The World Lets Out A Confused Sigh As Turkey Considers Banning Minecraft

Microsoft and Mojang have made good on the promise from E3 2017 that Minecraft would become a cross-platform gaming experience. With the “Better Together” update, players from mobile, Xbox One, and Windows 10 platforms can all play together. It should also be noted that while the Nintendo Switch version is still in development (with a “soon” release date at best) it will be cross-platform compatible upon its release.

Being able to play with your friends regardless of platform is a great step in the right direction for gamers as a whole and adds value to whichever edition players get theirs hands on. That being said, Sony opted out of being a part of this togetherness, meaning neither the PlayStation 3 nor PS4 versions will be compatible. Whether or not the comments in the video about the universe not exploding and everything being better together are meant at Sony directly will probably never be answered.

Xbox One is the only console that this update will take effect on, currently. Further, it should be noted that at the time of writing this that there has been a bit of word of lag-related issues in the community when playing on servers. While this is not ideal, Mojang and 4J Studios have been known to keep a steady stream of updates flowing, meaning that anything that needs ironing out post-update will probably be tended to.

Minecraft has launched across nearly every platform since its 2009 debut on PC, spanning Android, iPhone, X1, X360, PS3, PS4, Windows 10 and a future port to Nintendo Switch. The game features both local co-op and online across the platforms via split-screen and internet, respectively.

If you have any questions about what features or versions of the game are supported, Mojang put together an FAQ on the minecraft.net website.

Minecraft does an outstanding job of incorporating the co-op that we here at Co-Optimus are so fond of; you can read our review here (short version: we gave it a 5 out of 5, it’s amazing.) meaning that this update is just frosting on the cake. Will you be playing together with your friends, or has the lure of caves, monsters and diamonds wore off of you? Let us know in the comments below, and for all things co-op, stick with your friends here at Co-Optimus.com.

Minecraft Update Brings A Promising Future

Microsoft has announced a new update for the building and exploration game Minecraft. The new update will introduce several new features to the game.

The new update will introduce 4K graphics rendering, crossplay support and “massive servers”. When the new update hits, players will be able to play together regardless of which device the player plays the game on, if they are playing on special designated servers.

The new graphics update will bring 4K resolution rendering to the Xbox One version of the game. The PC version of the game already supported 4K resolution rendering. Both the PC and Xbox One versions of the game will also be able to make use of updated 4K resolution textures.

The Minecraft “Super Duper Graphics Pack” update launches this fall for PC, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, Android, iOS and several virtual reality devices. The PlayStation 4 version will not support crossplay multiplayer functionality.

Minecraft to get 4K graphics and crossplay update this fall

While the rollout of the Minecraft Better Together Update is being promoted as, well, and update to Minecraft: Xbox One Edition, it is actually a completely new Minecraft video game that is replacing the Xbox One Edition version and being sold separately (though current owners of the Xbox One Edition do get the new version for free).

While browsing the Store on the Xbox One, the listing for Minecraft: Xbox One Edition can still be found and its Game Hub still functions but it can no longer be purchased. Meanwhile, a new listing for the new version of the game, simply called Minecraft, is now discoverable and has its own new Game Hub. It’s unclear why such a shift was made though one reason could be that it makes it easier to discern which Xbox Live friends are playing which version when online. If someone is playing Minecraft: Xbox One Edition, they would be unable to join a multiplayer game on Minecraft for example.

What do you think? Do you like this fresh start for Minecraft players? Sign-off in the comments below.

Minecraft: Xbox One Edition no longer available digitally

Sure, the latest update for Minecraft is a notable one for introducing cross-play to the wildly popular game–that’s all well and good. But it’s the bug fixes located in the patch notes that I think are the real highlight.

The latest instance of “patch notes that are much funnier than they have any right to be” comes with this week’s Better Together update for Minecraft. There are a wide range of new features and tweaks, including the aforementioned cross-play support, but it also fixes so many bug fixes that developer Mojang decided not to share them all. Luckily, it did include a few.

Among them: This patch “stop[s] llamas from creepily turning their heads to stare at you while riding them.” Not being a hardcore Minecraft player, this is something I was admittedly unaware of–you can seemingly see it in the image above, which comes from this YouTube video by Aiden Art. Suffice it to say, it’s something I will forever regret not being able to experience myself.

Other bug fixes in this update include the return of cats purring (they’re good for the soul) and bats losing the ability to swim underwater. The patch is out now for the Xbox One, PC, VR, and mobile versions, with cross-play support also coming to the Nintendo Switch version. Minecraft on PS4 won’t offer cross-play support, at least yet.

Llamas Stop Creepily Staring At You Thanks(?) To Minecraft’s New Update

Minecraft’s Better Together Update Adds More Cross-Play Functionality

Dir: Matthew Vaughn, 140 mins, starring: Taron Egerton, Colin Firth, Mark Strong, Channing Tatum, Halle Berry, Pedro Pascal, Julianne Moore, Jeff Bridges

Matthew Vaughn loves his gadgets. Spy sequel Kingsman: The Golden Circle is full of them. X-ray spectacles, umbrellas that act as weapon shields, “alpha gel” that miraculously preserves characters you think have been shot dead, London taxis with technology that puts Apollo skyrockets to shame, robotic attack dogs and prosthetic arms are all thrown into the mix. In James Bond movies, Q provides 007 with one or two gizmos. The problem here is that the film is absolutely bulging with them. There is a new toy or piece of hardware or software for every new scene.

Vaughn also has a fetishistic obsession with tailoring: with the suits, ties, watches, boots and shoes the male characters in particular wear. The preoccupation with style gets in the way of the storytelling. He has a formidable cast here including several Oscar winners (Julianne Moore, Colin Firth and Jeff Bridges) but all of them are only allowed to give the most cartoonish of performances.

You can’t fault the stunts. As an action movie, The Golden Circle passes muster. It is packed with explosions, chases and visual spectacle. It is often quite witty too in its own tongue-in-cheek and macabre fashion. The evil villainess Poppy Adams (Moore) likes to put her enemies through the mincing machine and turn them into hamburgers. She has kidnapped Sir Elton John (played by himself) and is keeping him in captivity deep in the jungle, where she has built her own compound in the shape of an old American shopping mall. (It has cinemas, fast-food joints and lots of fluorescent lighting.)

Sir Elton doesn’t get much in the way of meaty dialogue but we do see him at the piano from time to time and when one of the heroes asks for tickets to a concert, he replies in magnificently camp fashion: “Darling, if you save the world, you can have a backstage pass!”

The British filmmakers are keen to show off their patriotic credentials. That much is obvious from the car chase/fight sequence which opens the movie. We’re plunged straight into the action. Eggsy, the youngster from the council estate who was turned Pygmalion-style into a super-suave spy in the first film, is caught up in a vicious fight with his nemesis Charlie Hesketh (Edward Holcroft), in the back of a black cab. Vaughn stages the scene as if it is the chariot race in Ben-Hur but set in Piccadilly and around Hyde Park Corner rather than in a Roman amphitheatre. Vaughn and his collaborators are doing their part for the export drive. It’s hard not to admire the shameless way that even at the most fraught moments, the filmmakers manage to showcase the best of British.

Eggsy (again engagingly played by Taron Egerton) remains remarkably cheerful in the face of setbacks which would floor a lesser spy. He is advised early on that there is “no room for emotion” when you’re working as a Kingsman agent. Whether a pet dog dies, a best friend is killed, he is covered in sewage or his beloved but skittish Scandinavian princess girlfriend (Hanna Alstrom) threatens to leave him, he always keeps calm and carries on.

There are continual and often very disorienting switches in location. After the explosive London-set opening, we’re quickly whisked away to Kentucky where a sister organisation to Kingsman called Statesman is run from a bourbon distillery. Kingsman’s most cerebral operative Merlin (Mark Strong) is very sniffy about the local brew, much preferring single malt from his native Scotland.

Statesman is presided over by the gun-waving Tequila (Channing Tatum in Magic Mike groove), the stetson-wearing patriarch Champagne (Jeff Bridges), the brilliant analyst Ginger Ale (an underused Halle Berry), who would far rather be an agent in the field, and the whip-cracking Whiskey (Pedro Pascal, from Game Of Thrones and Narcos).

From Kentucky, we’re taken back to Britain for an excruciating Ab Fab-like sequence set, for no very good reason, at the Glastonbury Festival. Eggsy has to seduce It Girl Clara (Poppy Delevigne) in order to plant a tracking device deep within her. Other random stop-offs include the Alps (an excuse for a dizzying cable car scene and a few nods in the direction of On Her Majesty’s Secret Service) and Cambodia, where drug baroness Poppy is hiding out. She comes up with a ludicrous idea for holding the world to ransom by contaminating drug supplies. Anybody who touches the wrong kind of cannabis or cocaine comes out in blue splotches, becomes manic, paralysed and then dies. Poppy is the only one who has the antidote.

To anyone who saw the first film, the presence of Colin Firth’s Harry is disconcerting. It feels like cheating on a Bobby Ewing-like scale to bring him back from the dead. As first encountered here, he has lost much of his memory and has a strange obsession with butterflies – but he’s still as dapper as ever.

Just as in the original movie, the filmmakers are absolutely relentless. When one action set-piece falls flat, they’ll follow it immediately with another to distract us. Some of the visual gags (Keith Allen upside down in a sausage machine) are very funny. Others are laddish and crass in the extreme but there is never a moment to pause or reflect on what is actually going on or why. Lasting for well over two hours, this is a gilded hamster wheel of a movie. Enormous energy is expended but it still feels at the end as if the filmmakers are going around in exactly the same circles as at the beginning.

Kingsman: The Golden Circle film review: ‘A gilded hamster wheel of a movie’

NINTENDO Switch fans can expect a big new streaming app soon, as Inside is pencilled in for a Nintendo release.

Nintendo Switch NEWS: Netflix app FINALLY ready, Halo on Switch, MASSIVE indie games boost

Eggsy, the street kid turned well dressed spy, is back to save the world in Kingsman: The Golden Circle.

A short time after the events of the first movie, Eggsy (Taron Egerton) is living the life of a spy while still mourning the loss of his mentor Harry Hart (Colin Firth). After all the Kingsman are eliminated by an evil drug dealer named Poppy Adams (Julianne Moore), Eggsy and Merlin (Mark Strong) are forced to head to Kentucky to get help from America’s version of the Kingsman known as Satesman.

The Statesman group is headed by Champagne aka Champ (Jeff Bridges) and is supported by special agents Tequila (Channing Tatum), Jack Daniels (Pedro Pascal), and tech expert Ginger Ale (Halle Berry). Yes, those names are real. I’m shocked they didn’t have a Shirley Temple on staff.

Eggsy and Merlin learn their old pal Harry is still alive and being held at Statesman’s headquarters. Harry was “killed” in the last movie after the insane church shootout. Ginger Ale provides a super ridiculous science-y explanation for how Harry survived a point blank gunshot to the head. Anyone who is all in on a laser lasso and an underwater car should be ok with absurd life saving technology. Of course, one of the side effects from saving Harry is temporary amnesia – action movies love using amnesia as a trope.

With no Kingsman, Eggsy must team up with his new found allies to stop Poppy before her designer drugs kill millions around the world.

As much fun as 2014’s Kingsman: The Secret Service was The Golden Circle is not as fun. It does some of the same action with none of the interesting things that made those sequences fun. A big part of what made the first film work was Samuel L Jackson’s incredibly fun performance as Richmond Valentine. Jackson saw the ceiling that said over-the-top and kept going. He was comically evil and that’s perfect for the type of film he was in.

As great of an actress as Julianne Moore is, her character Poppy reduced to a Susie homemaker villain and given very little to do. Poppy is menacing and feared by her team during the opening and the story steers away from at as the story moves forward. You can’t sideline your big bad in an action movie.

The action, much like the action from the first film, includes fun gadgets and tons of slow motion. The best sequence is chase scene/fight at the beginning of the film. It’s the type of strong opening that fans expect in an action movie. There’s more action scenes sprinkled throughout that remind audiences why they love Kingsman so much.

The best villainous action comes courtesy of Charlie (Edward Holcroft) who has a grudge against Kingsman after his run in with Eggsy in the last film. Charlie’s robotic arm is used brilliantly during the fight scenes.

The Golden Circle should’ve taken a hint from John Wick 2 and delved deeper into the spy world of Kingsman. Instead, the story is crippled by a pointless love story between Eggsy and Princess Tilde (Hanna Alstrom). Eggsy’s love story feels completely forced and is the most boring part of the story. The runtime is only 12 minutes longer than the original. The Golden Circle being 40% less fun makes those 12 mins feel like 45 mins.

Kingsman: The Golden Circle had potential to be a fun sequel that told us more about Kingsman and the undercover spy world that supports it. It settled for more of the same in Kingsman, and even more of the same once they arrive at Statesman. It’s not a lazy sequel but a sequel that doesn’t build on anything new.

Grade: B-

Review: Kingsman: The Golden Circle

The PlayStation 4 version of Minecraft will not be getting the upcoming crossplay update that allows players to play together even if they don’t have the same console.

The 4K graphics and crossplay update was announced during Microsoft’s E3 2017 press conference earlier today and was said to allow players to play together on any device if they played the game on designated “massive” multiplayer servers.

According to rumors, Sony did not allow the game to support crossplay multiplayer functionality. The company has yet to officially comment on the matter.

Whether the 4K graphics update will still be making its way to the PlayStation 4 version of the game is still unknown.

The Minecraft crossplay update will be coming to PC, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, Android, iOS and several virtual reality devices.

PlayStation 4 version of Minecraft will not support upcoming crossplay update

When Kingsman: The Secret Service landed in theaters two years ago, it was a surprising, if modestly guilty, pleasure. For more than 30 years—going back at least as far as Never Say Never Again—James Bond had been derided within his own franchise as a “dinosaur,” for his tailored suits, sexist attitudes, and proclivity for violence. Kingsman thus served as a kind of Jurassic Park for the Bondian gentleman spy, resurrecting him from prehistoric Connery DNA discovered in fossilized amber somewhere. It was, as I noted at the time, “reactionary bordering on retrograde bordering on reprobate [but] also a tremendous amount of fun.”

Pulling off such a satirical feat once was hard enough, and it seemed unlikely that the movie’s director, Matthew Vaughn, could manage it a second time. He doesn’t—quite. But Vaughn’s new sequel, Kingsman: The Golden Circle, while not as fresh as its predecessor, is nonetheless better than one might expect: a goofier, more over-the-top treatment of a premise that was pretty goofy and over-the-top the first time around.

Kingsman: The Golden Circle Is More Farce Than Satire

Mojang, the development team behind the building game Minecraft, has released a new developer diary video in which they discuss the game’s upcoming “Super Duper Graphics Pack” update.

The update was announced during Microsoft’s E3 2017 press conference last week and was said to bring 4K graphics to the Xbox One version of the game, along with a range of other graphical enhancements.The PC version of the game already supported 4K resolution rendering.

Both the PC and Xbox One versions of the game will also be able to make use of updated 4K resolution textures as well as other graphical enhancements such as specular maps, emissive maps, updated shadows, updated water rendering and animated foliage.

A cross-play update is also expected to be released this summer for almost all consoles, except for the PlayStation 4, that will enable players to play together regardless of which device the player plays the game on, if they are playing on special designated servers.

The Minecraft “Super Duper Graphics Pack” is expected to launch this fall.

Minecraft development team discusses “Super Duper Graphics Pack” in new developer diary video

The Kingsman are teaming up with the Statesmen and just like in America, they made everything bigger. Not necessarily better. 

It’s hard to live up to expectations when the first time around, there were none. Kingsman: The Secret Service was the sleeper hit of 2015, as no one really knew what to expect from the movie going in. While doing press for that film, writer and director Matthew Vaughn kept saying that he had great ideas for a sequel and to build upon the characters we knew in the first one, and just needed the public to like the first one enough to get it made. Flash forward to 2017, with Kingsman: The Golden Circle now in theaters and fans asking themselves, “So where’s that movie?”

It’s been a year since Valentine was defeated by Eggsy (Taron Egerton) and Merlin (Mark Strong), and Eggsy has settled nicely into his role as Galahad. When a familiar face reappears, the entirety of Kingsman is wiped out, forcing Galahad and Merlin to go into “Doomsday protocol” and team up with the Statesmen, their American cousins. There, Agents Whiskey (Pedro Pascal), Tequila (Channing Tatum), Ginger Ale (Hallie Berry) and Champagne (Jeff Bridges) offer their assistance and resources to the remaining Kingsman agents (and a “surprise” appearance by the original Galahad, Harry Hart (Colin Firth))  to stop the Golden Circle, headed by Poppy (Julianne Moore).

Egerton is once again a driving force in the film, giving audiences the same charm, emotion, and humor that won them over in the first film. Eggsy’s journey to become a Kingsman hasn’t ended yet, as he struggles to hide his emotional response and step into the shoes of a true gentleman spy. But by the end, it’s clear that even his mentor sees his emotion as a strength, not a weakness. Though cliche, it’s a nice touch considering how much Eggsy has changed from the punk he once was, and how Egerton has built such a complex character.

One unexpected positive was the increase of Mark Strong’s role. Merlin was simply a helping hand in the first film, but he feels more like a co-worker in this one. Strong’s chemistry with the other Kingsman agents was great before and becomes stronger as his chemistry is mostly with Eggsy now. With Harry gone for the first half of the film, Merlin fulfills the role of his mentor, and Strong slips into it like he was playing Harry. It was a touching arc for a character that became bigger as the film went on.

Harry Hart’s return was not a surprise to anyone, as they revealed his return with a custom poster back in April 2016. The excuse for the return is just as unoriginal as the idea of bringing back an actor killed off (Think something as ridiculous as the super blood from Star Trek: Into Darkness). Outside of his reappearance, Firth’s return to the role is better than the last time. Eggsy failed to get closure with Harry before his untimely death, and the film recognizes this. There’s a touching conversation between Harry and Eggsy that shows Harry has a little more compassion this time around. If their relationship felt like a father-son relationship before, it even more like that this time around.

It’s hard to rate anyone else’s performance in this film because these actors had little to work with in terms of a script. Though the original Kingsman agents got their own arcs and grew, the Statesmen agents were given the leftovers. The only character trait we really get for Tatum’s Agent Tequila is he’s the agency’s “resident bad boy” as stated by Ginger Ale in the film. Agent Whiskey just feels like a modernized version of Pascal’s character in Game of Thrones and Jeff Bridges as Champagne is just straight up wasted. Even supporting characters like Arthur, Roxy and Charlie from the first film got more characterization than any of the Statesmen. There are so many new additions to the cast that it becomes impossible to flesh out all of these characters properly.

Even though many of the film’s key points were revealed through the various promotional materials, a decision that Vaughn himself criticized, there was still plenty of action and twists to keep audiences entertained. The film chooses to take the favorite pieces of the first film and make them greater, which many critics have been panning. The violence, crude humor, and alcoholism have all been kicked up to a new level, and whether you like it or not, it fits inside the film’s branding. It makes the film fun, whether it gets praised or panned by critics. The film does feel extremely bloated though, with many plot line that seems like they’re starting, but get quickly smashed and forgotten about. According to Vaughn, the film’s first cut was over 3 hours long, so that explains a lot.

The term “sequel fatigue” has been thrown around while talking about the summer box office a lot these past few weeks. Kingsman: The Golden Circle doesn’t avoid this, but it’s the least affected by this curse. It manages to pull a few new punches and offer up a good amount of fun at the theater. The film isn’t original or breaking barriers, but it doesn’t have to. In a summer full of superheroes, animals, bachelorette parties and stunt drivers, it’s good to see the gentlemen spies taking it home.

‘Kingsman: The Golden Circle’ Review: An Overstuffed Joy Ride

Mojang has announced that the beta version of the cross-platform multiplayer update for Minecraft titled “Better Together” is now available on PC and Android.

The update was announced in June during Microsoft’s E3 2017 press conference and is said to allow players to play together on any of the supported platforms via special multiplayer servers.

According to a recent press release, the “Better Together” update is designed to unify the console, mobile and Windows 10 PC versions of the game under one single Minecraft edition, which will include infinite worlds, the community Marketplace and community servers.

The update also introduces the “biggest collection of new features ever” to players on PC and mobile devices. Players will notice the long awaited and much in demand stained glass, fireworks, customizable banners, armor stands, jukebox and music discs, recipe book and ravines.

For multiplayer, the update adds the ability for hosts to set player permissions and host options, along with other helpful tools, including new 3D model import features.

The beta test is now available on PC and Android and will be available on Xbox One at a later date. The PlayStation 4 version of the game will not be getting cross-platform multiplayer capabilities.

Xbox One and PC beta testers are required to download the Xbox Insider app, and players on Xbox One will need to own a digital copy of Minecraft: Xbox One Edition. Beta testers on Android will need to have a device that support Google Play and own a copy of the game purchased through the Google Play Store.

Minecraft cross-platform multiplayer update “Better Together” beta now available on PC and Android

The Better Together update for the building game Minecraft is now available for PC, Xbox One, Android and iOS. The update allows players to play together on any of the supported platforms via special multiplayer servers.

According to a recent press release, the “Better Together” update is designed to unify the console, mobile and PC versions of the game under one single Minecraft edition, which will include infinite worlds, the community Marketplace and community servers.

The update also introduces the “biggest collection of new features ever” to players on PC and mobile devices. Players will notice the long awaited and much in demand stained glass, fireworks, customizable banners, armor stands, jukebox and music discs, recipe book and ravines.

For multiplayer, the update adds the ability for hosts to set player permissions and host options, along with other helpful tools, including new 3D model import features.

The update is now available for PC, Xbox One, Android and iOS. The PlayStation 4 version of the game will not be getting cross-platform multiplayer capabilities because of Sony’s “no crossplay multiplayer” policy.

The Nintendo Switch version of Minecraft is expected to get the update within the next couple of weeks.

Minecraft “Better Together” multiplayer update now available

This is a code-red warning. I repeat, code red. You may be in the mood for a piece of trashy fun this weekend. You might have embraced the slick anarchy of the first Kingsman movie. But on no account let that persuade you to part with your money for a ticket to this sour-spirited and glib sequel. Taron Egerton returns as Eggsy, newest recruit of the elite secret agency Kingsman. He does a decent job of the two key requirements of the role: wearing suits and hitting people. But an early plot twist requires him to emote, at which point the whole house of cards tumbles down.

Kingsman: The Golden Circle review – sneering spy spoof sequel

Itching for some fresh fun with your Android phone? Look no further, because our weekly Five to Try column rounds up the week’s biggest new app and game releases, as well as the most impactful updates. In fact, it’s the updated version of Minecraft that leads this week’s roundup, as the new Play Together edition connects various platforms with both solo and multiplayer benefits.

Elsewhere, XOutOf10 is a freebie gag app that mimics the upcoming iPhone X’s rather distinctive top screen notch, MyNBA2K18 turns basketball into a competitive card game, Apple Music adds some needed features, and Terra Battle 2 offers up an even larger fantasy role-playing adventure to dive into. Hit the Play Store and check these apps out this weekend!

Minecraft

IDG

Minecraft: Pocket Edition isn’t the Pocket Edition anymore—it’s just Minecraft ($7). Why? Because now there’s parity between the Android version and the other computer and console editions available today, as they’re sharing the same codebase. And more importantly, now they’re all connected together via the new Play Together update.

Released this week, Play Together links together several versions of the game, including Android, Windows 10, iOS, Xbox, and VR, with Nintendo Switch support on the horizon. Now you’ll be able to start your game on one device and pick it up on any other, plus the unified approach makes it easier to get online and play with lots of other people on public servers. It’s still the familiar Minecraft at core, of course, but now it seems a whole lot larger on Android.

XOutOf10

IDG

The upcoming iPhone X looks to be Apple’s larger threat against high-end Android phones, more so than today’s iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus, but there’s something a bit… odd… about the screen. It’s the notch. Apple’s phone has a new front-facing camera system with an infrared sensor, and it needs a decent chunk of space on a phone that’s otherwise all-screen on the front—so Apple wrapped the screen around an empty, black notch at the top.

And now you can simulate Apple’s curious notch with the XOutOf10 app, which puts a constant faux camera array at the top of your screen. Why ever would you want such a thing? You wouldn’t, practically, but as a simple (and free) gag app, it’s pretty funny. Use it to playfully taunt (or dissuade) any pals who are holding out for iPhone X. 

MyNBA2K18

IDG

We’re still waiting for NBA 2K18 to hit Android after launching on other platforms this week, but if you’re a big hoops fan, at least you can check out MyNBA2K18 in the meantime. Its main attraction is a card-based game that lets you amass a team of NBA stars and then try to outmatch other players in head-to-head battles. Amusingly, you’ll see the cards on the court (not the players), but they’ll still block shots and nail audacious dunks. The whole thing is strongly freemium, however, and you’ll need to spend plenty of time and/or money to find success here.

If you play NBA 2K18 on a console or PC, then the app also serves a second purpose as a companion for the main game. You can use it to snap your photo to create a custom player, for example, or earn extra in-game currency to use in the console experience.

Apple Music

IDG

This week’s release of iOS 11 brought a bunch of new features and tweaks to iPhones and iPads, but Apple also took the opportunity to enhance its Apple Music app on Android. The latest version brings a couple of pretty significant updates that address previous omissions. For example, now Apple Music has voice search, letting you say “OK Google” or hold your phone’s home button to request songs, artists, and more.

The new update also adds an optional home screen widget, plus it brings some new social functionality that lets you link up with friends to share playlists and see what they’ve been listening to. It’s not exactly a revival of Apple’s reviled Ping feature from iTunes years back, but really more akin to what Spotify offers for paired-up pals. All told, however, this is a pretty meaty update for Apple’s streaming music app.

Terra Battle 2

IDG

Hironobu Sakaguchi created the original Final Fantasy 30 years ago, spawning one of the most beloved franchises in all of gaming. These days, his Mistwalker studio has found another success on mobile with Terra Battle, a streamlined, free-to-play take on tactical role-playing. After notching more than 2.5 million downloads of the original, Terra Battle 2 is here with some tweaks to the formula.

As before, the head-to-head fights take place on a grid-based battlefield using character tiles, which you’ll move around to trigger attacks and abilities. But now there’s an open world map outside of combat, letting you explore the environment and find new fights as you please, as well as freely arrange your characters for a strategic edge in battle. It’s still a free-to-play game, but the first one found plenty of fans, and there’s been some solid hype surrounding this sequel.

Five to Try: Minecraft adds cross-platform fun, and XOutOf10 gives Android that iPhone X look

By Seth G. Macy Have you ever heard the saying, “There’s no such thing as bad pizza?” No matter what, pizza’s good by virtue of being pizza. A similar thing could be said for the many different versions of Minecraft. There really isn’t such a thing as “bad Minecraft,” just versions that aren’t as good as the others. That’s why, in spite of its many shortcomings, the New 3DS version is still an enjoyable Minecraft experience, even though it’s not a great version.

Fitting Minecraft onto the New 3DS is not without its sacrifices, and if nothing else, those sacrifices make up the biggest problems with this new portable version. Graphically, it’s unmistakably Minecraft, but draw distance takes a major blow. I found my time in my Minecraft world almost claustrophobic, even on the surface. I had to make sure to pay close attention to my map early on because if I got a few dozen blocks away from my shelter, it would disappear into the fog. Draw distance looks to be about five chunks, putting it on par with the Vita version. It definitely hindered my desire to explore my surroundings and risk being unable to find my way back home.

Controls in this version also take some getting used to. The jump button isn’t easily tapped when maneuvering with the New 3DS’s right stick, but thankfully there’s an auto-jump option in the menu. Moving around with the right stick feels odd at first, and it never really settled into a place that felt great. Shoulder buttons control actions, like using crafting tables and swinging a pickax, which allows movement while performing actions. Like all the other console versions, the guesswork is gone from crafting thanks to a provided list of items you can create. I feel like this takes away some of the magic of Minecraft, but for the benefit of at a glance convenience.

All of the crafting and inventory management is handled on the touchscreen, and it’s exciting that this version takes advantage of that when the Wii U port didn’t. It definitely streamlines the process of moving and crafting things in the inventory, but the small screen size makes it feel cramped. To fully see what’s in a chest requires scrolling down, and double chests require double the scrolling. Oddly, if you aren’t showing an empty row on the screen, it won’t allow you to put more items into the chests or inventory even if there’s room. I found this frustrating when managing my items after a mining session, as I just wanted to dump off my stuff and get back to the search for diamonds.

There are also two huge, head-scratching omissions from the New 3DS version of Minecraft: the Nintendo skins and texture packs that were included on the Switch version. It’s especially odd given the fact there are other skins and texture packs included: Biome Settlers Packs 1 and 2, Redstone Specialists, Journey to the West, and the Holiday Skin Pack from 2015. While I definitely enjoy being able to fight back the zombie hordes in a full Santa Claus outfit, it would have been better to battle and mine as Waluigi. The two texture packs included, Plastic and City, are also an unusual fit.

Perhaps the most disappointing feature missing from Minecraft for New Nintendo 3DS is the lack of 3D. It would be amazing to feel a sense of depth in the Minecraft world, and would be the only official 3D version – unless you count VR on the PC. Supposedly, it’s going to be added in a future patch, and having that feature alone could do a lot to help make up for its other current shortcomings.

Another rough part of Minecraft on New 3DS is the auto-save system, which pauses gameplay entirely as it writes to the MicroSD card. Thankfully, you get plenty of warning beforehand, with messages not much different to playing on an online server, but it’s still annoying to have the flow of playing interrupted every 20 minutes. Additionally, since it writes to the MicroSD card instead of the system or cartridge memory, saves are tied to the system itself.

Minecraft: New Nintendo 3DS Edition Review

The Oregon Trail is coming back to schools through Minecraft