Category: Games

When I first saw the Backbone One, I figured it would be just another gimmicky mobile phone controller alternative. In a world of clunky phone clips, latency issues, and bad designs, no solution has really grabbed my attention and made me seriously consider mobile gaming as a viable option. But, with the mobile market comprising over 2.2 billion gamers, it’s a shame there isn’t a ubiquitous solution yet. Enter Backbone. While it’s got some shortcomings, it’s laid the foundation for a unified platform ecosystem that mobile gaming desperately needs.

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Backbone One – Design and Features

The Backbone One is aptly named due to its dog bone-shape that attaches directly to your iPhone. It features two independent sides of the controller, each roughly the size of a Nintendo Switch Joy-Con controller, held together by an expandable middle section. To connect it, you simply pull the two ends apart and plug your iPhone into the Lightning connector. That’s it. There’s no Bluetooth settings to worry about or pairing that needs to take place – it just works. The direct connection allows for almost no latency when playing games, bringing it closer to a console experience. It’s also extremely low-power, taking less energy than a pair of Lightning-connected headphones.

Ergonomically, the Backbone is comfortable to hold – albeit better suited for smaller hands. It’s extremely lightweight, weighing just 138g. With an iPhone 12 attached it’s just over 300g, or roughly the weight of a Nintendo Switch Lite. It has a slightly bulbous base on each side of the controller that evenly distributes the weight and doesn’t make the unit feel top-heavy while playing. It also features a matte black finish with a slight sheen to it that unfortunately picks up a lot of fingerprints.

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There are two offset analog sticks in total, one on each side of the controller. They are smaller and a bit stiff, and the closest comparison I can make in terms of how they feel are the analog sticks on Joy-Con controllers. There’s a surprisingly good D-pad just below the left analog stick taking the shape of a rounded plus sign. It’s not clicky like everything else on the controller, but instead almost silent with a satisfying press.

Below the D-pad is an options button and a dedicated button for screenshots and video recording. Both buttons are extremely low-profile – almost flush with the face of the device – and have a bit of a mushy press to them. Up top are the L1 and L2 buttons. The L1 button is a slim, clicky, tapered button that gently contours with the shape of the controller. L2 is lightweight and easy to press, although there’s not much tension. What’s nice, though, is that it’s an analog trigger meaning it can register exactly how far it’s pressed down and benefits from a 5mm travel.

On the right side of the controller are the four primary face buttons: A, B, X, and Y – laid out like an Xbox controller with A on the bottom and B on the right. All four buttons are small and have a mushy click to them. They also suffer from a very slight wiggle in their individual slots. Below the face buttons is another analog stick, identical to the one on the left. Just below that are two more buttons: the orange Backbone button and a menu button, both low-profile and mushy like their counterparts on the left side of the controller. And, as expected, R1 and R2 up top.

Because this controller plugs into your phone, there’s a Lightning passthrough charger on the bottom of the right side of the controller, allowing you to charge and play at the same time using the cable you already use for your iPhone. It also supports using Lightning accessories or Lightning headphones, too. On the bottom of the left side of the controller is a 3.5mm auxiliary port for connecting a pair of traditional headphones.

The Backbone supports everything from iPhone 6s to the latest iPhone 12 series – including the larger iPhone 12 Pro Max – running iOS 13 or later. Because of the various shapes and sizes of these devices, it has a large groove that wraps around both sides of the phone. Since it’s not custom-fit for each iPhone it doesn’t sit perfectly in the groove, allowing it to twist slightly in your hands and bow a bit on the back portion that pulls apart. The result is a controller that doesn’t feel perfectly secure, but I never worried that my phone was going to fall out while playing.

Backbone One – Software

Where the Backbone really shines, however, is its tight integration of hardware and software. When first connected, it will prompt you to download the Backbone app. This effectively acts as a “hub” to keep all of your games and various remote play apps organized. While it’s not required to use the controller, it solves one of the major issues of mobile gaming: creating a cohesive experience that blurs the lines between console and mobile games through what feels like a natural home screen experience.

The first row of icons includes your installed games and remote play services like PlayStation Remote Play, Xbox Remote Play, and Steam Link, just to name a few. Having everything side-by-side creates the illusion that you’re bouncing between games on your console and clicking one jumps right into that experience. When you’re finished playing, simply press the Backbone button again and you’re taken back to the app’s home screen; once again making you forget you’re actually playing on your phone.

Below your games are more categories of horizontally-scrolling tiles that include recent highlights taken by other Backbone users, trending games, multiplayer games, single-player experiences, classics like Sonic the Hedgehog and Doom, as well as a dedicated section highlighting some popular Apple Arcade games. If you see something that interests you, simply tap or click on it and you can download it on the spot without ever leaving the app and transitioning over to the App Store. It’s as seamless as it could possibly be while focusing on the most important thing: never breaking that illusion of a “home screen.”

Also contained within the app is a friend system which allows you to add other Backbone users, as well as voice chat rooms that you can easily jump into for popular games like Call of Duty Mobile, Minecraft, and Brawlhalla. You can even create your own party for up to eight players within the Backbone app – complete with invites and system-wide voice chat. Friends’ play activity is shown and you can easily party up and jump directly into their game right from the app or by tapping on a push notification.

Video capture and screenshots work similarly, too. Since the feature is bound to a hardware button on the controller, you can activate it across any game or service and your recordings are automatically saved in a gallery section inside the Backbone app – allowing you to easily view, clip, and share them without cluttering up your Camera roll. The Backbone button slowly pulses red while recording to provide a subtle visual reminder, too.

There’s also a system-wide shortcut to mute your microphone audio by double-pressing the options button, allowing you to quickly mute yourself without having to leave the game and fiddle with the native iOS microphone settings. What’s even better is your recordings intelligently filter out the sounds made from the analog sticks and buttons, leaving you with just the audio from your gameplay and party chat. Recordings are high-quality, too, capturing footage in full 1080p at 30fps with a 20mbps bitrate. You can also choose between recording in the smaller HEVC or more-compatible H.264 formats.

The Backbone is still relatively new, having been released in late 2020, but the developers have continued to push out weekly updates to the Backbone app, adding or tweaking aspects of it based on community feedback. Not only is it encouraging to see such frequent updates, but because so much of the magic lies in the app itself, the Backbone could theoretically gain new features without necessarily requiring a hardware revision.

Backbone One – Gaming

Whether you’re using the Backbone exclusively for playing mobile games, playing or streaming games remotely over Wi-Fi, or a mix of both, this controller feels right at home. It works with more than 1,300 mobile games on iOS that support a controller as well as PlayStation Remote Play, Xbox Remote Play, Steam Link, Google Stadia, Amazon Luna, Nvidia GeForce Now, Shadow, and Rainway.

I tested it with a handful of mobile games such as Genshin Impact, Call of Duty Mobile, and The Pathless. There was virtually no latency using any of the buttons, sticks, or triggers on the controller, with everything feeling quick and responsive. Aiming with the analog sticks took some getting used to in something like Call of Duty Mobile as the controls felt a bit jumpy and not as smooth as I’m used to when turning, although some of those issues can be chalked up to the individual sensitivity levels within each game.

The analog triggers felt great and truly replicated the console experience when aiming down sights and firing. Since the Backbone doesn’t feature its own built-in rumble, it instead makes clever use of the iPhone’s haptic feedback and makes it feel like it’s vibrating both sides of the controller. This is a welcome addition as most iOS controllers don’t have built-in rumble, yet having that extra sensation definitely increases immersion.

Playing games remotely from my PS5 and Xbox Series X, as well as gaming PC all felt great on the Backbone, as well. Aside from minor internet-related latency issues, all the controls were responsive. This feels like a worthy successor to the PlayStation Vita for playing games remotely, and being able to play console games on the couch while watching TV or while lying in bed felt extremely comfortable.

The location of the Backbone button and screenshot buttons are great, but pressing the options and menu buttons in-game can be a bit uncomfortable as they force your thumb into an awkward angle. This is especially prevalent when using Remote Play functionality for PlayStation and Xbox as these buttons become used more frequently.

Overall, playing games on the Backbone was enjoyable. Switching between native iPhone games and Remote Play options was seamless, with everything filtered through the Backbone app. With notifications silenced, I really did forget I was using my phone much of the time. There were even instances where I’d set the Backbone down and start searching for my phone – only to realize it was still attached.

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Robert De Niro was originally cast in the lead role of Big, the movie that proved pivotal to Tom Hanks’ career.

Talking during an interview on Watch What Happens Live With Andy Cohen, Elizabeth Perkins – who played Susan Lawrence in Big – revealed the original casting decision.

“Robert De Niro was actually cast in the role of Josh in the movie Big,” she revealed. “It fell apart because he had a scheduling conflict, and then they went to Tom Hanks. It’s like a totally different movie in my brain with Robert De Niro.”

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While filming never happened with De Niro playing the lead character of Josh, Perkins did audition with De Niro and so had a glimpse of what De Niro’s portrayal of the character would have been like.

“He was more moody. It was more of a — a little more of a horror movie,” she said. “Robert De Niro wandering around the streets of New York. What Tom Hanks brought to it was so much lighter.”

Big, of course, tells the tale of a young boy having his wish granted to become big. But rather than become an adult with all the wisdom and learnings of age, he wakes up as essentially a boy in a grown man’s body, as played whimsically by Tom Hanks. You can imagine, though, that this premise would lend itself to something a little more freaky with an unsettling edge if played in the right way. While De Niro only ever performed at an audition, it would be fascinating to see what that apparently moodier feel would have brought to the entire story.

For more from Hollywood, check out the confirmed cast of Marvel’s She-Hulk, Netflix’s grabbing of the rights to Sony movies after their theatrical run, and how the Batman v Superman writer hated WB’s original, darker ending.

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Matt Purslow is IGN’s UK News and Entertainment Writer. 

Just like the previous two games, Hitman 3 has no shortage of targets for contracts to pursue within its various stages, and this weekend will see a brand new Elusive Target roaming the Dartmoor Estate. As part of the Season of Greed, players can hunt down an obsessive and homicidal art collector by the name of Kody Haynes.

Also known as The Collector, Haynes has been on the run for the last six years after his wife discovered that he had been embezzling funds from her fast-food family fortune to help support his art-collecting habit.

Unlike other collectors though, Heynes cannot stomach the idea of his prized possessions having been owned by anyone else who is still alive, and he usually fixes that dilemma by murdering the previous artwork owners. Sounds like a problem that only a lethal master of disguise can permanently solve.

Like all other Elusive Targets, tracking Haynes down is easier said than done. He won’t show up when using Agent 47’s instinct vision and you’ll need to pay close attention to your surroundings to find out where he is in the mansion exactly. You’ve also only got one chance to eliminate him, using any means at your disposal to fulfill the contract.

The Collector Elusive Target will be active from today until April 19. The rest of the month has no shortage of Hitman 3 content either, as the Season of Greed that forms part of the Seven Deadly Sins DLC collection has already begun rolling out. A seasonal egg hunt on the Berlin level is ongoing and runs until April 12, while the next Elusive Target, The Politician, arrives on April 23. You can see the rest of the Hitman 3 April roadmap right here.

In more Hitman news, IO Interactive has confirmed that the series will take a break as the studio focuses on its James Bond game. While that project is still in the early days of development, the studio has increased in size by hiring 200 more employees to work on Project 007 and other in-progress games.

A new report from Bloomberg has shed some light on the goings-on at PlayStation, and one of the most notable takeaways is that Naughty Dog is working on a The Last of Us remake. The report also mentioned that Days Gone studio Sony Bend was developing a new Uncharted game and that Days Gone will not get a sequel.

Sony’s Visual Arts Service Group, based in San Diego, has typically supported other Sony studios in the past. However, the studio is said to have begun its attempts to remake The Last of Us about three years ago.

Visual Arts Service Group founder Michael Mumbauer recruited about 30 people, from inside Sony and out, to create a new division that would develop a remake of The Last of Us for PS5, Bloomberg said. The team didn’t get funding or support and Sony elected to shift development on the Last of Us remake to Naughty Dog, according to the report.

Mumbauer has since left the company, along with others who worked there. A spokesperson for Sony declined to comment.

The report also mentions that Days Gone studio Sony Bend pitched a sequel to the game, but it apparently did not move ahead despite the commercial success of the first game. Instead of working on a sequel, one team at Sony Bend is now assisting Naughty Dog “a multiplayer game.”

The report doesn’t say what the game is, but it was previously announced that Naughty Dog is making standalone Last of Us multiplayer game. Another team inside Sony Bend was put to work on a “new Uncharted game” with Naughty Dog overseeing the project, according to the report.

Some higher-ups at Sony Bend were reportedly unhappy about working on Uncharted, and asked to be removed from the game. Sony agreed, according to the report, and Sony Bend is now making “a new game of their own.”

Naughty Dog has said it won’t make another Uncharted game, but the studio previously mentioned that a different studio could come in to make Uncharted 5. It seems that still remains a possibility, even if Sony Bend isn’t doing it.

Also in the report, it’s mentioned that Mumbauer’s team initially wanted to do a remake of the original Uncharted game, but the game “quickly fizzled” due to costs and other issues. So the team moved on to make a remake of The Last of Us with an idea to release it in a package with The Last of Us 2 for PS5.

The new PlayStation Studios boss, Hermen Hulst, said the Last of Us remake was too expensive due to its new engine for PS5 and gameplay redesigns, according to the report.

Instead, Sony put Mumbauer’s team to work on The Last of Us II as a co-developer with Naughty Dog to help polish the game, the report said. After The Last of Us II was finished, Sony reportedly asked some developers from Naughty Dog to help Mumbauer’s team with the Last of Us remake, but the game later reportedly shifted to Naughty Dog’s internal team.

The Last of Us remake, which is said to be known as T1X, is still in development at Naughty Dog with help from Visual Arts Support Group, the report said.

It’s one of multiple titles that could be in the works at Naughty Dog, as the studio is also developing the previously announced Last of Us multiplayer game. Outside of that, Naughty Dog’s Neil Druckmann has said the studio might make The Last of Us 3 or a new IP.

Sony has already revived The Last of Us in some form, in 2014 releasing a remastered edition of the PS3 original for PS4. The series continues to be very popular, and just recently, HBO announced that Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey will star in a TV show based on it.

Go to Bloomberg to read the full report, which has more details on what is said to be going on inside Sony/PlayStation.

Creating your own music can be the most fun, creative – and lucrative – things you can do. But, to make professionally produced tracks, you need the tech to isolate and split songs into separate STEMs. Usually, this would mean using a pro music studio, which can cost up to $500 an hour. But, with the top-rated EasySplitter Pro Vocal Remover, you can do it all in one app – and even better, right now, you can get a Lifetime Subscription for just $39.99. 

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EasySplitter Pro is one of the most exciting new technologies in the music industry, allowing you to upload tracks, remove vocals and provide four separated music versions – vocal, instrumental, bass, and drums – without having to separate the STEMs manually. 

Whether you’re already a pro DJ or want to become one, with this innovative tool, you’ll save countless hours which would usually be wasted trying to remove vocals from songs – and all without any audio quality loss. 

Instead, EasySplitter’s fast processing allows for quick song splitting, and the app’s smart UI means you’ll immediately find it easy to work with splitter, using all its features such as file history to store your split audio files and access them any time, and the app’s built-in audio player, allowing each song can be played in real-time from your dashboard. 

Plus, EasySplitter comes highly reviewed by its users, with an impressive 4.5/5 star rating. As one recent customer praised, of its endless possibilities, “Amazing idea and hopefully great execution! Cannot wait to test what types of musical creations I can make!” 

Start producing your own professional tracks today with an EasySplitter Pro Vocal Remover: Lifetime Subscription, on sale today with 93% off, for just $39.99 (regular price $599). 

 

EasySplitter Pro Vocal Remover: Lifetime Subscription – $39.99

See Deal
 

Prices subject to change.

Is there anything worse than losing your precious personal photos and videos? How about the dreaded notification that your storage is full? Thankfully, with this great deal, you’ll never have to risk either again, as we’ve found a year’s subscription to the G Cloud Mobile Backup Unlimited Storage Plan on sale right now for just $39.99 – that’s a 44% discount off the regular price of $71. 

G Cloud allows you to manage, open, and share your files in the cloud, giving you unlimited storage to do it with. Its fully accessible storage allows you to migrate your media, call logs, contacts, and messages to any Android or Apple device – as well as to back up multiple devices to just one G Cloud account – you’ll be able to keep all the media from all your gadgets in one, easily accessible place and never have to worry about losing a single memory again.

You can be confident that your data is protected, too, thanks to G Cloud’s exceptional security. With this service, all your data is securely stored on the Amazon AWS Cloud and protected by military-grade 256 AES encryption. 

It does this all without even needing an app, too. And because you can simply access your G Cloud account through your web browser, you can use it easily and quickly from anywhere. Protecting your data has never been so simple. 

With more than 5 million downloads, G Cloud is loved by its users and tech experts alike, with an impressive 4.4/5 star rating from customer reviews on the Google Play Store, and being awarded 4/5 stars from the editors at TechRadar.

Back up your most treasured memories today with the G Cloud Mobile Backup Unlimited Storage Plan, with a one-year’s subscription on sale with 44% off now, for just $39.99 (regular price $71). 

G Cloud Mobile Backup Unlimited Storage Plan – $39.99

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Prices subject to change.

Thunder Force is now streaming exclusively on Netflix.

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Someone, please stop Ben Falcone. The husband and creative partner of Melissa McCarthy have co-written and/or directed such subpar vehicles for the Bridesmaids breakout as The Boss, Tammy, Life of the Party, and Superintelligence. Now, he’s squandering her shot at superhero glory in the calamitous comedy Thunder Force.

Written and directed by Falcone, Thunder Force stars McCarthy as Lydia Berman, a blue collar Chicagoan who unexpectedly acquires superpowers. So, she joins forces with her childhood bestie Emily Stanton (Octavia Spencer), a genius geneticist who has her own super serum. Together, they fight to protect the Windy City from “Miscreants,” mutated supervillains who boast outrageous strength, plasma blasting palms, and—uh—the arms of a giant crab!

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Despite some quirky deviations, this superhero story is cobbled together from stolen parts. Emily’s backstory rips off Batman’s orphan origin then adds a dash of Tony Stark’s expertise in science and business showmanship. Meanwhile, clumsy but lovable Lydia bumbles into her powers Peter Parker-style, complete with precarious access to a high-tech lab. Their acquiring of invisibility and super strength, respectively, might be a nod to The Incredibles. Then, they must face down foes while learning to work as a team, despite having very different personalities! (See The Avengers, The Justice League, The LEGO Batman Movie.)

Thunder Force hits plenty of superhero cliches, from the discovery of powers to the reveals of the super suit, flashy tech, villainous destruction, and a lurking Big Bad. Unfortunately, these presumably big moments aren’t given the fanfare expected of the genre. Instead, all of the above is treated as a checklist that Falcone is racing through. There are no awe-striking close-ups of Thunder Force’s costumes or their custom purple Lamborghini. No tension is built into the lead-up to their nemesis’s reveal. The determination of their superhero names is not a resounding epiphany but instead buried in a tumble of jokey pitches. Likewise, Pom Klementieff’s (Guardians of the Galaxy) icy performance as a snarling Miscreant is never given its proper chance to blow us away.

Even the action sequences are treated like a chore. They rush by with bursts of CG explosions and uninspired stunts, cut together with all the care of a blind-folded child making confetti. It seems as if Falcone has zero interest in superhero movies, and is lazily employing their iconography as a flimsy framing for a bland buddy comedy.

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The core of this story is all about the odd couple of Lydia and Emily. The former is a frizzy-haired goofball with a heart of gold, who loves a party as much as a good fight. The latter is a brainy and ever-buttoned-up perfectionist, whose solemn ambition overrides every part of her life. Of course, they will learn to be a bit like each other to become a great team and better people. But as with the superhero narrative, this is painfully predictable and underbaked. The plot points of meeting, bonding, and breaking up are lumbered through in a tedious first act set across their shared childhood. (However, props are deserved for the child actresses Bria Danielle and McCarthy’s daughter Vivian Falcone, who convincingly capture Spencer’s grace and McCarthy’s loose-limbed clowning.) Their reunion is curt and clumsy, doing little to establish comedic chemistry before barreling into the inciting incident that kicks off the superhero stuff.

The buddy-comedy schtick and the superhero spectacle are artlessly smashed together to allow for silliness both grounded and high-concept. But most of the jokes just plain stink. There are childish insults. (“Get in the dumpster because that’s where garbage goes!”) There’s wordplay that doesn’t play. (“Both of them were lady parts doctors?” “No. Geneticists.”) Then, there are tiresome bits that run on and on with fumbled punchlines, poor impressions, confoundingly out-of-nowhere allusions, and toothless slapstick. It doesn’t feel written as much as spitballed, as if Falcone urged his cast to chuck out whatever crossed their mind. But instead of including only what stuck, he just left in a lot of soft, sloppy lobs.

The only thing that works in this woefully wonky comedy is a subplot between Lydia and a half-man/half-crab, played by McCarthy’s Identity Thief co-star, Jason Bateman. These two have chaotic chemistry that sparks a sense of spontaneity. Here the film actually has some fun with the superhero concept by spoofing the hero/villain romance line with a very unsexy mutation treated as if it’s a supreme kink. Things get weird with butter, Old Bay, and a sequined dance number. Throwing themselves into all that with abandon, McCarthy and Bateman are downright hilarious. In these madcap moments, Thunder Force shows promise by digging into the premise with a Mystery Men precision of parody and oddity. Sadly, these bits of goofy glory are few and far between.

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