In a rare evening event at Apple’s campus in Cupertino, California on Tuesday, Apple introduced the next iteration of its Apple Silicon chips, the M3, M3 Pro, and M3 Max.
The “3” in the chipsets names refer to the three-nanometer process with which they are built, and it leads to more transistors on the chip (25 billion in M3, 37 billion in M3 Pro, and up to 92 billion in M3 Max), which in turn leads to faster and more powerful CPUs and GPUs.
This week on The Shift, Shane Hewitt and I talked about Battlerealm Brawl’s world champion, Alan Wake Flashback in Fortnite, Hellboy: Web of Wyrd, and the new Apple Pencil.
Fintech, who’s real name is Arto Rallovesi, beat Mexico’s Pepe in a best-of-five to close out a weekend celebrating the free-to-play mobile game developed by Vancouver’s Kabam.
Just prior to the weekend’s celebration, Kabam revealed a new hero coming to the game. Chee’ilth is a First Nations hero created by a team of Indigenous people. The new hero joins the game in November.
During the event, Alliance Raids, a new game mode coming in 2024 was announced, that has three players cooperating to battle three bosses.
You can watch the final match between Fintech and Pepe below.
Alan Wake drops into Fortnite for a Flashback
In the spirit of “previously on” segments in front of narrative follow-ups, Remedy Entertainment has come up with something unique to get players ready for Friday’s release of Alan Wake II.
The first game, released in 2010, was an ambitious narrative exploration and featured Alan Wake, an author, who found the story he was writing intersected with reality.
As with the first game, light is strategy and tactic, and the flashlight you wield is as important as any weapon against the dark, which is much more than an adjective in this world.
The 13 years in the game is the same amount of time that’s passed in the real world, too, and to help players remember (or learn) what transpired 13 years ago, Remedy has built an experience in Fortnite that relates the plot of the first game.
Alan Wake: Flashback can be launched using “island code” 3426-5561-3374 or by searching in the Discover screen.
And Alan Wake becomes a playable character in Fortnite on October 26, just a few hours before the search for him begins in Alan Wake II.
Hellboy battles the paranormal in Web of Wyrd
Hellboy, created by writer and artist Mike Mignola, is a great character in a fascinating universe, and Web of Wyrd is a fantastic game for Hellboy to appear in.
This is a rogue-lite, in which you play through levels in an attempt to get as far as you can. You collect power-ups along the way and while some of them are temporary, others have a permanent impact on Hellboy.
The currency you collect along the way is used to purchase those powers, but also to unlock and upgrade tools, including the distinctive revolver that the comic Hellboy carries.
The stories of the sarcastic but heroic Hellboy and the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense are, as you’d expect, anchored in the supernatural, and here he wields his Right Hand of Doom in the world of the Wyrd (pronounced “word”), a strange place either constructed from human folklore or the source of it.
Hellboy, voiced with vigour by the late Lance Reddick, are surrounded by their BPRD colleagues in a mansion that seems to be the center of an outbreak of activity, and the gateway to the Wyrd. The combat is fairly simple and satisfying, but what really makes this game stand out is how the distinctive, bold art style Mignola is known for comes to life in the game.
It all makes for something that’s fun to play and interesting to explore.
Hellboy: Web of Wyrd is available now for Nintendo Switch, PS4, PS5, Windows, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
Apple’s got a great stocking stuffer in the new Apple Pencil, and Digital Citizen Day in Canada.
New Apple Pencil makes it easier for iPad users to add a stylus
Here’s a fantastic stocking stuffer idea for those iPad owners in your life. In November, Apple’s releasing a new Apple Pencil that costs less. It’s only $109 CAD.
This new version works with any iPad with a USB-C port for charging and when used with an iPad Pro with M2 Apple Silicon, the new Apple Pencil can use the hover feature that is so popular with artists.
The Pencil charges with USB-C and it’s designed to go into hibernation when it connect magnetically to the side of an iPad.
The second generation Apple Pencil is $169 CAD and includes additional features like pressure sensitivity and wireless charging.
It’s Digital Citizen Day in Canada
Digital Citizen Day, part of Media Literacy Week, is a campaign by “Canada’s Centre for Digital Media Literacy,” Media Smarts.
In a release to promote the initiative, MediaSmarts executive director Kathryn Ann Hill said, “As citizens online, we’re exposed to the best and the most challenging sides of our digital world. Our social media feeds can sometimes feel like they’re filled with insults and negativity, but they can be used for good. Digital Citizen Day is an opportunity for us all to consider the role we play online and to engage positively.”
Events yet to happen this week include a virtual youth gambling awareness webinar at the YMCA of Greater Toronto, a hybrid event on how to fact check online presented by the North Vancouver City Library, and an online workshop from MediaSmarts to help youth recognize online hate.
This week on The Shift, Shane Hewitt and I talked about Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision, the top 50 games from Steam’s Next Fest, and Jabra’s new wireless Elite earbuds.
The Mind Control Division is the intelligence arm of Blaine Kyllo's Solo Corps Creative Incorporated. This department conducts investigations and experiments into media and technology culture.
