Perhaps the most mind-blowing thing about the Mandalorian TV show on Disney+, aside from Baby Yoda, was the reveal that absolutely none of it was shot outside. The sweeping visuals and alien worlds were all built on indoor sound stages with the aid of a digital background which made them look and feel real. So it should come as no surprise that good ol’ Mando won’t be the only show in the Star Wars stable to take advantage of the new technology. In an interview with ACE Nation, star Ewan McGregor confirmed that his upcoming Obi-Wan show will make use of the digital environments as well.
“The prequels were all blue screen and green screen and it was hard to imagine,” McGregor explained, “but nowadays I think things have moved on so much, and I think a lot of what you see is gonna be what we see on the set. I don’t know if you’ve seen the behind-the-scenes of The Mandalorian series, but they employ that incredible screen. It makes you feel like you’re in the place, it’s going to feel realer for us, as actors. And I think we’ll be using some of that technology on our show.”
The behind-the-scenes series he’s referring to is Disney Gallery: The Mandalorian, which became available on Disney+ for Star Wars Day, May 4, this year. It explores everything about the making of the show, from the casting process to the inner workings of Baby Yoda’s practical puppet. Episode 4, appropriately titled “Technology,” goes in depth with the digital screen background.
The Obi-Wan show had its production put on “indefinite hold” in January, which sparked speculation as to behind-the-scenes shake ups and rewrites, but McGregor set the record straight to GameSpot during a press event for Birds of Prey in Hollywood. The delays were actually as simple as pushing production back to 2021 to give the writing team more time to complete scripts.
Currently, the show is slated for release on Disney+ in 2022.
GameSpot has officially kicked off Play For All–a celebration of all things gaming. Join us as we bring you the summer’s hottest news, previews, interviews, features, and videos, as well as raise money for COVID-19 relief efforts and Black Lives Matter with the help of our friends from around the gaming world. Check out the Play For All schedule for more.
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The story of humanity stretches back quite a bit further than the first settled, agricultural societies. And portraying the nomadic life of many neolithic hunter-gatherers as part of that story is only the first of many ways Humankind is looking to innovate on the time-tested march-through-history 4X formula popularized by Sid Meier’s Civilization. Starting out, every civilization in Humankind is merely a roving band of units that must forage and hunt for food to bolster their numbers. A wooly mammoth represents a major challenge as you roam this wild and untamed world, until you’ve grown your population or discovered enough scientific insights to progress to the Ancient Era.
Settling down puts you in much more familiar 4X territory. You found a capital city and start adding infrastructure and tile improvements to gain access to luxury resources and exploit the land for production, food, gold, and science. But the culture you select upon settling will only be the first of many. Each of Humankind’s six eras includes ten playable cultures, with the Ancient Era giving you the choice between Assyrians, Egyptians, Babylonians, Harappans, Hittites, the Chinese Zhou dynasty, Phoenicians, Olmecs, Nubians, and Mycenaean Greeks. Some of their bonuses will stay with you through the entire game, while others like unique military units are specific to that era.
Progressing to a new era means selecting an entirely new culture. Perhaps your Zhou dynasty was overrun by Huns, and now you care more about mounted warfare than Confucian philosophy for a while. The mark your previous culture left on your civilization will persist, including any unique structures you built. It’s also possible to “transcend” and continue playing as your original culture, which gives you a bonus to your Fame score but prevents you from unlocking any new bonuses.
Fame is the currency of victory in Humankind. There are no specific military, scientific, or cultural win conditions to fulfill, but many achievements that fall under those headings will inject Fame into a national pool that tells you how well you did at the end and allows you to compare your accomplishments with those of your rivals. Being the first to invent writing, discover Mt. Everest, or build the Great Pyramids all add to your Fame.
Similar to Amplitude’s Endless Legend, building a city in Humankind grants you control over an entire, pre-drawn region of the world and allows you to exploit all the resources inside of it. Surrounding regions can be claimed by building outposts, which are more difficult to defend and don’t have a building cue – though they do allow you to purchase tile improvements with money.
Civic Virtue
Eventually, you’ll probably want to either upgrade your outpost into a new city, or add its region to the zone of control of an existing one. The devs want to support both playstyles. They described a single megacity presiding over vast territory as a very “all your eggs in one basket” playstyle. It’s potentially powerful, but losing your capital will mean losing the game, and defending outlying areas might be more difficult with no forward bases. Having lots of smaller cities will require you to specialize more, but also offers better defense in depth.
Any tiles directly around your city center will grant access to their resources, but you’ll need to construct quarters to exploit the land further out. Quarters must be built adjacent to the city center or another, existing quarter and focus on a specific type of resource. Farming Quarters exploit all food resources in a one-tile radius, while Trade Quarters exploit production. In many cases, a particular tile will offer more than one type of resource and you’ll have to choose which one to exploit based on the quarter you choose to build on it. Your choice of culture will have a big impact on how you lay out your cities, too. The Egyptian emblematic quarter, the Egyptian Pyramids, grants bonuses for every adjacent Trade Quarter, so surrounding your pyramids with bustling workshops will grant a major production bonus.
The Story of Us
None of that is too unfamiliar if you’ve played a lot of other 4X games, though. Where Humankind pops the most for me is in the small ways it guides you through creating a story for your civilization. Your society always exists at some point along four different social axes such as Individualism vs Collectivism, Liberty vs Authority, and Traditionalism vs Progressivism. Periodically, events will ask you to make a decision that moves you further toward one side of a given axis or another. One early choice you’ll have to make is whether priests in your society can be men, women, or both. Restricting it to one gender will move you more toward Traditionalist, while allowing both will make you more Progressive.
There are hundreds of such events, and some of them can have repercussions way further down the line. I asked Executive Producer Jean Maxime if my decision to have an all-female priesthood might affect the types of events I see hundreds of years from now. While he couldn’t speak to that specific example, he did confirm that there are decisions “the repercussions of which can be felt through the eras,” with some event chains asking you to make a choice in the Ancient Era that will follow you all the way to the Modern Era.
Aside from simple flavor, each side of each axis provides its own mechanical benefits. Authoritarian societies will enjoy more productive capital cities, while those that lean more toward Liberty will be able to found additional cities with a lower penalty for going over their administrator capacity. You will further shape your society through choosing Civics. Unlike being essentially a second tech tree, as in Civilization 6, Civics in Humankind each offer a choice between two permanent benefits. The Army Organization civic lets you choose between a conscript army (military units are cheaper and you move toward Authoritarian) and a professional army (military units are stronger and you move toward Liberty).
There’s a lot that’s still on the “wait and see” list. Diplomacy, combat, and religion were notably not present in their final forms in the demo I played. But with the announcement of a delay until 2021, partly due to the studio adapting to a work-from-home system during the Covid-19 pandemic, they have quite a lot of time left to get it right. Already, Humankind feels like its own branch of historical 4X separate from the Civilization series in mechanics, aesthetics, and philosophy. I look forward to spending more time with it later this year.
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T.J. Hafer is a contributor to IGN. Talk strategy games and/or history with him on Twitter at @AsaTJ.
Father’s Day is this Sunday, June 21. Fortunately, you still have time to get something for him by then (although, better late than never). Just because your dad’s older than you doesn’t mean he can’t like the same stuff that you do. Score some great deals on stuff you’d want for yourself, like the Oculus VR headset, a massage chair with all the bells and whistles, a sweet Citizen’s watch, the most anticipated game of 2020, the newest model Apple iPad, and more.
Star Wars has revealed 10 physical LEGO Star Wars sets that feature in LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga, some of which will unlock content in the upcoming game for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PC, and Nintendo Switch.
Announced by StarWars.com, the sets, just like LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga, span all nine films and feature some of the most iconic moments, characters, and vehicles in Star War history.
These sets, which will be released on September 1, 2020, include the LEGO Star Wars: Advent Calendar, 501st Legion Clone Troopers, Anakin’s Jedi Interceptor, Armored Assault Tank (AAT), Knights of Ren Transport Ship, General Grevious’ Starfighter, AT-AT, Death Star Final Duel, Resistance I-TS Transport, and The Razor Crest (complete with Baby Yoda).
You can see each set in the slideshow below, with official descriptions from StarWars.com.
Some of these figures and vehicles will already appear in LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga, but some sets – LEGO Star Wars Advent Calendar, Death Star Final Duel, Resistance I-TS Transport, and The Razor Crest – include a code that will unlock special content.
In our hands-on preview, we said “It’s these familiar aspects, combined with ambitious nature of The Skywalker Saga that have me so excited for what is being built here: a more open, narratively free LEGO game that encourages exploration, rather than syphoning you down a prescribed route. If it all comes together it could usher in a bright future for a franchise that was beginning to feel tired.
Have a tip for us? Want to discuss a possible story? Please send an email to [email protected].
Adam Bankhurst is a news writer for IGN who can’t wait and is so excited he just can’t hide it. You can follow him on Twitter @AdamBankhurst and on Twitch.
As its antiquated app icon and the stock image on its website indicate, Private Internet Access has been covering people’s tracks on the internet since 2010. Based in the U.S. but bought by London-based Kape Technologies in late 2019, Private Internet Access offers a pile of internet privacy and security features at a low price. But is the service as out of date as it looks? We downloaded Private Internet Access and put it through its paces to see if it has kept up with the times and has what it takes to be 2020’s best VPN.
Design and Features
While it has options for Linux, Mac OS, and Windows computers, as well as Android and iOS on mobile devices, Private Internet Access lacks apps for Android TV, Amazon Fire TV, and Apple TV. In addition, it doesn’t offer solutions for playing nicely with subscribers’ routers, though it does offer routers for sale that come with the FlashRouters Privacy App pre-installed. These shortcomings already have Private Internet Access falling short of the competition, right out of the gate.
To its credit, Private Internet Access has plenty of servers at the ready, offering users access to 3,300 tunnels across more than 47 countries, worldwide. Claiming to be a no-log VPN, the service maintains an ongoing transparency report on its website, outlining how many court orders, subpoenas, and warrants the company has received and supplied logs in response to.
Private Internet Access’s desktop app is slicker than the company’s outdated marketing might lead a user to expect, but it’s not particularly intuitive. A small window that can either pop out of the taskbar or float on its own, it has a large power button that turns Private Internet Access’s VPN on and off. Below that button, there’s a map showing the location of the server it connects to. To the right of the map is a small arrow that, which clicked on, springboards the user to a list of all the other servers available on the VPN. Favorite servers can be saved, but there’s no recommendation from Private Internet Access on which tunnels are better for certain online activities.
Below the map and server information, there’s another arrow, this one pointing down, that unfurls a dashboard that highlights the VPN’s performance, offers quick access to popular settings, shows subscription information, and more. Also, at the top of the app, next to the VPN’s activation button, there’s a hamburger menu that opens up more settings in a separate window, where users can customize options from the app’s appearance, encryption and protocol configurations, and more.
Performance
Private Internet Access makes no claims of providing fast internet access while its service is securing Internet users web activity, and that’s probably a good thing, because it proved to be one of the slowest VPNs we reviewed. For context, our Internet connection averaged 65 mbps when unprotected by a VPN. While running Private Internet Access, it slowed down to around 20mbps.
To test the service’s speed, we used SpeedOf.Me to take the average download and upload speeds in both the afternoon and evening of our internet connection when it wasn’t cloaked by a VPN, and then took the same measurements when it was protected by Private Internet Access.
But speed isn’t everything. To measure the VPN’s responsiveness, we also used ping-testing on the servers of three popular online multiplayer games – Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, Fortnite, and League of Legends – to be able to measure their performance both when using Private Internet Access and when not. Then, to add real-world context to all those numbers, we played the titles while connected to the service, to see if its the best VPN for gaming. And finally, we kicked back with a movie, streaming the fast-paced action film Extraction, to see Private Internet Access has what it takes to be the best VPN for Netflix.
On average, there was no big change between ping responsiveness on Counter-Strike with or without Private Internet Access enabled. And, unsurprisingly, the game performed well while our computer was protected using the VPN service. This is not just because Private Internet Access’s tunnel played nice with Counter-Strike’s server (though it helped), but the VPN’s upload speeds were comparable to our unprotected rate.
Fortnite performed similarly well, which is surprising on one hand because Private Internet Access’s download speeds were so poor. But on the other hand, the VPN’s upload speeds were good and its responsiveness to Fortnite’s servers were a pleasant surprise, so that speaks to the results.
League of Legends, meanwhile, slashed and clashed as steady as ever while using Private Internet Access. Though the game server’s ping response rate was a bit slower while using Private Internet Access, it wasn’t markedly worse. As such, the game hardly wavered from its typical speed.
Netflix, however, was another story. Queuing up Extraction, the internet speed slowed to a crawl, taking almost a minute to launch the film. It wasn’t until at least another minute that the movie became clear enough to show any detail, but even that was only temporary. The streaming title’s fast-paced action continually devolved into a blocky soup of film. It’s not the way to watch a movie.
Purchasing Guide
One of the less expensive VPNs we reviewed in 2020, Private Internet Access offers a range of pricing plans to its subscribers. It also makes it somewhat convenient to subscribe to its VPN by offering Amazon Pay and Paypal electronic payment options, though it leaves out Android Pay, Apple Pay, and cryptocurrency as methods. Users looking for a one-month Private Internet Access subscription only need to shell out $9.95 per month. If you’re willing to commit to six months of Private Internet Access, you will have to pay $35.95 up front, but that trims the monthly rate back to $5.99. But for just four dollars more, you can get one year of Private Internet Access for just $39.95, a deal made even sweeter because it gives users two months free. At the annual rate, the VPN costs just $2.85 per month. All plans offer a 30-day money back guarantee.
Everyone has their shortlist of their favorite food and drinks. You might like pizza, steak, red velvet cake, and chamomile tea… but you would never want to dump all of that together onto one plate, mash it all together, and then expect it to taste as good as they all do separately. And that disgusting mess of an analogy is what Waking tries to do, but for game genres; take some from Dark Souls, some from various walking simulators, a little from Silent Hill: Shattered Memories, maybe a dash of Psychonauts, and definitely a healthy serving of roguelike. None of it works together, with each piece clashing with every other in the worst way possible.
When you begin Waking, a screen pops up stating that it “is a very personal experience where you play a character based on yourself,” and goes on to say how it will ask about your life, family, and loved ones. This would be a fine idea except but it never truly amounts to anything.
You see, your character is in a coma in a hospital bed and all wrapped in bandages, and you are traveling through your own mindscape trying to piece your brain back together so you can wake up. But there’s a twist: the God of Sleep, Somnus, tries to convince you to move on from this world instead of fighting to stay alive. So when you get to these parts of the story that ask you personal questions, it’s not really about you – it’s more just what it’s going to name things everybody encounters: an attack or summoned NPC, for example. It truly doesn’t matter what answer you give.
[poilib element=”quoteBox” parameters=”excerpt=Most%20of%20Waking%20felt%20like%20nothing%20I%20did%20mattered.”]In fact, most of Waking felt like nothing I did mattered. You’re given a variety of different named weapons to pick up – all named after emotions – but regardless of what they’re called they all do the same damage and all have the same appearance as a small knife. Nowhere I went mattered because every area I traveled to looked practically the same except for a different coloration and a lot of bloom. You go from red desert to green forest to white snowy mountain and a brown area, but they were all hard to look at because of how intense the bloom effect was. The only true variation I got was when I’d get to a boss or story area, which are like stone tombs and caves, respectively. But even though most areas are similar, it was hard to navigate for a variety of reasons.
For one, Waking is not a looker, harkening back to that “Xbox 360 launch game” feel. It looks like it would fit right along with a game like Bullet Witch. Perhaps I’m dating myself here, but if you remember the music video for Californication by the Red Hot Chili Peppers, you can picture how these character models look. The NPCs and enemies all move in a stilted fashion and seem to snap into different animations instead of moving fluidly between actions, and the same could be said of the playable character. I often got caught on invisible level geometry, or I would do a melee attack which would also bring me to a full stop. Jumping never felt natural, with my character launching into the air like he’s got a jetpack, only to be pulled back down to the ground at a physics-defying speed. All of this ugliness just lent itself to me being unable to remember where I was or what I was supposed to be doing or going toward.
Going hand in hand with the ugliness and the repetitive landscape, the combat is also a slog. Everything you do costs a currency called neurons. It costs neurons to use basic attacks, to use items, to open certain doors, to use certain things within a level, to summon allies – but you’re only allowed to carry up to 200 neurons at a time. If there’s a way to upgrade that carrying capacity, there is no clear indication of how to do that, and this limit is stifling.
[poilib element=”quoteBox” parameters=”excerpt=Going%20hand%20in%20hand%20with%20the%20ugliness%20and%20the%20repetitive%20landscape%2C%20the%20combat%20is%20also%20a%20slog.”]Waking does grant you psychic powers to pick up clutter around the area and throw it at an enemy, but that might as well be a stiff breeze for all the damage it does – it only manages a stun on bigger enemies and does nothing at all to late-game enemies. You also get a pitiful, flailing melee attack in which your character flails around wildly, swinging the knife in every direction while doing, once again, little to no damage. That’s only made worse by the fact that it’s effectively limited by ammunition because it costs neurons – that’s not how melee attacks work! And since you only get more neurons from killing enemies, it can lead to a paradoxical situation where you can’t kill an enemy because you can’t attack and you can’t attack because you can’t kill an enemy.
This is all wrapped within an incredibly repetitious mission system where you have to travel from map to map doing really only one type of mission: go to a place, find three of a thing, fight a boss, and then move on. And you do this for more than 20 hours.
In keeping with this theme of mindless repetition, there are only two music tracks that play over and over again. One sounds like a post-rock band like This Will Destroy You or Caspian just noodling around, not making much noise. The other is the battle music, which sounds like a Sunny Day Real Estate demo that no one ever wanted. It’s nowhere near enough for a game of this length.
But the most egregious part of this whole experience was how dragged out everything is. I’ve gone on and on about the repetitive nature of the gameplay, but the story is incredibly boring and every cutscene is unskippable. All of the dialogue is delivered in what I can only assume is a made-up language, but an echoed whisper and the subtitles reveal that it has all the weight and eye-rolling seriousness of a first-year film student trying to understand metaphors.
[poilib element=”quoteBox” parameters=”excerpt=By%20the%20time%20I%20was%20approaching%20the%20end%2C%20I%E2%80%99d%20given%20up%20any%20pretense%20of%20taking%20Waking%20seriously.”]By the time I was approaching the end, I’d given up any pretense of taking Waking seriously. I no longer answered the questions seriously, only giving joke answers. My most important friend? Sonic the Hedgehog. The place I treasure going to the most? Why, Applebee’s of course! This cynicism created the most enjoyable moments of the entire campaign. Entering a level and seeing a message about “remembering Applebee’s” intended to give me an extra boost made me giggle every time.
By IGN law, I am required to mention that I didn’t quite finish this game. I tried – I put in the more-than-20-hours described, and I did reach the final area. But it’s so infuriating that I flat-out refuse to go any further. It’s honestly the most poorly designed and convoluted mess I’ve seen in any game I’ve ever played. Waking never explains what you’re supposed to be doing to reach the final boss – it just plops you in the level with a five-minute time limit. After a while, I figured out that I was supposed to walk across different colored floor panels and if I chose the wrong one it instantly killed me. So I had to look along the walls for glowing squares to tell me which ones are safe and unsafe or pay a crystal ball to tell me one answer.
That doesn’t sound too unreasonable except that the crystal ball – which costs neurons, because of course it does – just kept giving me the same answer over and over and over again. That’s not helpful because there are like 10 different colors and wouldn’t tell me the color I needed to know. I died three or four times and had had to start the level all over again and try to figure it out, mostly by guesswork. Oh, and did I mention that Waking randomizes its levels, so every time you die any of the information you gathered from the previous attempts goes right out the window? Yeah.
We’ve known about the benefits of LED lighting for years: less electricity and longer life. These things alone have driven many of us to switch purely to LED bulbs and even smart bulbs. But LED lighting doesn’t end with light bulbs: LED strip lights are one of the best ways to enhance everything from your gaming PC to your kitchen cabinets, and they’ve come a long way from the early days of PC lighting.
Whether you’re looking for simple, efficient lighting to lower your electricity bill or voice controlled disco lights that sync with your music, there’s something for everyone in the world LED strips. And the good news is that you usually don’t have to spend very much to find exactly what you’re looking for. From the basic and tasteful, to over-the-top customizable, these are our favorite LED strip lights of 2020.
This light strip from Lifx isn’t the cheapest of the bunch, but it is absolutely one of the best. The Lifx Z Wi-Fi Light Strip features twice as many LEDs as its nearest competitor, the Philips Hue White and Color Ambience Light Strip. Despite being rated for slightly fewer lumens, its ability to pain color across a wide area definitely beats out the competition. This lighting strip easily washes out walls and spaces with any hue of your choosing.
LIFX’s real claim to fame is its eight customizable lighting zones per meter. Using the app, you’re able to paint the strip in your choice of colors using your finger or choose from a wide selection of presets. There’s no hub required and if 6.6-feet isn’t enough, you can buy extensions up to a whopping 10-meters in total length.
Coming in at less than half the price of the Lifx Z LED strip is this excellent and budget-friendly option from Govee. At nearly the same length, this strip offers a trio of LEDs at each lighting point, one each for RGB, cool white, and warm white, allowing you to exactly dial in the color and temperature you’d like. It’s also Wi-Fi enabled to integrate with your existing Google Home or Amazon Alexa powered smart home devices.
Govee doesn’t provide any information on lumens or total brightness, but in our experience these strips can become quite bright. Additionally, it comes with an array of color presets, the ability to sync to music, and even act as a wake-up light.
When it comes to RGB lighting, Corsair is king of the hill in the gaming PC space. This kit comes with a set of four lighting strips, as well as the Lighting Node Pro RGB Controller, which can also control Corsair’s array of RGB case fans. Most importantly, they integrate with the company’s proprietary iCUE software.
iCUE gives you more control over your case lighting than virtually any other system. Using the software, you’re able to control each individual LED and assign a huge array or presets, effects, and animations. If you’re running other Corsair gear like PC fans or a gaming keyboard, these light strips are also able to sync up for easy matching or even send animations across your devices.
If you’re looking for bias lighting for your gaming monitor, look no further than the NZXT Hue 2 Ambient Lighting Kit. This kit supports a wide range of monitor sizes, including ultrawides up to 35-inches. It includes eight separate lighting strips to match your display size, as well as an improved mounting system from the first version. Even the control box is mountable for that clean, cable-managed look you crave.
The NZXT Hue 2 Ambient Lighting Kit wins our recommendation because of its excellent screen sampling ability. Rather than display solid colors, these strips are able to project the colors of your screen providing an even more immersive gaming experience. Get this while it’s in stock because they sell out fast!
Building your gaming battlestation doesn’t end with your PC or console. Adding a backlight to your gaming desk can dramatically increase the overall look and elevate your space to new heights. This six-foot RGB strip is perfectly sized to fit even large desks, doesn’t require an extra wall outlet, and can be customized using an easy-to-use app on your smartphone.
Govee’s Bluetooth-Controlled LED Strip light is a great fit, especially if you like to keep things simple. It won’t integrate with your smart home, but getting it up and running is fast and easy. It’s also color customizable with a variety of different presets, including a handy DIY option for creating your own unique effects.
It was only a matter of time until Corsair offered RGB lighting outside the PC, and they’ve made quite a splash with their innovative LS100 Smart Lighting Starter Kit. Every LS100 lighting strip features a built in diffuser for smooth, flowing RGB lighting. Most importantly, using the software, you can choose to use this kit on the back of a monitor or any custom arrangement you choose, making it a perfect fit (and length!) for the back of a desk.
Using Corsair’s iCUE software, you can easily choose from a wide array of preset lighting effects or create animations all your own. When used as a monitor lighting kit, you can even sample your screen for outstanding bias lighting. These light strips aren’t the brightest because of the built in diffusers, but the level of customization and versatility is hard to beat.
Looking to give your kitchen a facelift? Adding under-cabinet LED lighting is a sure-fire way to add a touch of modern to your home. This kit from Wobane includes everything you need to get started and is available in both “warm” and “cold” kits to match your decor.
This kit one-ups the competition taking the guess-work out of adding under-cabinet lighting. It includes cable holders, extensions, and adhesive for a completely tool-free assembly. It also gives you the option of controlling your lights with a remote control or a mountable dimmer switch.
TV backlight kits are a dime a dozen, but Govee takes things up a notch with their Wi-Fi TV Backlight Kit with Camera. Rather than force you to choose a static color, this kit comes with a small camera that mounts on the top of your Gaming TV and changes the backlight to match what you’re viewing! If you’re not in the mood for screen matching, you can still choose a color or preset of your choice, or have it sync to your music with its built-in microphone.
This kit mounts like most others and comes with one long strip for the top and two smaller strips for the sides, plus the camera to sample your screen. Once installed, the Govee Home app allows you to calibrate the camera to match your screen. The accuracy isn’t perfect, but this added functionality gives it an edge on the competition.
LED lighting can enhance the look of any room. This kit from Maxonar comes with two 16.4-foot rolls, each packing twice the LEDs of competing brands for a total of six hundred emitters. It also comes with a full DIY kit to cut, connect, extend these strips to match your dimensions exactly. Whether you’re lighting up a display cabinet or adding mood lighting to an entire room, this kit will deliver the brightness and customizability you need.
Since mood and accent lighting work alongside the other lighting in your room, smart home compatibility is more important than ever. Thankfully, these strips are Wi-Fi enabled and will work with Amazon Alexa and Google Home and even integrates with online systems such as IFTTT.
What To Look for in LED Light Strips
Just as the market for LED light strips has expanded, it’s also become more complicated to find exactly what you’re looking for. If you want to make sure you’re getting exactly what you hope for, be sure to follow these tips.
Don’t worry too much about brand name, instead focus on features and reviews. Most of the LED light strip market is dominated by small brands you’ve probably never heard of before. This can be confusing and a bit intimidating, but try not to worry too much. Instead, focus on the features the light strip offers. Does it have the Bluetooth connectivity you’re looking for? Is it single-color, RGB, or RGBW? Remember, while RGB strips can produce white, only RGBW strips can produce a clean white like true lightbulb. Once you’ve decided that it meets your needs, look carefully over the pictures, and then see what other users have to say in the review section. Those three things will offer you the best insight into whether the company is rebranding a cheap strip or is actually in the business for the long run.
The second thing to look for is the type of lighting the strip actually provides. Don’t rely on the picture alone, especially if you’re purchasing an RGB strip. If you’re searching for white lighting, be sure it has the color temperature you’re looking for. If you’re shopping for RGB, you’ll want to find out how its RGB lighting works. Can you set it in sections or is it whole strip only? Is the lighting static or does it flow? Are their presets and, if there are, can you customize them or create your own? With so many options, don’t be afraid to move on to another listing if these answers aren’t clear.
Third, pay close attention to how you control the lighting. Many low-costs strips use a remote while more expensive often features smartphone apps. While the remotes can work just fine, you’re often more limited in color, brightness, and customization than app-enabled lighting strips. If you do choose an app-integrated strip, be sure it connects the way you intend. Bluetooth light strips offer more fast and easy setup, but smart home integration, such as Amazon Alexa or Google Home, require Wi-Fi.
Finally, keep in mind how long of a strip you actually need. It’s possible to cut many LED strips to size, so you don’t have to be exact, but if you’re going for RGB, shortening the length could impact what lighting is able to be displayed and how well your strip matches the app. Don’t cut the tail off your rainbow.
Chris Coke is a tech critic that cares way too much about mechanical keyboards. Check him out at IGN, MMORPG.com, or PC Perspective. Follow him on Twitter @gamebynight.
Devolution, the latest book by World War Z author Max Brooks, is getting the feature film treatment.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, Legendary Entertainment has acquired the new novel, titled Devolution: A Firsthand Account of the Rainier Sasquatch Massacre, which hit shelves on Tuesday via the Del Rey imprint of Penguin Random House.
Image credit: Del Rey Books
The supernatural story is drawn from the journals of Kate Holland, recovered from the bloody wreckage of a volcanic eruption in the eco-community town of Mt. Rainier that has been rampaged by ferocious beasts known as the Sasquatch. The Bigfoot thriller is described as “part survival narrative, part bloody horror tale, part scientific journey into the boundaries between truth and fiction.”
Devolution was originally set to be developed as a creature feature back in 2012, with Lost TV director Jack Bender and David Leslie Johnson attached to the project alongside Brooks, who was working on the concept for Legendary, but Brooks switched mediums and decided to turn the idea into a book first. However, now that Devolution has been optioned for an adaptation, Bender and Leslie Johnson are no longer involved.
Brooks is best known for writing World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War, which was adapted by Paramount into the Brad Pitt-starring zombie horror movie, World War Z, that grossed $540 million worldwide following its release in 2013. A sequel was in development, but production halted last year due to budgeting issues and a lack of momentum.
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Adele Ankers is a Freelance Entertainment Journalist. You can reach her on Twitter.
Doom Patrol Season 2 is nearly upon us, and IGN can exclusively debut a new trailer for the DC Universe/HBO Max series.
Check out the trailer in the video player above or embedded below to get a closer look at the wacky storylines coming in Season 2, as well as a first look at new villains like The Candlemaker, Red Jack, and Doctor Tyme.
If you’re struggling to make sense of the weirdness on display in this trailer, we can help. Read on for a breakdown of these new characters and how they may fit into the new season.
The Candlemaker
With Niles Caulder’s daughter Dorothy Spinner (Abigail Shapiro) making her full debut in Season 2, we recently speculated Season 2 might focus on the villain known as The Candlemaker. That guess turned out to be correct. The Candlemaker is a powerful psychic entity powered by humanity’s collective fear of the apocalypse. It was banished outside our plane of existence. However, because Dorothy has the ability to turn imaginary beings into real, flesh-and-blood figures, The Candlemaker sees her as a pathway back into the DC Universe.
At this point we don’t know whether The Candlemaker will be a standalone villain or a recurring antagonist in Season 2. But given its power level and its fundamental connection to the Caulder family, we could easily see this villain taking the place of Alan Tudyk’s Mr. Nobody.
Red Jack is another immensely powerful and profoundly evil villain who could easily serve as the main threat of Season 2. This villain claims to be the creator of the universe, after which he punished himself by banishing himself to another dimension and only returning once every 100 years. Last time he showed up, he played the part of Jack the Ripper until vanishing again.
Red Jack derives power from the pain and suffering of other beings. He even keeps a collection of live butterflies pinned to a wall in his manor, sustaining him during those long years in between killing sprees.
Percival Sutter is a brilliant scientist who chooses to use his talent for evil. He’s designed a weapon called the 4-X Ray, one which allows him to speed up or slow down time at a whim. Sutter eventually abandoned his evil ways and began working with the Doom Patrol in the comics, so we may see the character undergo a similar journey in the TV series.
The SeX-Men are easily the strangest and most eye-popping new characters to be introduced in this trailer. As the name suggests, this group is sort of a parody of the X-Men, or at least a sly acknowledgment of the many similarities between the X-Men and Doom Patrol.
The SeX-Men aren’t necessarily villains. They’re actually a government-sponsored team who specialize in supernatural sexual situations. Their members include colorfully named heroes like Captain Kiss, Lieutenant Cuddle, and Lieutenant Torture. We’re not surprised to see them showing up on Danny the Street, given the very NSFW antics that go on there. But if the comics are anything to go by, we expect the Doom Patrol and the SeX-Men will eventually join forces to battle a common foe.
Here’s DC’s official description for Doom Patrol: Season 2:
DC’s strangest group of heroes — Cliff Steele aka Robotman (Brendan Fraser), Larry Trainor aka Negative Man (Matt Bomer), Rita Farr aka Elasti-Woman (April Bowlby), Jane aka Crazy Jane (Diane Guerrero), and Victor Stone aka Cyborg (Joivan Wade) — are back again to save the world. That is, if they can find a way to grow up…both figuratively and literally. Following the defeat of Mr. Nobody, the members of the Doom Patrol now find themselves mini-sized and stranded on Cliff’s toy race car track. Here they begin to deal with their feelings of betrayal by Niles Caulder aka The Chief (Timothy Dalton), while confronting their own personal baggage. And as each member faces the challenge of growing beyond their own past traumatic experiences, they must come together to embrace and protect the newest member of the family: Dorothy Spinner (Abigail Shapiro), Niles’ daughter, whose powers remain a mysterious but real threat to bringing on the end of the world.
Following news that Baldur’s Gate 3 will launch in early access this August, a massive Dungeons & Dragons PC games sale is happening right now on Steam and GOG. Both sales feature steep discounts on classic computer role-playing games from the world of D&D, from Baldur’s Gate 1 and 2 to Icewind Dale, Neverwinter Knights, and more.
If you want to go back to where Baldur’s Gate began before the third game releases, the enhanced versions of both Baldur’s Gate and Baldur’s Gate II are on sale for $10 each, down from their usual $20. These both include the original stories along with an added expansion, new adventures, new characters, native support for high-resolution widescreen displays, and hundreds of bug fixes and other improvements. Baldur’s Gate: Siege of Dragonspear is also on sale for $10–this 2016 expansion added the first original content to the series in over 15 years and includes more than 25 hours of gameplay.
You can check out the full D&D sales happening on Steam and GOG below along with highlights from the sales. You’ll find additional DLC for some of these games discounted as well.
