This week, Radiohead disappears, learn a bit about the backstory to new game Battleborn, and find out what connects Ratchet and Clank to Vancouver. But first, why you might want to try Waze the next time you’re driving around the Lower Mainland.
What it’s like to use Waze to find your way around the Lower Mainland
A couple of weeks ago I learned about Waze, a smartphone app (for Android and iOS), that provides navigation information for drivers.
What makes Waze (a Google company) different from the nav information you might get from Google Maps or Apple’s Maps is that it collects information from multiple sources when coming up with route options, including real-time traffic data from drivers and even information from governmental departments of transportation.
As I wrote in the Straight, using Waze took me on routes I would never have considered.
You can use the Waze app with voice commands, and the app makes it easy to find alternate routes, and even provides you – and others you want to notify – with an ETA.
And there are sometimes special voices that you can use to tell you where to go. In the past, voices have included the Terminator, C-3PO, and even Colonel Sanders.
As a spokesperson told me, you may know which way to go, but what you don’t know is what’s lying on the road ahead of you. Waze aims to help with that.
Radiohead disappears from the Internet in advance of new album release
On Sunday, Radiohead slowly disappeared from the webs.
The Facebook account for the Oxford, England-based band was stripped of posts. So were the Twitter accounts for the band and its frontman, Thom Yorke.
And Radiohead’s website became slowly opaque until it was nothing but white space.
It’s not blank anymore. On Tuesday, the page featured a video for the single, “Burn the Witch”, presumably the first track from a new album that is on the verge of release.
It’s a clever strategy to get some attention in the noisy online space for a new album, although it’s the kind of thing that would only work for a band with enough of a following that the disappearing act would get people talking about what was going on.
Radiohead’s promotional play comes on the heels of Beyonce’s release of her new album, Lemonade. It debuted as a short film on HBO before being released elsewhere. As it stands now, you can purchase the visual album on Amazon, iTunes, and Tidal. The visual album can be streamed on Tidal, while Pandora is streaming the audio tracks only,
Ratchet & Clank film hits screens as the game takes off
The remake of the Ratchet & Clank video game for PS4 was released in mid-April, and has been selling well enough to debut atop the UK sales chart where it was released last week.
Last Friday, the film based on the game hit theatres. Unlike past screen adaptations of video games, this one was cooperative all the way, with animations and other assets being shared between the two production teams.
The film was produced in Vancouver at Rainmaker Entertainment, the game at Insomniac Games in Burbank, California.
The original Ratchet & Clank came from Insomniac in 2002. The new title is a retelling of the origin story, a buddy adventure set on a faraway system and featuring a nefarious villain named – wait for it – Nefarious.
Both the game and the film are good fun, filled with clever, winking humour.
Step into the Battleborn story, then play the game
Battleborn, the new team-based shooter game from Gearbox Software, releases this week for PS4, Windows, and Xbox One.
The rambunctious game, which features a roster of 25 characters you can become, is about the defense of the last star in the universe. But it’s not as simple as coming together to save everyone. The 25 characters represent five different factions, and they don’t normally get along very well.
To set the stage for the story, Gearbox has created a three part motion comic series that acts as a prequel to the game. The episodes introduce the factions and the characters that you’ll play, as well as the bad guys who are hellbent on the end of everything.
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