 2060 Super
تقدّم البطاقات أداء يزيد بنسبة 25% عن البطاقات السابقة من سلسلة RTX في مختلف الألعاب، إذ تأتي بترددات أعلى وعدد أنوية أكبر مما يعني القدرة على الحصول على معدّل إطارات لايقلّ عن 60 إطار في ظروف لعب مختلفة سواء مع تشغيل تقنيّات RTX أو بدونها لتكون هذه البطاقات مناسبة للعب على دقّات متنوّعة تتراوح بين Full HD إلى 4K حتى مع معدّل إطارات مرتفع مثل 144 إطار على دقّة اللاعبين المفضّلة في الأيام الحاليّة 1440p.
أداء أعلى مع كسر السرعة بدرجات حرارة منخفضة
على الرغم من الأداء المتفوّق الذي تقدّمه بطاقات RTX Super إلّا أن بعض اللاعبين يرغبون بالحصول على أعلى الإمكانيّات التي تقدّمها البطاقات الرسوميّة عادة لمزيد من عدد الإطارات ضمن مختلف الألعاب، وهذا الأداء الإضافي يتم من خلال كسر سرعة البطاقة الرسوميّة وزيادة تردّدها إلّا أن هذه العمليّة يرافقها استهلاك طاقة أكبر مما يعني حرارة أعلى ولكن بفضل تصميم نظام التبريد المرفق والمراوح المستخدمة فالحرارة ستكون ممتازة سواء في وضعيّة الخمول أو الضغط إضافة لمستوى إزعاج منخفض مقارنة بتصميم التبريد التقليدي المستخدم سابقاً والمعروف باسم blower style Fan.
بطاقة Geforce RTX 2060 Super قادرة على الوصول إلى تردّد بقيمة 2025 ميجاهرتز بدءاً من التردد الأساسي 1650 ميجاهرتز مع درجة حرارة تصل إلى 74 درجة مئويّة.
أمّا بطاقة RTX 2070 Super فيمكن الوصول فيها إلى تردد 2050 ميجاهرتز بدءاً من التردد الأساسيّ 1770 ميجاهرتز بدرجة حرارة تصل إلى 64 درجة مئويّة وبطاقة RTX 2080 Super يمكنها الوصول إلى تردد 2025 ميجاهرتز بدءاً من تردد 1650 ميجاهرتز.
درجات الحرارة تتراوح بين 35 إلى 37 في وضع الخمول وعند الضغط تتراوح بين 71 إلى 74 درجة مئويّة، هذه النتائج جاءت بفضل نظام التبريد المرفق ضمن البطاقات الرسوميّة والمراوح المستخدمة التي يصل مستوى الضجيج فيها عند الضغط إلى 38db فقط مما يعني تبريد الكرت بالشكل المطلوب دون أي إزعاج يذكر.
استهلاك طاقة منخفض
في كلّ جيل جديد من بطاقات Nvidia تعمل الشركة على تقليل استهلاك الطاقة اللازمة لتشغيل الكرت خاصّة عند استغلال موارده بشكل كامل وهذا يعني انخفاض درجة الحرارة الناجمة عن عناصر الكرت بالمجمل.
إذ يتراوح استهلاك الطاقة بين 175 واط في بطاقة RTX 2060 Super إلى 250 واط في بطاقة RTX 2080 Super على عكس البطاقات الرسوميّة من الشركات الأخرى التي تنافس بطاقات Nvidia خاصّة في الفئة العليا، إذ وصل متوسّط استهلاك الطاقة إلى مايزيد عن 270 واط.
كسر سرعة تلقائيّ أفضل
كما ذكرنا في السابق، فبالإمكان الحصول على نتائج رائعة عند كسر السرعة اليدويّ في مختلف بطاقات RTX Super والوصول إلى تردّدات عالية مع الحفاظ على درجات حرارة جيّدة جدّاً ولكن في حالة عدم كسر السرعة اليدويّ يمكن للبطاقات الوصول إلى تردّد أعلى من التردّد الأساسي تلقائيّاً وهو ما يعرف بالتردد المعزّز Boost clock إذ تعمل البطاقات تلقائيّاً على زيادّة التردّد الخاصّ بها عند الحاجة للحصول على أفضل أداء ممكن ضمن الألعاب من خلال وذلك لأطول فترة ممكنة مع الأخذ بالاعتبار درجة الحرارة الخاصّة بالمعالج الرسوميّ وسحب الطاقة، ومن خلال تعريفات Nvidia المستمرّة ودعمها للألعاب بشكل كبير فالشركة تعمل على حصول اللاعب على أفضل أداء مستقرّ وثابت لأكبر فترة ممكنة.
بعض الشركات المنافسة أطلقت ميّزة شبيهة لميّزة Nvidia تحمل اسم Game Clock وتعمل بنفس المبدأ إلّا أنّها تعاني من مشاكل في عدم استمرار حصول اللاعب على تردّد عالٍ لأكثر من ثانيتين والعودة للتردّد الأساسيّ مما يعني عدم استمرار الأداء العالي عند الضغط على البطاقة الرسوميّة بعكس بطاقات Nvidia وهذا يعني تفاوتاً في عدد الإطارات التي سيحصل عليها اللاعب.
اللعب على دقّة 1440p في متناول اليد
في الأعوام الماضية كانت دقّة 1080p والحصول على معدّل 60 إطاراً في الألعاب هي المعيار الأساسي في الحصول على أفضل تجربة لعب ممكنة إلّا أن التطوّر الكبير الذي حصل في البطاقات الرسوميّة وانتشار دقّة 1440p الفترة الماضية مع التردّد العالي مثل 120 و 144 هرتز غيّر بعض المفاهيم في مجتمع اللاعبين.
اللعب على دقّة 1440p أصبح معياراً أساسيّاً للكثيرين سواء مع معدّل إطارات عالٍ أو معدّل 60 إطاراً في الثانية الذي يعتبر طموح الكثيرين من اللاعبين، فمع بطاقات RTX Super يمكن الحصول على أكثر من 60 إطاراً في الثانية في مختلف الألعاب الحديثة منها والقديمة على أعلى الرسوميّات بسهولة كبيرة.
ولكن مع تشغيل تقنيّات الرسوميّات الجديدة مثل تتبع الأشعّة Ray Tracing و DLSS هنا يكمن التحدّي خاصّة مع دعم كثيرٍ من الألعاب الجديدة لتلك التقنيّات.
بطاقات RTX Super قدّمت أداء جيّداً للغاية أيضاً في الألعاب على أعلى إعدادات للرسوميّات مع تشغيل تلك التقنيّات التي يعرف عنها بأنّها تقدّم تجربة بصريّة مذهلة ولكن على حساب عدد الإطارات وبالطبع في الإصدارات القادمة من بطاقات Nvidia هذا الأمر سيتحسّن بشكل كبير.
فعلى سبيل المثال بطاقة RTX 2070 Super يمكنها تشغيل لعبة Battlefield V على دقّة 1440p وبأعلى الرسوميّات مع تشغيل تقنيّات RTX بالكامل والحصول على أكثر من 60 إطاراً في الثانية الواحدة حتّى أن بطاقة RTX 2060 Super كانت قريبة من هذا الأداء بمعدّل 51 إطاراً في الثانية الواحدة.
تقنيّات RTX.. المستقبل الواعد
لا يخفى على أحدٍ التجربة البصريّة المذهلة التي قدّمتها Nvidia مع إطلاقها لتقنيّات RTX خاصّة في البداية مع لعبة Battlefield V، الانعكاسات والظلال جعلت تجربة اللعبة ضرباً من الخيال.
صحيح أن البطاقات السابقة عانت قليلاً من انخفاض الإطارات عند تشغيل تقنيّات RTX بشكل كامل ولكن مع بطاقات RTX Super الوضع تحسّن بشكل كبير وفي المستقبل ستكون هذه التقنيّات هي المسيطرة بشكل أكيد مع الألعاب الكثيرة التي بدأت تحصل على دعم كامل لتشغيل تقنيّات RTX.
تقنيّة تتبع الأشعّة في الوقت الآنيّ REAL-TIME RAY TRACING أتاحت إمكانيّة الحصول على ظلال وانعكاسات واقعيّة في اللعبة وذلك من خلال دعم أنوية منفصلة RT CORES أضافتها Nvidia إلى سلسلة بطاقات Geforce RTX وليس بالاعتماد على برمجيّات معيّنة فقط مما أتاح إمكانيّة تحسين الإضاءة بشكل كامل ضمن الألعاب الداعمة.
إضافة لذلك أتاحت Nvidia ضمن بطاقاتها أنوية منفصلة للذكاء الاصطناعيّ TENSOR CORES ساهمت في تحسين وتسريع الأداء ضمن الألعاب خاصّة مع دعمها لتقنيّة DLSS التي تعمل على إتاحة رسوميّات أفضل ضمن الألعاب وتنعيم الحواف وتحسين الصورة بالاستفادة من تقنيّات الذكاء الاصطناعي مع ضمان الحصول على عدد إطارات مرتفع في نفس الوقت.
ألعاب جديدة تدعم تقنيّات RTX
عدد محدود من الألعاب كانت تدعم تقنيّات RTX عند إطلاق سلسلة بطاقات Geforce RTX ولكن حاليّا أصبح هناك عدد هائل من الألعاب التي تدعم تلك التقنيّات وعناوين أخرى كبيرة للغاية ستدعم التقنيّات سواء الخاصّة بتتبّع الأشعّة RT أو DLSS ليصل عدد الألعاب إلى 21 لعبة تشمل التالي:
Battlefield V – Control – Metro Exodus – Quake II RTX – Shadow of the Tomb Raider – Stay in the Light – Wolfenstein: Youngblood – Atomic Heart – Call of Duty: Modern Warfare – Cyberpunk 2077 – Doom Eternal – Dying Light 2 – Enlisted – Justice – JX3 – Minecraft – Mechwarrior V: Mercenaries – ProjectDH – Synced: Off Planet – Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 – Watch Dogs: Legion
تجربة Nvidia المتكاملة
مايميّز شركة Nvidia وبطاقاتها هو أنّها أنشأت عالماً خاصّاً بها يهتم باللاعبين بشكل كامل بدءاً من حصولهم على بطاقات رسوميّة مميّزة إلى استغلال ميّزات وقدرات هذه البطاقات بأكبر شكل ممكن من خلال الميّزات التي أرفقتها معها، تعاريف مخصّصة مع أحدث وآخر الألعاب، تسجيل اللقطات أثناء اللعب، البث المباشر وغيرها الكثير.
برنامج Geforce Experience الذي تدعم Nvidia بطاقاتها من خلاله يقدّم الكثير من الميّزات والتي تشمل:
Nvidia Instant Replay: تقوم هذه الميّزة بتسجيل لقطات اللعب بشكل مستمر بزمن يصل إلى 20 دقيقة ويمكن للاعب الاحتفاظ بلقطاته المفضّلة خاصّة في الأحداث المفاجئة بضغطة زرّ واحدة في أي وقت يريده.
Nvidia Instant Replay: تتيح هذه الميّزة للعاب تسجيل لقطات اللعب في أي وقت يريده من خلال أزرار مخصّصة من لوحة المفاتيح بالمدّة التي يريدها وذلك بالاعتماد على الحجم الذي خصّصة مسبقاً ضمن برنامج Geforce Experience دون الحاجة لاستعمال أي برامج تسجيل خارجيّة ودون خشية انخفاض عدد الإطارات أثناء اللعب.
Ansel: تسمح هذه التقنيّة للاعب بالتقاط لقطات شاشة من الألعاب بتقنيّة 360 درجة ليتمكّن لاحقاً من مشاركتها مع أصدقائها في أي مكان خاصّة في وسائل التواصل الاجتماعي التي باتت تدعم الصور بتقنيّة تصوير 360 درجة.
G-Sync: تقنيّة معروفة وثوريّة ساعدت في توفير تجربة لعب فريدة والتخلّص من الانكسارات في الصورة والتقطع من خلال المزامنة بين عدد الإطارات التي تولّدها البطاقة الرسوميّة مع معدّل تحديث الشاشة عبر إضافة قطعة في كلّ من الشاشة والبطاقة الرسوميّة، والجميل في الأمر أيضاً أنّ شركة Nvidia بدأت في الفترة الماضية بدعم الشاشات أيضاً التي لا تتيح تقنيّة G-Sync وتستعمل تقنيّات أخرى مثل FreeSync.
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