KFC Tray Liner Is a Bluetooth Keyboard
Greasy fingers and your cell phone -- not a good match, right? Which might be the reasoning behind a German KFC promotion, the "Tray Typer."
The bluetooth enabled placemat is designed to replace the paper you usually find lining your tray. The ultra thin, cutting edge tech has a built-in keyboard which you can use to answer all those important emails and texts while downing Original Recipe, or Extra Crispy if that's your thing.
Endgadget reports the Tray Typers were so popular that every single one was taken home by the KFC customers, which wasn't supposed to happen. They were built with the idea to be wiped down and used again by the next customer.
White Halo: MCC Xbox One Bundle Announced for U.S.
Halo fans in the United States will soon be able to purchase a white Xbox One that comes bundled with a digital copy of Halo: The Master Chief Collection.
According to a post on Major Nelson's blog, the console will be available later this month and retail for $350. Here's a look at the bundle's packaging.
Life is Strange, Episode Three Review
With Chaos Theory, its most recent episode, Life is Strange is beginning to straddle the line between the predictable and the unexpected. I felt like I knew what was going on, but after two hours of sifting through puzzles and dialogues, after I was so sure about what was coming next, Life is Strange flipped everything it has established on its head, making me think the next episode will introduce a radically different game.
It's hard to critique what happens in Chaos Theory without spoiling some significant plot points, for both this episode and the previous one, Out of Time. How others interact with protagonist Max Caulfield and what she sees as she wanders Blackwell campus will differ drastically depending on the ending you achieved in Episode Two. The tone is either heartbreakingly somber or surreally uplifting as Max is treated like the town hero. There's a moment where she's allowed to reflect on all that, free from the squiggly hand-written arrows indicating environment objects to interact with, that becomes one of the episode's more poignant moments depending on how patient you are. She either feels lost or invisible, and the intensity of her feelings--the intensity of this moment--brings to light how meaningful the choices you've been making really are.
Until now, you've been guiding Max, with her unexplainable time-rewinding powers, on a quest to find missing girl Rachel Amber and expose the weird conspiracy surrounding Arcadia Bay. At the same time, you're helping her navigate her relationship with Chloe, her troubled childhood best friend. Episode Three makes you question, for the first time in Life is Strange, just how much good Max is actually doing by screwing with time. If you thought Episode Two's ending was harrowing, the latter third of Episode Three is even more devastating. It's a negative emotional payoff, but a strong one worth chasing nonetheless.
Chaos Theory is also where Life is Strange begins to show its Twin Peaks DNA; you can even find the words "fire walk with me" scratched on a mirror in the diner's bathroom. If the Pacific Northwest setting and mystery surrounding a girl and her secrets a la Laura Palmer weren't a tip-off, Max's journey begins to resemble that of Agent Dale Cooper as she struggles to connect the dots between what people are and are not saying. Things are getting weirder and you spend most of the episode talking, rewinding time, and talking again, plumbing cops and fellow students for information on Rachel's disappearance and the town's not-so-secret drug ring.
These intricacies of conversation are interesting, and when you aren't talking, you're exploring. I'm genuinely surprised by the amount of smaller side-actions you can choose to complete in Chaos Theory. As you search for items needed to advance the story, you can stop to look at photos, snoop through laptops, and examine objects, and in some of these cases you can actually alter these objects. For example, you can alter the guest list for an exclusive party or retrieve Chloe's gun. The environment is populated with small pieces of character development, post-it notes and photos that show whom Arcadia Bay's residents really are, and you can spend a sizable chunk of time getting lost examining them all. One fetch quest in Episode Three revolves around David, Chloe's "step-douche," and the mementos of his life Max finds both humanize him and make him frightening in ways previous episode have not.
Life is Strange's strengths lie in littering your path with beautiful scraps of people's lives, but its weaknesses lie in the aforementioned fetch quests. Episode Three uses the same kind of retrieval puzzles that dragged down the momentum of Episode Two: stopping the story to grope in the dark for bomb ingredients or scouring a house top to bottom for eggs can be tedious and breaks the heightened tension of a very well-constructed episode. The solutions to these puzzles may be a little on the obtuse side; in the search for eggs I mentioned above, you find them in a place that is not logical and that doesn't make sense in the context of the scene. These sections still feel out of place and too "gamey" for what developer Dontnod is trying to accomplish emotionally throughout the rest of the episode.
Fetch quests aside, the environmental puzzles in Episode Three make more frequent use of Max's powers. You rewind time to sneak away from teachers and security guards, bypass locked doors, and turn the tables by bullying one of the characters threatening the girls. The time-rewinding mechanic is given a brilliant chance to shine; rather than stuff it into situations so Max can show off or amuse Chloe, it is implemented in smart ways that make it feel like a natural fit. After two episodes of wiring players to think about time travel as an extra tool in their pocket, Chaos Theory is finally using it in both big and small meaningful ways.
As Max gets braver and more confrontational, her relationship with Chloe begins to strengthen. Chaos Theory shows two young women in a radically different relationship than in the first episode. Their reminiscing on the past becomes fonder, their interactions warmer. Life is Strange consistently nails the odd, unexplainable way young women become best friends and how they treat each other; even Chloe's occasional roughness as she attempts to guilt Max for leaving her shows the sincerity of her affection for her old friend. Max is also comfortable calling Chloe out on her more aggressive, rude behavior, but now Chloe is willing to own up to it. These two have grown into their own, and watching them race through a quad holding hands reminded me of those weird, wonderful teenage years with my own best friend. Their relationship is finally blooming, and Dontnod supports this growth with heartfelt dialogue and a handful of very touching scenes between the two.
It's such a shame, then, that Dontnod ruins this tenderness by shoving in a ham-fisted moment suggesting Max and Chloe may be, or become, more than just friends. The moment is fleeting, awkward, jarring, and is only brought up once more in the episode by Max, with no response from Chloe. There is no lead up to this, no fade in or fade out of the moment; it happens, and then goes away.
In some scenes, characters stare at each other with lifeless eyes. There's a scene between Chloe and Max in which the script drops its silly teenager speak and becomes an emotional high point in the pair's relationship arc. It's sweet, and the two say a lot by saying very little. However, while they are talking, they are staring past each other with vacant zombie eyes. This has been present in previous episodes, with some scenes featuring characters that look dead-eyed, but it's in Episode Three that it becomes a real moment-killer.
Beyond the mood-breaking fetch quests and blank stares, however, Life is Strange has finally come into its own in Episode Three, shedding some dialogue and pacing problems from previous episodes. Max takes several big gambles and is now paying her dues, the full potential of her power realized in one terrifying day. Despite her growing bravery, she is becoming exhausted, and Dontnod is doing an excellent job of conveying to you, the player, just how much things are grinding on her. You feel the story's turning point like a knife to the ribs as Chaos Theory comes to a close, and the slow reveal of the potential of Max's powers is surprising and devastating. Max's goals, balancing a personal life and solving a mystery, have finally funneled into the same path, and with the entire story left turned on its head, there's no way to tell where things are going.
7 Things Marvel Can’t Do in Captain America: Civil War
Warning: Beware of spoilers for Marvel’s Civil War comic and all Marvel Studios movies!
While it’s certainly exciting that one of Marvel's most popular and polarizing comics will be adapted for the big screen in next year's Captain America: Civil War, we are a bit perplexed as to how Marvel Studios will go about adapting the story. Civil War's entire foundation utilizes many elements that currently do not exist in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, so the filmmakers certainly have their work cut out for them. We've compiled a list of the core elements that they won't be able to feature.
Before we start listing them off, it’s worth noting that Marvel can certainly make use of these elements if they find a creative way to make them work. There's still one more Marvel movie to come out before Civil War -- July's Ant-Man -- so there’s a lot that could change between now and then. Therefore, this list is only based off of the Civil War comic and the MCU as it exists right now.
What’s New for DC in August?
DC released their full solicitations for August 2015 this week. Don't expect many new series to debut that month, as the focus remains on the company's post-Convergence relaunch and the epic Darkseid War storyline. However, as we reported last week, the popular DC Comics Bombshells statues will be in the spotlight with a new wave of variant covers and an ongoing series of their own.
New Series:
- Batman: Arkham Knight - Genesis #1 (resolicit)
- DC Comics Bombshells #1
- Harley Quinn: Road Trip Special #1
Bowser Is Nintendo’s New Vice President of Sales
Nintendo of America has appointed Doug Bowser as the new Vice President of U.S. sales (sorry if we got your hopes up).
Bowser joins Nintendo after having previously worked for EA as Vice President of Global Business Planning. Nintendo notes that Bowser brings "decades of experience" to the company, "not fire breath."
“Effective today, Doug Bowser (no relation to the King Koopa and Mario’s longtime nemesis) will oversee a variety of sales-related functions, including Sales, In-store Merchandising, Retail Strategy and Retail Marketing," reads the Nintendo press release.
At EA, Bowser was responsible for console, PC, and mobile games forecasting.
For more on the world of Nintendo, you can read our Puzzles & Dragons: Super Mario Edition review, which we found to be "the shining star alongside the less successful Z."
Octodad: Dadliest Catch Wobbling Onto PS Vita Next Week
Developer Young Horses has announced that Octodad: Dadliest Catch will be coming to PlayStation Vita on May 26.
Octodad will be a cross-buy title, so if you already own the game on PS4, you will automatically gain access to it on Vita. However, it will not have cross-save support.
In addition, there is a new feature allowing local co-op play on one device, with one player on each side of the console.
You can read IGN's review of the PS4 version of Octodad: Dadliest Catch right here, where we said that "Young Horses has done an excellent job taking the diamond in the rough that was the original Octodad student project and turning it into a short but charmingly absurdist physics game. While it doesn’t quite take the extra step that would cement its place as a classic, lovers of physical comedy owe it to themselves to check Dadliest Catch out."
US Air Force Launching Mystery Space Mission Today
The US Air Force's space plane, X-37B, is going into orbit today for the fourth time.
It's launching aboard a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket, which will take off from Florida's Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.
The Air Force is still remaining quiet about the purpose of the X-37B, and while some speculate it might be some type of space weapon, officials have denied such reports, reaffirming that the launch is to test new space technologies. It's also worth noting that NASA has an experiment aboard the rocket.
Coincidentally, this is also the day that the solar powered spaceship LightSail will get a test flight.
Report: Apple Ditches Plans for Apple TV Sets
Apple’s long-awaited TV set won’t be happening any time soon, sources close to the project believe.
According to the Wall Street Journal, via CNet, Apple has quietly dropped plans to continue developing an ultra-high-definition television set, which was reported to include a camera for video calls and other “cutting-edge” features.
Those features, whatever they were, simply weren’t compelling enough to impress Apple executives, the Journal reports.
Recruit A Friend To Xbox, Get 12-Months of EA Access Free
Microsoft is offering you 12 months of free EA Access for referring a friend to buy an Xbox One console.
Select Xbox One owners have been allocated a voucher code via email. If a friend uses your code to purchase a Xbox One console, Forza Horizon 2, and a three-month subscription to Xbox Live via the Microsoft Store before June 21, they'll get the lot for £315 and you'll each get a free 12-month subscription to EA Access.