The Xbox One port of the highly popular space flight sim, Kerbal Space Program, finally made its debut on Microsoft’s current console July 15.
Kerbal Space Program puts players in control of the entire space flight program of the planet Kerbin — an Earth-like planet, orbited by a moon also much like our own, and populated by tiny adorable humanoid creatures, the Kerbals. Every aspect of the space program — from designing and building your rockets and flight craft, to taking the controls at mission command, to carrying out the missions themselves — is up to the player.
Like the PlayStaion 4 version of the game, the Xbox One port maintains the distinctive difficulty and meticulous strategy of the PC version. Being a simulation game that aims to accurately impart the challenges inherent in the required physics and engineering of spaceflight, playing Kerbal Space Program requires micromanagement and finesse, as well as a willingness to learn from the (often hilarious) mishaps that occur as a result from failed experimentation or botched missions.
You’ll need to learn the particulars of escape velocity, atmospheric drag, heating, launch cycles, and more. Thankfully, the game’s friendly aesthetic and cheerful characters make diving into these concepts inviting and a lot less intimidating than it may sound.
Surprisingly, Kerbal Space Program‘s deep controls have been fully mapped to the Xbox One controller — an impressive feat, considering the necessity of playing with keyboard and mouse on PC. Though, we’re willing to bet the new control scheme opens up even more opportunity for happy accidents… and frustrating failures.
Kerbal Space Program is available for download from the Xbox Store on Xbox One, and is also available on PC and PS4.
Acer’s Predator Atlas 8 finally has a US release date and price, several months after the company first showed off the handheld in May. The highlight is the Intel Arc G3 Extreme chip inside, which has been adopted by only a couple of other consoles besides the Atlas 8. This version will go on sale exclusively at Best Buy on November 1 for $1,299.99.
Acer originally said the Atlas 8 would arrive in North America in October, but left pricing open at the time. The launch came amid the ongoing DRAM crunch, which has made memory more expensive across the PC industry and complicated pricing for hardware makers.
Gaming laptops and I have a complicated relationship. One of my first gaming rigs was an Acer Predator that was already outdated when I bought it. I was a broke college kid, and that was the best I could afford. So trying out high-end gaming laptops is always fun. But ASUS' ROG Zephyrus G14 is a lot more than a laptop that can run AAA games. It is portable, so you're not lugging around a 2.5kg machine everywhere you go. It is built well, none of that plastic chassis, and can even function as a normal laptop outside of just gaming.
Google Play is borrowing one of the Nintendo Switch’s most useful little tricks. A new Sidekick tool called Playbacks captures a short clip after something interesting has already happened, sparing players from running a screen recorder throughout an entire game.
Playbacks is part of Google Play Store v53.8 and keeps saved clips on the phone. Google first announced it earlier this month, but the new Play Store update marks its arrival for players. Anyone who has watched a perfect win vanish because the record button came too late already understands the appeal.