VR Tech Times

I am planning to go in for a midsize SUV petrol manual under Rs 16 lakh, and I have shortlisted the Skoda Kushaq and Kia Seltos. My commute involves a 40km drive every day and around 80km over the weekend. Which is the better option? Akhil Thavarayil, Hyderabad Autocar India says: We would suggest you look at the Kushaq 1.0 manual, which will not only fit your budget but is also a nicer car to drive than the Seltos 1.5 (non-turbo doesn’t have the same punch as the Kushaq). If you can stretch your budget, the top-end Seltos with the 1.5 turbo-petrol is feature-packed and has a strong engine, making it our pick for your budget. Also See: Skoda Kushaq review, test drive Skoda Kushaq video review Kia Seltos facelift review: Small changes add up Kia Seltos facelift video review Skoda Kushaq vs Kia Seltos drag race video   from Autocar India https://ift.tt/MmiU6Fc

One of the exciting things about technology is that the extent to which it will evolve can be unimaginable. An iPhone is thousands of times more powerful than a 1980s supercomputer, for example. The Clean Earth Magnet in development by US firm Niron Magnetics is another example, because powerful magnets are needed in just about every facet of human life, and this could be a game-changer in any device that uses an electric motor. Electric motors, not just for cars but for everything from drills to submarines, come in various types, one of which is the permanent magnet motor. Therein, the rotor has embedded magnets that are attracted to a rotating magnet field created by the stator – a set of electromagnetic coils surrounding the rotors. The permanent magnets’ power has a bearing on the motor’s performance and efficiency. It also influences the motor’s size and weight, because the stronger the magnets, the smaller they can be – as can other parts of the motor on which they have an eff

Humans are very visual creatures, and when we find things attractive we are prone to forgive their shortcomings. Take the case of any cruiser worth its salt - by the rules that govern its design, it can't really have lots of suspension travel but those macho, low-slung looks are something that so many of us Indians are tempted by. I’m part of that crowd too, although my riding journey hasn't ever allowed me to spend any extended seat time aboard a cruiser. So when my departure for a long road trip with my friends neared, I was prompt to snag the keys to our long term Super Meteor 650 .  To make sure I went into this fully prepared, a quick phone call to the generous folks at Royal Enfield for some protective and comfort enhancing accessories allowed our bike to be equipped with a sump guard, small (and rather sleek looking) engine guard and the backrest alongside a comprehensive service. Let me put a disclaimer here and say that over this long journey, I seldom encountered b

I’m always grateful for the fact that I’ve had the opportunity to ride motorcycles in some of the fantastic places around the world. It really is a special experience to get to ride on exquisite roads that wind through exotic lands, but a recent ride through Thailand was the best experience yet and I think it’s worth sharing why that was. The Yamaha R3 and MT-03 reviews were the result of a thoroughly enjoyable three-day ride through the northern region of Thailand. We flew into the city of Chiang Mai and began the 700-odd km ride from there. The route included the cities of Phayao, Nan and back to Chiang Mai, and what a route it was. It was three days of nearly non-stop winding roads. Some were incredibly wide and fast, others gently meandering through the countryside. In some cases, we rode on the most exhilarating single-carriage mountain roads I’ve ever experienced. Every road had near-perfect tarmac and road signage was meticulously detailed, to the point of even letting roa

<p><img loading="lazy" src="https://ift.tt/4NgKClb" width="800" height="450" alt="" typeof="foaf:Image" class="image-style-body-default" /></p> Platform: PlayStation 5 Publisher: Square Enix Developer: Square Enix Release: <time datetime="2024-02-29T12:00:00Z" class="datetime">February 29, 2024</time> Rating: Teen <p>Just as Final Fantasy VII Remake featured a predetermined endpoint – the escape from Midgar – Final Fantasy VII Rebirth players also know when their adventure will culminate in this game. The Forgotten Capital, the location that plays host to one of the most impactful moments in any video game, is the destination for the story contained within Final Fantasy VII Rebirth.</p> <p><em><strong>Warning:</strong> The following article contains <strong>spoilers</strong> for the original version of Final Fa

This week on All Things Nintendo, we close out 2023 with a special Inbox Q&A episode featuring Brittney Brombacher from What's Good Games . Brian and Brittney cover everything from the Zelda movie to looking back on Super Mario Bros. Wonder more than two months later. Of course, before we get to that, Brian learns Brittney's history with Nintendo. If you'd like to follow Brian on social media, you can do so on his Instagram/Threads  @BrianPShea  or Twitter  @BrianPShea . You can follow Brittney on Twitter: @BlondeNerd . You can also find What's Good Games on YouTube . The All Things Nintendo podcast is a weekly show where we celebrate, discuss, and break down all the latest games, news, and announcements from the industry's most recognizable name. Each week, Brian is joined by different guests to talk about what's happening in the world of Nintendo. Along the way, they'll share personal stories, uncover hidden gems in the eShop, and even look back o

At the end of every year, gamers are faced with an undeniable fact: far too many video games are released in a 12-month span for anyone to reasonably play them all. It's literally my job to play video games and I bet someone could fill a reasonable top ten this year of titles I didn't even get time to touch. But even as it's a universal, undeniable truth, the revelation that you missed out on something popular is always met with the same incredulous statement. “You've never played this?” I understand the impulse. For instance, Baldur's Gate 3 took up so many hours of my 2023 that it's hard to fathom what the year would be like without it. This sentiment extends well beyond GOTY talks, though – some games are so fundamental to our taste or upbringing that it can be hard to process that people who did it differently exist. There are people who have never played a Zelda game or a Halo game, and I bet if you asked a middle school crowd, plenty of them have never

If you’ve watched TV or read a newspaper over the past few weeks, as I expect you would have, you’re sure to have seen Maruti Suzuki commercials tom-tomming the tag of becoming India’s number 1 SUV maker. The rise up the sales charts is on the back of models like the Grand Vitara, Jimny, Brezza and Fronx. Now, what classifies as an SUV is debatable, but even within this grey area, the Fronx is the odd one out. It’s actually more of a raised hatchback. Ok, so with that out of the way, what a looker the Fronx is! To me, a good benchmark of how fundamentally attractive a car is, is how it looks in its lower trims. Our car is a mid-spec Delta+, bereft of the fully loaded Alpha+’s precision-cut alloy wheels, yet it stands out. I love the broad-shouldered, mini-Urus stance and the tail-end is particularly slick. It’s really the design that you’d want a Fronx for. Fuel economy is excellent despite the worst of Mumbai traffic. The Fronx got off to a rolling start with a quick trip to Goa

Xbox’s first-party studio lineup in 2017 consisted of five studios and a publishing arm: Rare, Turn 10, 343 Industries, The Coalition, Mojang Studios, and Xbox Game Studios Publishing. Today, six years later, Microsoft owns more than 50 studios, thanks to various acquisitions over the years. Microsoft announced in January of 2022 that it was acquiring Call of Duty and Diablo maker Activision Blizzard for a colossal $68.7 billion, the largest video game acquisition ever. After nearly two years of Stateside court cases with the federal government, appeals and appeasements across the pond, unprecedented document leaks, direct arguments from rivals like PlayStation, and more, the deal is complete: Xbox is home to all 19 of Activision Blizzard’s studios (and King’s 11 mobile game development studios as well, since Activision Blizzard purchased the company in 2016). Grand Ambition Following the official announcement of the acquisition, lawyers and analysts were quick to bring up the U.S

While most of the major gaming companies released player-specific wrap-up stats earlier this month, today Valve decided to share some platform-wide statistics, highlighting the most played Steam games of the year . To avoid divulging specifics, the entries are not ranked individually but by category. The top twelve games are in the platinum section, the next 13 are in the gold section, the next 25 are in the silver section, and the last 50 are in bronze. Within those categories, however, entries are "randomly sorted," so it's unclear which specific game came out at the top of the heap in any specific category. Still, it's interesting data. Hogwarts Legacy, Baldur's Gate 3, Starfield, and Sons of the Forest each make the platinum category of almost every list they qualify for. Baldur's Gate 3 nearly completes a full sweep, but it doesn't quite make the cut for the controller platinum category, and there isn't a VR version. It's also interesting t

More than six years after the original Persona 5 arrived on U.S. store shelves, the RPG is still spitting out successors and spin-offs that capitalize on how beloved that title is to this day. The 2020 update, Persona 5 Royal, is the best-received successor , but both 2021 Musou hybrid Persona 5 Strikers and the recently released turn-based strategy RPG Persona 5 Tactica gave players plenty to love. Among the reasons players love those games are the new additions to the cast. Each of those aforementioned titles gives the core Phantom Thieves new characters with whom to interact. Royal gave us Kasumi and Maruki, Strikers gave us Sophia and Zenkichi, and most recently, Tactica gave us Erina and Toshiro. With chemistry serving such an important role for the casts of these games, bringing in new additions could be a tricky proposition. However, the Persona teams have historically done a great job with these delicate balancing acts. We had the chance to ask producer Atsushi Nomura, wh

Valve has released its annual "Best Of" list highlighting the top-performing games on Steam measured by gross revenue and player engagement. The categories are top sellers, best-selling new releases, most-played games on PC, most-played games on Steam Deck, highest-grossing early access games, most-played using a controller, and best-selling VR titles. The top 12 games in each category earn Platinum status, while everything below them is grouped into a descending ranking of Gold, Silver, and Bronze. It's a fun snapshot of the games Steam users dug into most this year and a reminder that games seemingly on the downtrend or long in the tooth (like, say, Destiny 2) clearly have a lot of players still logging in to play.   You can view the complete list here , but we’ve listed the Platinum-ranked games alphabetically in each category (Valve does not rank these games). Top Sellers (highest gross revenue earned in 2023) Apex Legends Baldur’s Gate 3 Call of Duty (MW III,

Platform: PlayStation 5 Publisher: Square Enix Developer: Square Enix Release: February 29, 2024 Rating: Teen Back in 1997, Final Fantasy VII established Sephiroth as one of the most iconic antagonists in gaming history. In 2020, Final Fantasy VII Remake greatly expanded his role in the first act of the beloved RPG, and in 2024, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth hopes to give us even more context for the One-Winged Angel. We played a portion of Final Fantasy VII Rebirth and spoke with several members of the development team to learn how Sephiroth is depicted in the upcoming second act of the Remake trilogy. While Sephiroth's role in this middle portion of the original Final Fantasy VII is more understated, often simply being described by NPCs rather than actually seen, the team behind Final Fantasy VII Rebirth wanted to change that. "Remake covers your encounter with Sephiroth, and now within Rebirth, we wanted to make Sephiroth this very clear antagonist and target for th

This year represented one of the most difficult game of the year discussions we’ve had in some time; 2023 was overflowing with fantastic games. But our opinions are not the only ones ( you can read Game Informer's top 2023 10 list right here ). For a few weeks, beginning November 17 , we ran a poll online, and readers sent their top five favorite games of 2023. We used ranked positional voting – the Borda count method – to gather the results below. If you have opinions on your opinions, leave us a comment below! But you can't be mad at us. This is all you. Cities: Skylines II Advance Wars 1+2: Re-Boot Camp Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora Darkest Dungeon II The Legend of Heroes: Trails into Reverie Honkai: Star Rail Like A Dragon: Ishin Destiny 2: Lightfall The Talos Principle II Blasphemous 2 Jusant Star Ocean: The Second Story R Atomic Heart RoboCop: Rogue City Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty Forza Motorsport The Jackbox Party Pack 10 Like A Dragon Gaiden: The Man

<p><img loading="lazy" src="https://ift.tt/EvZPoq3" width="800" height="450" alt="The Pirate Queen VR: A Forgotten Legend Singer Studios Screenshots Preview" typeof="foaf:Image" class="image-style-body-default" /></p> Platform: Rift, Quest, Vive Publisher: Singer Studios Developer: Singer Studios Release: 2024 <p>When you think of pirates, history mainstays like Blackbeard might come to mind alongside the fictional Jack Sparrow. An important but often forgotten name, however, is Cheng Shih. Not only is Cheng Shih one of history's most successful pirates, but she's also the woman who took over her late husband Zheng Yi Sao's pirate armada after his death, putting her in indirect control of 40,000-plus pirates for a nearly decade-long stint in Chinese waters in the early 19th Century. While Shih's story can be found on pages of books and elsewhere, Singer Studios aims to

Climbing a skyscraper for the 25th time in a day quickly erodes the novelty of virtual reality. For over three years, Attila Kardos was one of the quality assurance testers at PlayStation Liverpool, one of the testing centers of Sony Interactive Entertainment Europe. During his tenure, he worked on first-party behemoths like God of War, Horizon: Zero Dawn, and Detroit: Become Human. But today, heʼs talking about a different type of testing involving a headset and physically mimicking movements for multiple hours at your office desk. In games like Blood & Truth, where you take a starring role in action movie-esque setpieces, the fun factor of virtual reality quickly makes itself apparent. However, experiences like this can be taxing. A player can stop at any time. A tester doesnʼt have that luxury. It doesnʼt take long for the monotonous physical effort to take a toll. And then they have to show up at work the next day and do it all again. Job Simulator “Eventually, you start f