Month: February 2019

Enlarge / Four seasons of Metro await. (credit: Deep Silver / 4A Games)

The best thing I can say about Metro Exodus, to anybody unfamiliar with its place in a trilogy of post-nuclear, first-person monster combat games, is that this is the best Eurojank game I've ever seen.

"Eurojank" is an unofficial term for that class of sprawling, verbose, and oftentimes glitchy action/RPG titles originating from Eastern European nations like Russia, Poland, and the Ukraine. (At the top of that heap is The Witcher 3, whose previous two games were decidedly less even; more recent examples include Elex, Kingdom Come: Deliverance, and The Technomancer.) And rarely do these games hold players' hands, usually because they lack tutorials or because of unclear GUI elements.

Metro Exodus, like the two Metro games that 4A Studios made before it, has all of those qualities in spades—though it's definitely the most accessible Eurojank shooter I've come across. And yes, calling this the "most accessible Eurojank shooter" is like calling Taco Bell the "most flavorful national Mexican chain restaurant." But its strides toward accessibility are important, because this is a game of high highs and so-so lows. You'll need to slog through some obvious imperfections. Do that, however, and you're in for the kind of player- and challenge-respecting solo experience that people say they're always dreaming about in comment threads about always-online games.

Enlarge / The Opportunity rover leaves its landing site in Eagle Crater on Mars back in 2004. (credit: NASA)

Late Tuesday night, scientists at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory sent their final data uplink to the Opportunity rover on Mars. Over this connection, via the Deep Space Network, the American jazz singer Billie Holiday crooned "I'll Be Seeing You," a song which closes with the lines:

I'll find you in the morning sun
And when the night is new
I'll be looking at the moon
But I'll be seeing you

The scientists waited to hear some response from their long-silent rover, which had been engulfed in a global dust storm last June, likely coating its solar panels in a fatal layer of dust. Since then, the team of scientists and engineers have sent more than 835 commands, hoping the rover will wake up from its long slumber—that perhaps winds on Mars might have blown off some of the dust that covered the panels.

Enlarge (credit: Valentina Palladino)

Apple CEO Tim Cook alluded to more services coming this year, and this week we're learning more about what the company has in store for news. According to a report in The Wall Street Journal, Apple has been in talks with publishers about a subscription news service that would be a new paid tier of its existing Apple News app. However, the company has been butting heads with publishers over monetary details—Apple reportedly wants to keep 50 percent of subscription revenue from the service.

This so-called "Netflix for news" service would allow customers to access an unlimited amount of content from included publishers for a monthly fee. The service could be around $10 per month, similar to Apple Music, but the cost hasn't been finalized yet.

Apple has talked with publishers including The New York Times, the Washington Post, and The Wall Street Journal, but they (and others) have concerns about Apple's terms. The company wants 50 percent of revenue for itself, and the remaining 50 percent would be divided among participating publishers "according to the amount of time users spend engaged with their articles."