Donkey Kong Bananza is a worthy successor to Super Mario Odyssey’s legacy

Cathartic, punch-fueld land destruction is a cathartic showcase for Switch 2 hardware.

When the Switch 2 was fully unveiled back in April, we weren't alone in expecting the announcement of a true follow-up to Super Mario Odyssey—one of the original Switch's best-selling games and our pick for the best game of 2017. Instead, we got our first look at Donkey Kong Bananza, the big ape's first fully 3D adventure since the Rare-developed Donkey Kong 64 back in 1999.

The fact that Nintendo wasn't willing to commit its longstanding plumber mascot to its first first-party platformer on the Switch 2 could have been seen as a sign of a rushed, second-tier spin-off effort here. After playing through Donkey Kong Bananza, though, I'm happy to report nothing could be further from the truth for this deep and worthy spiritual successor to Super Mario Odyssey (from many of the same development staff). Donkey Kong Bananza captures the same sense of joyful movement and exploration as the best Mario games, while adding in an extremely satisfying terrain destruction system that shows off the Switch 2 hardware to great effect.

Beat up the earth

Its that terrain destruction system that most sets Donkey Kong Bananza from previous 3D platformers from Nintendo and others. Fully three of the four face buttons on the Switch 2 controllers are devoted to letting Donkey Kong punch either horizontally, upward, or downward, often taking out large chunks of the nearby scenery as he does.

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Donkey Kong Bananza im Test: Affenstarke Primatenpower

Donkey Kong zerlegt nicht nur Wände, sondern auch altbekannte Spielprinzipien. In Bananza zeigt der Affe, dass er mehr kann als hüpfen. Ein Test von Peter Steinlechner (Donkey Kong, Nintendo)

Donkey Kong zerlegt nicht nur Wände, sondern auch altbekannte Spielprinzipien. In Bananza zeigt der Affe, dass er mehr kann als hüpfen. Ein Test von Peter Steinlechner (Donkey Kong, Nintendo)

There could be “dark main sequence” stars at the galactic center

Dark matter particle and antiparticle collisions could make some stars immortal.

For a star, its initial mass is everything. It determines how quickly it burns through its hydrogen and how it will evolve once it starts fusing heavier elements. It's so well understood that scientists have devised a "main sequence" that acts a bit like a periodic table for stars, correlating their mass and age with their properties.

The main sequence, however, is based on an assumption that's almost always true: All of the energy involved comes from the gravity-driven fusion of lighter elements into heavier ones. However, three astrophysicists consider an alternative source of energy that may apply at the very center of our galaxy— energy released when dark matter particles and antiparticles collide and annihilate. While we don't even know that dark matter can do that, it's a hypothetical with some interesting consequences, like seemingly immortal stars, and others that move backward along the main sequence path.

Dark annihilations

We haven't figured out what dark matter is, but there are lots of reasons to think that it is comprised of elementary particles. And, if those behave like all of the particles we understand well, then there will be both regular and antimatter versions. Should those collide, they should annihilate each other, releasing energy in the process. Given dark matter's general propensity not to interact with anything, these collisions will be extremely rare except in locations with very high dark matter concentrations.

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Nach 20 Jahren: CO2-Emissionen europaweit halbiert

Die positive Entwicklung zeigt sich am Emissionshandel, auch wenn sich einige Sektoren gegen den Trend entwickeln. Global bewegt sich noch zu wenig. (Klimakrise, Energiewende)

Die positive Entwicklung zeigt sich am Emissionshandel, auch wenn sich einige Sektoren gegen den Trend entwickeln. Global bewegt sich noch zu wenig. (Klimakrise, Energiewende)

Hackers exploit a blind spot by hiding malware inside DNS records

Technique transforms the Internet DNS into an unconventional file storage system.

Hackers are stashing malware in a place that’s largely out of the reach of most defenses—inside domain name system (DNS) records that map domain names to their corresponding numerical IP addresses.

The practice allows malicious scripts and early-stage malware to fetch binary files without having to download them from suspicious sites or attach them to emails, where they frequently get quarantined by antivirus software. That’s because traffic for DNS lookups often goes largely unmonitored by many security tools. Whereas web and email traffic is often closely scrutinized, DNS traffic largely represents a blind spot for such defenses.

A strange and enchanting place

Researchers from DomainTools on Tuesday said they recently spotted the trick being used to host a malicious binary for Joke Screenmate, a strain of nuisance malware that interferes with normal and safe functions of a computer. The file was converted from binary format into hexadecimal, an encoding scheme that uses the digits 0 through 9 and the letters A through F to represent binary values in a compact combination of characters.

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