This article was published in the February 2015 issue of Maximum PC. For more trusted reviews and feature stories, subscribe here.

Slimming down for the Internet of Things

Over the past months, I've described two of the world s most powerful microprocessors in this column. But chip makers aren t always thinking big. Some of the most surprising new designs are in the smallest processors—particularly for wearable devices and the Internet of Things (IoT).

Smart watches and Google Glass are only the first examples of wearables. Expect many more, including physical implants. IoT devices include everything from smart thermostats and smoke alarms to industrial machinery and car navigation systems. Processors for these gadgets share three requirements: they must be small, consume very little power, and provide wireless connectivity.

On-chip radios should solve bad battery life in wearables.

The obvious solution would seem to be microcontrollers, which have been around for decades. On a single chip, MCUs integrate a CPU core, SRAM, nonvolatile memory (usually fl ash), and peripherals. Those peripherals typically include counters, timers, analog/digital converters, and digital/analog converters. Some even have USB or Ethernet controllers. Essentially, an MCU is a single-chip computer that can function without external DRAM.

But MCUs lack one crucial feature—wireless connectivity. For that, they need external radio chips. And those additional chips consume more power and board space, which are scarce resources in wearables and IoT devices. Although some early gadgets use conventional MCUs, we need new processors that add wireless to their bag of tricks.

They re coming. One example is Marvell s new 88M processor family. The fastest chip has a 200MHz ARM Cortex-M4F core. With 512KB of SRAM, it doesn t need external DRAM to run a small OS and simple software. More important, this chip has an 802.11n Wi-Fi radio. Two similar models add flash memory and replace the Wi-Fi with either a Bluetooth or Zigbee transceiver. Designers can build a working system by adding only an external crystal and antenna. Total cost for this combo: about $10.

Marvell s tiny processor sips mere milliwatts of power, but it s still not small enough for some things. That s why French firm Cortus recently introduced a 32-bit CPU core with an abbreviated three-stage instruction pipeline. By contrast, Intel s Haswell processors have up to 19 stages. The Cortus APS23 is about the same size as ARM s smallest core, the Cortex-M0+, which has a two-stage pipeline.

To beat that, a Slovenian company recently astonished a Silicon Valley conference by announcing a CPU core that has no pipeline at all. (This is like showing up at an automotive industry conference with a one-cylinder push-valve engine.) Beyond Semiconductor s new BA20 is almost a throwback to the 70s, except it s a real 32-bit processor. Stanford University, meanwhile, has prototyped an ant-sized processor that uses so little power it harvests what it needs by absorbing radio waves.

Another challenge is shrinking the transceivers and antennas. An IoT processor may need radios for Wi-Fi, cellular, Bluetooth,Zigbee, GPS, or near-fi eld communications (NFC). Some of those require multiple radios—Wi-Fi operates in the 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands, while cellular networks use many different frequencies. This challenge is more difficult than making tiny CPU cores because analog circuitry doesn t shrink as neatly.

Nevertheless, the race is on to build smaller, cheaper, more power-efficient IoT processors. Before they mature, we ll have to tolerate inconveniences, such as bulky smart watches that require daily charging. But remember, the first cell phones were as large as World War II walkie-talkies.

Tom Halfhill was formerly a senior editor for byte magazine and is now an analyst for Microprocessor Report.

Dead or Alive 5: Last Round for PC was a bit of a disaster when it released in March. Not only did it launch without an online mode, but it also suffered graphics equivalent to the PS3 version: not a good look for something marketed as a remaster. While the latter isn't going to change, Team Ninja did promise it would implement online functionality by June. After a recent beta, though, the studio has decided it needs more time.

"Due to major issues found during the beta test, we will be postponing the release of the update," Team Ninja wrote. "We apologize for the last minute notification and regret deeply the trouble we have caused our Steam customers who were looking forward to the online functionality. We will update the website with a new release date as soon as it is set."

Those in the beta are free to keep playing it, though the studio also offered instructions for players keen to opt out of it. 

It's hard to see a future for Dead or Alive on PC: this launch didn't go down especially well with PC gamers, and nor did we obey Team Ninja when they said not to mod nudes into the already underdressed series. 

Cheers, Polygon.

The Genesis Starliner, pictured above, is a new luxury ship available in Star Citizen. According to the Star Citizen website it doesn't have "a naturally apparent style of gameplay", but it will nonetheless set you back a whopping $400. That's a lot of money for a digital ship in an unfinished game, but according to Cloud Imperium Games it's all in keeping with the authenticity of the space simulation, because not all ships are made for shooting at other ships.

"We ve said it again and again over the past two years: we want Star Citizen to be a living, breathing world," Cloud Imperium Games writes on the game's website. "Which means spending resources building out (and building up) ships that would exist in a real world, even when they aren t combatants or adventurers. 

"Our job with the Starliner was to determine how passenger travel in the verse would be both fun and necessary… and then to build out a ship worthy of that system. Designers have spent a lot of time working on the realism: everything from safety features to a plan for how to make passenger travel fun, interesting and rewarding for those who choose to fly the Genesis."

The fuel-efficient spacecraft can be used to transport both passengers and cargo, though the former appears to be priority. It can hold eight staff and 40 passengers, as well as entertainment options and... drinking. You can drink on the Genesis Starliner.

The ship is available until July 6 and will help fund ongoing development of the game, which has already attracted around $84 million. "We are offering these pledge ships to help fund Star Citizen s development," the post reads. "All of these ships will be available for in-game credits in the final universe, and they are not required to start the game."

Heroes of the Storm s newest battleground, The Battlefield of Eternity, is the first in the game to be based on an existing Blizzard universe; Diablo. Until now, all of the maps have been part of the Nexus—a new world first introduced with Heroes of the Storm—and are very much in line with the game s brightly colored, slightly cartoony aesthetic. One has an Egyptian setting, another has a pirate theme, but they all share a core style despite their thematic differences. All, that is, until The Battlefield of Eternity.

When I first heard Blizzard would be making a Diablo-themed map, I assumed it would share the familiar style of Heroes of the Storm s other maps only with a Diablo flavor. But The Battlefield of Eternity goes far beyond flavor, almost entirely abandoning the look of the Nexus maps in favor of being a true Diablo battleground.

The map is a large battlefield (as the name would imply) split down the center with one team fighting for the armies of Heaven and the other for Hell. Minions and mercenaries aren t just reskinned to be angels and demons, they are completely new models that look like they ve been taken straight out of Diablo 3. Your core isn t the usual statue, but a giant angelic/demonic warrior who explodes into piles of gold and loot when destroyed. And the centerpiece of the map is a battle between an Angel and a Demon, called Immortals.

In terms of gameplay, The Battlefield of Eternity has only two true lanes; one at the top and one at the bottom. The center is a large area with various obstacles and winding paths that plays host to the Immortal's confrontation. Your team has to kill your opponent s Immortal before they can kill yours, but the two aren t right next to each other, meaning you ll need to split your focus between attacking and defending. Once one Immortal has reached half health, the two clash in a series of scripted animations before reappearing in slightly different spots. When one has been defeated, the surviving Immortal will head to a lane and push down enemy structures.

The entire map seems to be about splitting your team's resources. In The Haunted Mines, the only other two lane map, the lanes are close enough that you can go between them quickly if anything goes wrong—but getting from one side of The Battlefield of Eternity to the other will take significantly longer. When the Immortals are fighting, your whole team can t be together without being absent from another important part of the map. Heroes with teleports and jumps such as Brightwing and Falstad are going to be very helpful during the laning periods of a match.

The clashing animations for the Immortals are some of the most cinematic and beautiful things added to Heroes of the Storm so far, incomparable to any other animation in the game, but I m not sure how I feel about the stark graphical difference otherwise. I ve become so accustomed to how minions and mercenaries look, that seeing entirely new ones is a little jarring. I imagine I would have been happy with a Diablo themed set of merc camps, similar to previous maps, but maybe that formula would begin to feel tedious a few battlegrounds down the line. The unique looking minions may be Blizzard s attempt at being proactive about this problem, and might mean it aims to vary the map objectives more consistently down the line.

One thing s for sure: The Battlefield of Eternity battleground is undeniably Diablo—a faction of Blizzard s roster that has so far been disappointingly under-represented. I haven t played on the map enough to really see how the gameplay stacks up against the others, but you ll see that it instantly distinguishes itself graphically. The changes may seem stark now, but they show that Blizzard isn t afraid to bring its other worlds into Heroes of the Storm for more than just characters, and make me interested in what other new maps we might see in the future.

We took a look at the Early Access version of Stardock's new 4X strategy game Sorcerer King in October of 2014, and while it was still very much in a pre-release state at that point, it seemed "promising" nonetheless. We haven't really kept up with it since, so I can't comment on what sort of state it's in now. But hopefully it's something like "good," because it's coming out of Early Access next month.

You play the game as the leader of a city-state standing against the Sorcerer King, who has begun to destroy the world's magical "shards" so he can steal their power for himself. You'll also have to deal with other, more short-sighted factions, who care less about what the Sorcerer King is getting up to than about conquering new lands for their own little kingdoms.

You don't have to knock them off, however—you have to sign them up to your cause. The "twist," as Stardock puts it, is that the war against the Sorcerer King has already been fought and lost, and so while you're sending scouting parties out from your one little city, exploring the world, gathering resources, and (hopefully) making new friends, he's already well into the process of reshaping the world in his image.

"Sorcerer King is a new direction for 4X game design, pitting the player against a single overwhelmingly powerful enemy instead of a set of evenly matched factions racing for abstract victory conditions," the Steam description states. "Think of the Sorcerer King as the evil mage who won the last traditional 4X game. He has already conquered the world. His enemies (including you) are scattered, their armies broken and cities torn down. His dark minions have free reign to terrorize the survivors everywhere except a few tiny outposts of civilization (like the one you start in) too insignificant to crush."

Sorcerer King is scheduled to go into full launch on July 16, and for now remains available as an Early Access game on Steam. Find out more at sorcererking.com.

At E3 2014, the Oculus Rift game that captured everyone s imagination wasn t a first-person shooter or immersive scare-fest or actiony space sim. It was a platformer: the cute, Mario-inspired Lucky s Tale. Everyone loved Lucky s Tale. But it was just a prototype. And after the overwhelmingly positive response, the developers at Playful Corp. had to tackle the task of making a full length 3D platformer for VR. A year after Lucky s debut, Playful Corp. returned to E3 with a real game, and it s even better proof that first-person isn t the only way to make VR gaming work. It might not even be the best way.

I think over half the games that Oculus is showing at this show are 3rd person, said CEO Paul Bettner, after I tried out the latest Lucky s Tale demo at E3 2015. Last year we were the only one and everyone was giving us strange looks, like, 3rd person in VR? …I do think, as crazy as it seems, that most VR games with character locomotion are going to end up being 3rd person games, where you re either traversing an environment or moving your character in an environment. And then the the first person style experiences...where you re sitting at a desk and it s like this puzzle that comes to you and you do things with it, or stand up and walk around in a small space.

A year ago, the Lucky s Tale prototype was unmistakably (and unabashedly) Mario inspired, and playing it recalled taking those first few steps in Mario 64 and being wowed by its 3D world. The prototype level was far more linear and much easier than Mario, but platforming in VR, with its depth and an innate sense of immersion, gave me the same sensation: this is a defining use of new technology. The Lucky s Tale of 2015 is now a more complete game. In some ways it feels even more like Mario, with linear, but larger, environments, leisurely explorable with collectables scattered about. The camera is now locked closer behind Lucky s back as you progress forward, and running around the environment made me think of some of Mario Galaxy s larger levels.

It s all about the interplay of the way the camera engine works, which is always to design first and foremost for comfort, and then the ways we can push that to do interesting things with the level design, said Dan Hurd, the director of Lucky s Tale. This level you just played, it s still linear, but it has a much greater sense of feeling like an open space that you can explore...We ve had to get really clever about how to create a sensation of an open environment you can explore, even though really you don't ever feel like you need to go back behind you, because that doesn t work very well. That would require rotating the camera and other things that we re trying to avoid, to keep it simple and accessible. So, as you saw in this, there s lots of tricks around teleporting Lucky around and bringing you to different spots in the level, where you still always feel like you know where to go.

I was surprised just how different Lucky s Tale felt with a rather small camera change. That first prototype level felt more like I was guiding this small character through a virtual world, while bringing the camera in closer to Lucky made it feel more like I was playing as him, with our perspectives in sync. I think [when the game] ships next year, it s probably going to be a unique perspective based on the area of the level you re in, because it conveys a different feeling, Bettner said. When you're really up close to him, you feel more like you re inside the level, and when you re further back, you feel more like you re playing a video game.

Even tiny changes to camera angle and position have a major impact in VR, and that s tricky to balance—especially since the field of view has changed from Oculus Rift DK2 to Crescent Bay to consumer model. The camera angle affects how you experience the game, but it also affects motion sickness. I found myself getting just a touch of nausea as the camera moved away from Lucky and I went running laterally along a series of narrow walkways. When the camera was closer behind Lucky and I was moving forwards, my brain handled it just fine.

Bettner and Hurd plan to follow in the footsteps of other 3D platformers by mixing in a variety of minigames and boss fights between traditional levels, with some hard-to-find collectables hidden in those levels. Before starting development on Lucky s Tale, Playful Corp. prototyped about 40 different game ideas to see what worked (and what didn t) in VR. Some of those ideas weren t worth turning into full projects, but Bettner wants to incorporate the ones that worked into Lucky s Tale as minigames. The stuff that really ignites our creativity is, OK, how do we complement those traditional kind of levels with new games that feel VR but are also very exciting? Bettner said.

While Lucky s Tale controls like a traditional 3D platformer, with typical gamepad controls, Bettner thinks that the new Oculus Touch controller may end up being even more compelling for third-person games than it is for first-person, in the same counterintuitive way Lucky s Tale proved the efficacy of third-person VR.

In first person, if everything s at first person scale, how many things can you actually reach? he pointed out. But in the case of Lucky style of games...Lucky s Tale does all these tricks with scale and other things to bring the world into this sweet spot that is within arm s reach, because it s...more compelling in VR when stuff is close. It s just the way the hardware works and the brain s wired. Stuff in this range just feels better. So I actually think the application of those controllers in 3rd person type of games, whether it s something like Lucky s Tale which we have some really cool ideas for, or an RTS, I mean god games, there are some really cool ideas in the way you can just reach your hands into a little toy and do things with it.

Bettner is aiming for Lucky s Tale to be out as an Oculus Rift launch title in early 2016. They want it to be accessible to as many players as possible, but when I made a comparison to Wii Sports—asking whether they hoped Lucky s Tale could be the game that helps sell people on the concept of VR—Hurd had something else in mind.

The Wii Sports thing is more like the thing you re going to show you re friends and be like, This is why I bought VR to check out this 5 minute experience. But it s not necessarily something that someone goes home and says, Oh I have to buy that because I experienced it. And what we ve been trying to do with [Lucky s Tale] is actually create a real game that people would sink their teeth into, that you could see yourself playing the second week after you bought it.

Could a genre that s been around so long be the best case for VR? I think it s possible, because the purity and familiarity of the platformer makes underlying changes in technology all the more profound.

The thing that gets me so excited about it is, I feel that the 3D platformer, the whole genre, has actually come home here, said Hurd. We re not clinging to the blob shadows as much as we used to. I m using depth perception. I don t wrangle the camera, so for me it just feels like the most natural fit. We dealt with these abstractions when Mario went 3D because there was so much to be gained from the 3D-ness of it. And now we re peeling away those elements and it feels even more freeing. It s like, Yeah, this is actually what we wanted back then, but now it s happening. And it gets me really excited.

Notch has left the building, as they say, but the Minecraft machine just keeps on printing money. The sales counter at Minecraft.net broke the 20 million mark today, and that's just on the PC.

The moment was commemorated by Mojang's Patrick Geuder, who tweeted a photo of other Mojang employees taking photos of the Big Two-Oh. Amazingly, that number is on top of the 20 million copies sold across Xbox platforms, which as Gamespot reported was achieved in May.

Markus "Notch" Persson, the creator of Minecraft, left the game and Mojang behind last year, shortly after Microsoft acquired the company for $2.5 billion. But his departure clearly hasn't had an adverse impact on the game's popularity: It grew from 13 million at the end of 2013 to 18.3 million at the start of 2015. And again, that's just on the PC, and doesn't take into account the Xbox, PlayStation, iOS, or Android versions.

Interestingly, while Mojang employees seem pretty excited about the milestone, Mojang itself has, so far at least, let it slip past without mention: The studio ran two blog posts today, one about forthcoming LittleBigPlanet DLC (exclusive to the PlayStation version of the game, naturally) and the other about a console update that will go live tomorrow. Ah, well.

Windows 10 Technical Preview Build 10158 is here!

On Monday, Microsoft announced the release of Windows 10 Technical Preview Build 10158. This new build focuses on polishing the platform before its retail release in late July. Changes include updates to the Microsoft Edge browser, general improvements, refinements to the user interface, and more.

We don t have any significant known issues for this build worth noting in the blog post but we are servicing several issues so make sure you check Windows Update for those says Gabe Aul.

The browser appears to have a new logo and Microsoft Edge label. Other changes to Edge include playing music while the browser is minimized in the background, the ability to drag-and-drop tabs into a new window, password and form-fill support, new start-up options, and new customizations for the New Tab page.

One of the top pieces of feedback we ve heard from Windows Insiders is that many of you really wanted a home button for Microsoft Edge, he said. In this build, we ve provided an option for you to add it via Settings > Advanced Settings and turn on Show the home button.

As for the updated interface, Aul said that when using the Start Menu, customers can swipe up on the left side to open the All Apps list. Here users can simply click once to bring up the alphabet and choose a specific letter where the desired app resides. Another improvement is notification when an app (such as Skype) needs the user s attention: it will now flash orange on the Taskbar.

Cortana has also received a few changes. For example, the Notebook now includes the Profile and Settings panels. Cortana is also capable of sending email; simply say that you want to send an email, tell her the recipient, the subject, and the body of the email.

Tracking your flights has also been enabled, so when you get an e-mail with flight or package information from supported providers they show up in the Cortana experience and Cortana will also alert you about them, Aul writes. Alerts for going to work, going home, and the airport are also work now, too.

In addition to Microsoft Edge and Cortana, Build 10158 has an updated Photos app, an updated Snipping Tool, and an updated Insider Hub. There are also dedicated fixes for the Surface 3 and the Surface Pro 3. For the former, Microsoft fixed the issue that kept it from upgrading successfully. The latter fix improves battery life.

Windows 10 is expected to launch on July 29. There s a good chance that Windows Insider participants won t see another build until the operating system s development is locked down. Once Windows 10 launches, Insiders can choose to keep getting the latest builds or opt out of the program and receive updates with the rest of the consumer base.

Typically when people say that  your luck s run out they don t mean it in a literal, quantifiable way. Fortunately for us, the clever gents at independent developer Duckbridge have found a way to harness luck and turn it into a playable mechanic in their very first Greenlit game: Luckslinger, a western-themed pastiche of action platformers past with some unexpected hooks.

Chief among those hooks: the ability to collect and cash in luck at will. After unceremoniously receiving a mysterious bracelet from a dying man in a cave, players can start collecting gold dots that fill what s ostensibly a luck meter, which can be triggered at any time and whose effect differs depending on the context. If, for example, you fall short when leaping for the next platform, a previously invisible ledge might suddenly materialize beneath your feet. Or maybe you ve simply been caught in an unavoidable hail of gunfire—the yellow sphere of luck emanating from the Luckslinger might magically redirect those incoming bullets.

Essentially it s an all-purpose get-out-of-jail-free card that will save you from whatever dire circumstances you might find yourself in. Interestingly, you ll also experience bad luck if you fail to manage your resources wisely. I had a windmill blade fall on my head for that exact reason, although I quickly figured out the Luckslinger s bracelet flashes red anytime some grave misfortune is about to befall you. Regardless, that catch-all flexibility is intriguing. The potential for creative, unpredictable applications is essentially limitless, which (hopefully) will lead to some wild holy shit moments later in the game.

Beyond Luckslinger s eponymous resource, the basic moving parts seem to shine in their own way. It's got the usual 2D side-scrolling shooter components: shooting, rolling, jumping, reloading. Here, though, they re at least applied thoughtfully. During my hands-on time, I discovered reloading the Luckslinger s quintessential six-shooter actually takes a second and as a result, you have to be a bit strategic about when and where you reload, especially considering you re generally able to jump over or roll under enemy fire if you re paying enough attention.

There s also a bit more to Luckslinger than simple running and gunning. You can patronize stores to upgrade your arsenal, trigger text blurbs to gain additional information from townsfolk, and even duck into a gambling tent to try your luck at a mini-game or two. Best of all, your invincible duck companion (which, weirdly, is never explained) can retrieve items like health hearts and previously thrown daggers that might otherwise be out of reach. Because why not!

And then there s Luckslinger s stylistic hook: a heavily hip hop influenced soundtrack, as well as other similar flourishes like characters break dancing during load screens and scratching sound effects anytime you hit a checkpoint. There s no discernible reason a retro-styled spaghetti western should have a hip hop soundtrack, but I actually appreciate that the game never attempts to justify it. It s just a stylistic choice that works surprisingly well, the same way Cowboy Bebop s jazzy soundtrack elevated the entire show.

Luckslinger isn t likely to push any major boundaries, but its clever ideas and slick presentation are fun and likable. With any luck, the final product will deliver a consistent campaign that expands on all the game I experienced at E3—it'll be on Steam July 16.

Originally released in 2012, Thomas Was Alone is, at its core, a puzzle-platformer built around rectangles. It was also quite a good game, "entirely too touching for a platform game about bouncy squares," as we said in our review (via Metacritic), and it actually built up quite a fan base, evidenced by the nearly 5500 positive user reviews (compared to 229 negative) on Steam. And so now, to mark the upcoming three-year anniversary of its release, there are action figures.

No, seriously. Thomas Was Alone action figures: Officially sanctioned, and, as you can see, almost exactly as they appear in the game, except in three dimensions instead of two. "Lovingly handcrafted from the finest materials [plastic], these figures offer the full articulation possible for toys based on the reasonably popular indie game, Thomas Was Alone," the product description states. "The Claire figure even floats. Seriously. That's not a joke. That took time to make work."

Further evidence that this is not a joke (and it's not!) came from Thomas Was Alone creator Mike Bithell himself, who sent us an email saying that it's actually something he's been asked about quite a bit. He also noted that it's a "very limited run" of figures, and while he didn't say how many of the sets have been made, the counter on the Kerry Dyer website indicates that more than a third of them have already sold.

The Thomas Was Alone action figures come together in a set of four that sells for 20/$31. They're not very big—Claire, the blue block, is 3.2 cm tall—and thus should not be given to children to play with because, as the site notes, "they are small cubes of plastic."

Bithell's next project, the stealth-action game Volume that features voice acting by Andy Serkis, will be out on August 18.