This week, the Mobility for Good program from Telus, Black Ops Cold War’s multiplayer beta, and the thrilling Star Wars: Squadrons. But first, getting ready for Prime Day(s).

Local businesses being showcased for Amazon Prime Day

The annual bonanza of bargains promoting Amazon’s Prime subscription is again more than just a day. This year, Prime Day runs on October 13 and 14.

You can already get deals on a bunch of Amazon products, including some of the devices that were announced last week.

If you’re okay with the previous generation, you can get two Echo Dots for only $50, a savings of $90.

A Prime membership in Canada costs $80 a year ($8 a month if you pay monthly) and for that price you get free one- and two-day shipping on lots of products, as well as access to Prime Music, Prime Gaming, Prime Reading, and Prime Video for your media entertainment.

One new thing Amazon is doing with Prime Day this year is promoting local small and medium-sized businesses with a unique storefront landing page featuring Canadian manufacturers and retailers that sell products through Amazon.

Telus equipping former foster youth with smartphones

Mobility for Good, a collaboration between the Children’s Aid Foundation of Canada and Telus, is giving smartphones to youth leaving foster care.

The program provides free (refurbished) phones with a free plan that includes, monthly, 3 GB of data and unlimited talk and text. The plan can be extended for $35 a month after the two year program ends.

People who are under 27 and who have come out of the child welfare system anywhere in Canada are eligible to apply.

Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War multiplayer goes cross-platform, cross-generation

The time to release of the latest edition of the Call of Duty franchise is getting short, which means it’s nearly time for multiplayer previews.

The new game, Black Ops Cold War, is being developed by Treyarch and Raven for Activision, and is set in the 1980s during the height of the Cold War between the Soviet Union and the United States.

There are four dates for the Black Ops Cold War multiplayer sessions:

• October 8 and 9: PS4 pre-orders only
• October 10 to 12: open to all PS4 players
• October 15 and 16: Windows and Xbox pre-orders and PS4 players
• October 17 to 19: Open to players on all platforms

Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War will be released on November 13 for PS4, Windows, and Xbox One. Versions for Xbox Series S/X and PS5 are also coming.

Star Wars: Squadrons puts you in the cockpit of iconic star fighters

I’m a child of the seventies, so I’ve always dreamed of being in the cockpit of an X-wing. Now you can, in ways that were never imaginable when that first movie hit theatres.

Star Wars: Squadrons, developed in Montreal by EA’s Motive Studios, puts you in that cockpit. The game is available now for PS4, Windows, and Xbox One (it’s also playable in VR with PSVR on PS4 or on a Windows box using Oculus or Index/Vive).

And you’ll be exploring both sides of the Star Wars conflict, flying both X-wings and TIE fighters, and bombers, interceptors, and support ships.

“Hunted”, a short film set in the moments after the second Death Star has been destroyed in the events of Return of the Jedi, sets up the story you’ll play in Squadrons and the kind of dogfights you’ll be getting into.

Squadrons is not only a chance to pilot the fighters you’ve watched in the movies, but it tells an interesting part of the larger story that we tend to ignore: what happens after the big battle sequences? Because the people in those stories continue on.

You’ll want to play through the 14-mission, single-player campaign – it’ll take around eight to ten hours – before going into the multiplayer modes; frankly you’re going to need the practice.

Because while we’ve been able to pilot an X-wing in games before, it’s never been like this.

More simulation than arcade

Back in the mid-‘80s, we could become Luke Skywalker in an arcade playing the vector graphic cabinet game, Star Wars, best played in one of the sit-down units with the yoke controls.

Then there were the Rogue Squadron games for various Nintendo consoles that were released between 1998 and 2003. They brought the arcade to your living room.

But those were all arcade games.

Squadrons is more simulation than arcade, and you will need to learn about the instruments in your cockpit and how they need to be used. When to put power to shields, or thrust, or weapons.

And you’ll also need to learn how to fly and navigate, because there’s no gravity or friction, so cutting the throttle doesn’t stop your ship, you’ll still be moving forward.

Remember: there’s no “up” in space.

Once you’ve mastered flying you’ll realize that the real thrill in Squadrons comes with the two multiplayer modes: Dogfight and Fleet Battles.

The former are fast and frantic five-on-five tussles, while the latter incorporate dogfights into more expansive combat scenarios, either against other players or against the game’s AI. This is where teamwork and tactics become fundamental to success.

Not all controls are the same

You can play Squadrons with your usual game controller, but true flight simulator aficionados will be using a joystick or even a “hands on throttle-and-stick” (or HOTAS) system. I suspect the game is easier to play with a joystick, but wasn’t able to test that theory.

Sadly, I also wasn’t able to try the game in virtual reality because this is one of those games that seems meant for the medium. I can imagine that it would be exhilarating with the immersion possible in VR, seeing the cockpit around you as you turn your head.

Star Wars: Squadrons is lean, but it delivers on the promise of a convincing space flight experience.

This week on The Shift, Shane Hewitt and I talked about Amazon’s recent announcements of new jobs in Canada and new Echo, Fire TV Stick, and Eero devices, Samsung’s Galaxy Buds Live, Cory Doctorow’s book tour, and Wasteland 3.

This week, lots of news from Amazon about new products and new jobs in Canada, the gentle curve of Samsung’s Galaxy Buds Live, Cory Doctorow’s virtual book tour, and the video game Wasteland 3.

Amazon announces eight new devices, plans to hire 3,500 in Canada

Yesterday, Seattle-based Amazon announced that it expects to hire 3,000 people in Vancouver and 500 in Toronto, which will be added to the 21,000 people currently employed in Canada.

The Vancouver staff will ultimately be working out of a new downtown facility that is being developed at the site of the former Canada Post centre. In Toronto, the company is expanding to a new office tower on York Street.

This news came the weekend after Amazon rolled out eight new tech products, including new Echo speakers, Fire TV Sticks, and Eero mesh WiFi systems.

The new Echoes are spherical, and include a new Echo ($130), a new Echo Dot ($70), and an Echo Dot with a clock ($80). The Echo and Echo Dot will be released on October 22, while the Echo Dot with the clock comes out on November 5.

Coming later is a new Echo Show. The third-generation device, which has a 10.1-inch high-definition display, will be priced at $330, and can be used for teleconferencing as well as watching videos from Amazon Prime and Netflix.

There are two new Fire TV Sticks, both of which are Alexa-enabled. The Fire TV Stick ($60) with a remote you can use to control your TV and the Fire TV Stick Lite ($50) which leaves out the TV control. The new Fire TV Sticks are available now.

And finally, there are two new versions of the Eero mesh WiFi system. The Eero Pro 6 ($299) and Eero 6 ($179) both feature the WiFi 6 protocol and will be released on November 2.

Amazon also created chatter last week with two other announcements:

Among the new Ring devices is the Ring Always Home, which has a small camera drone that can fly around your home, but there’s no release date and we don’t know if the device will be available in Canada.

The second announcement was about Luna, Amazon’s new game streaming service that will compete with Stadia and Xbox Game Pass, but it’s not available in Canada at this point.

Samsung’s Galaxy Buds Live curve right into your ear

For the past couple of weeks, I’ve been using the Samsung Galaxy Buds Live earbuds when listening to podcasts and taking calls, and I think they are dandy.

The earbuds are equipped with active noise cancellation (ANC), which you can turn on and off with a long touch on the earbud. You can also easily answer calls and pause and start playback with a tap.

The sound quality is great, delivering rich music and also clear calls. And in the calls I made to others, everyone heard me just fine.

The $250 earbuds work with Samsung’s devices, with computers, and also with iPhones, and what distinguishes them from other true wireless wearables is their bean shape, which happens to curve nicely into most ears.

I say most ears, because as with all earbuds, the Galaxy Buds Live work as well as they fit. And that depends on the actual shape of your actual ears. They fit okay in my ears, but tended to shift out of place if I moved around too much or was talking a lot and moving my jaw.

I know I’ve got shallow ears, so this was not a surprise to me, and it will not be an issue for most people.

What’s different about Cory Doctorow’s virtual book tour

Cory Doctorow has a new book coming out. The Canadian author, intellectual and consumer rights advocate – he’s a key staffer at the Electronic Frontier Foundation – and all around smart guy has come up with his own unique way of doing things that everyone else is also doing, so his virtual book tour looks different than others.

Attack Surface is being published in Canada and the U.S. by Tor Books, and like all books Doctorow has written, the electronic version is being released without any digital rights management (DRM) attached.

For the audio versions of his books, he insists on keeping the digital locks off, which is why none of them are available on Audible (which requires DRM) and which, according to Doctorow, controls 90% of the audiobook market.

So he produced it himself, and to help fund it he’s running his first ever Kickstarter.

Back to the book tour. It’s virtual, of course.

“Nobody knows what a book tour is supposed to be during a plague and in the midst of the end of the world,” Doctorow said in an update video posted to Kickstarter.

What he is doing differently is staging a lecture series, of sorts, hosted and sponsored by key independent bookstores.

There are 8 events in the series and at each event Doctorow will be joined by two notable guests.

On October 14, for example, Amber Benson, John Rogers, and Doctorow will be talking about Cross-medium SciFi.

On October 19, it’s Bruce Sterling and Chris Brown talking with him about cyberpunk and post-cyberpunk.

And on October 22, Doctorow will be joined by Runa Sandvik and Window Snyder in discussing personal security online.

Because these events are in support of independent bookstores, each event requires the purchase of a copy of Attack Surface. Because most people don’t need more than one copy, and because many of us want to see all of these events, Doctorow – in line with his philosophy of doing the right thing – plans on posting all of the events for us to watch.

Note that for Canadians, the stores hosting the events won’t ship books north of the 49th, so we’ll just have to purchase our copies from Doctorow’s Kickstarter (so you can also get the audiobook!) or your favourite, neighbourhood indie bookstore.

It ain’t easy surviving the apocalypse in Wasteland 3

When it comes to tactical role-playing games, the Wasteland series leans to the hard core, and Wasteland 3 is no exception.

Developed by InXile Entertainment for PS4, Windows, and Xbox One, this game is long – the developers say 100 hours is not inconceivable – and involved. If going deep into skill trees and carefully managing loadouts for a team of characters is your thing, then Wasteland 3 is definitely your thing.

The setup of all the Wasteland games is similar. More than a hundred years have passed since Earth was destroyed by a nuclear apocalypse, and a group of lawful types called the Desert Rangers try to keep order in the wilds of Arizona and California.

In this game, a group of the Rangers travel to Colorado at the request of the “Patriarch”, whose children have risen against him. You’re being asked to quell the rebellion and get those kids in line.

It’s all presented in a third-person, top-down perspective to allow for the underlying grid to be clear, as all combat relies on it. When you’re engaged with an enemy, action is turn-based by team, so rather than act as individual characters, you choose the movements and actions of your entire team.

This is a post-apocalyptic world, so you need to be careful with resources like ammunition and medical supplies, and you’ll have to create and activate characters on your team so they complement each other.

Be warned that you should carefully consider your decisions, because what you decide, and what your characters are and aren’t able to do, fundamentally shape the game you play. There are characters you can convince to join you as companions that will change the outcome, and entire areas that you might not be able to use depending on what you do.

Wasteland 3 is not the easiest game to play, and it requires a player who is willing to devote time and attention to its systems. The faint of heart need not apply.

This week on The Shift, Shane Hewitt and I talked about Microsoft’s surprise announcement that it’s acquiring ZeniMax Media, the Canadian winners of the James Dyson Award, the new Samsung S20 FE smartphone, and Super Mario 3D All-Stars for the Nintendo Switch.

This week, UBC alumni win James Dyson Award for Canada, Samsung’s new Galaxy S20 FE smartphone, Canadian Game Awards winners, and having fun with Super Mario 3D All-Stars. But first, Microsoft is buying one of the biggest video game publishers.

Microsoft surprises gaming world with acquisition of Bethesda on eve of Xbox console preorder

Bethesda Softworks, which has published some of the most popular games in the past decade, is becoming an Xbox Games Studio. In fact, the acquisition by Microsoft is of ZeniMax Media, which includes not just Bethesda, but also Arkane Studios, id Software, Machinegames, and Tango Gameworks.

Xbox head Phil Spencer made the surprise announcement on Monday, the day before preorders for the Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S consoles began.

This supercharges the Xbox Game Pass offering with games including The Elder Scrolls, Fallout, Doom, Dishonored, and Wolfenstein.

UBC engineers are Canadian winners of annual James Dyson Award

A group of engineers from UBC have won the 2020 Canadian James Dyson Award competition. The Attentiv catheter was designed to prevent IV infiltration, when IV fluid leaks into the surrounding skin.

Two runners up designs coming from teams based at the University of Waterloo were also recognized.

Scope is a camera lens that can be altered by applying an electric current.

SmartPatrol uses remote cameras and a computer to analyze landing zones at ski and snowboard areas to let people know when the area is clear for them to proceed.

The three Canadian designs will now be up against the national winners and runners up from all other countries. A shortlist of 20 will be announced, and James Dyson will pick the ultimate winning design.

Disclosure: I was one of three judges that reviewed submissions for the Canadian award this year.

Samsung reveals Galaxy S20 FE smartphone

In an online press event today, Samsung showed off a new smartphone in the Galaxy S20 family. The “FE,” for “fan edition,” keeps many of the premium features of the tech company’s flagship devices (the S20, the S20 Plus and the S20 Ultra), but at a lower price point.

One of the best features that the FE keeps is the 120 Hz refresh rate of its siblings, which delivers smooth animations and graphics on the 6.5-inch display.

To bring down the price point, Samsung compromised on the rear camera, but it still has three lenses that deliver up to 12 megapixels, so while you’re not shooting 8K video with the FE, the cameras are still better than those from a couple of years ago.

The chassis on the FE is also plastic, but that is one reason it’s available in six colours.

The issue with the Galaxy S20 FE is that while it’s cheaper than the other models in the family – pricing in Canada starts at $950 – you can move up to the S20 for $250, or to the S20 Plus for $380.

Whether that’s enough of a savings for consumers remains to be seen.

The Galaxy S20 FE will be released on October 16. Preorders begin on October 1.

Canadian Game Awards recognize achievement in video game development

The Canadian Game Awards were supposed to be held at the TIFF Bell LightBox theatre in Toronto in April. But along came … well, you know.

Instead, last weekend, achievement in the Canadian video game industry was recognized with an online broadcast.

Vancouver indie studio Brace Yourself Games won four awards for Cadence of Hyrule, a version of its Crypt of the NecroDancer rhythm game for the Nintendo Switch and featuring characters from the Legend of Zelda.

Cadence won Best Game Design, Best Indie Game, Best Console Game, and Game of the Year.

Vancouver’s Klei Entertainment was named Studio of the Year. Far Cry New Dawn, developed at Ubisoft Montreal, won for audio design, Best PC Game, and Best Performance for actor Leslie Miller.

Vancouver developed games Dauntless and Mechwarrior 5 also won awards, for Best Art Direction and Best Narrative, respectively.

Television personality Marissa Roberto was recognized for her hosting of esports events.

The full list of winners.

Play three old but still amazing Mario games on your Nintendo Switch

Nintendo makes great games, and one way to know just how great they are is to play them years after they were first released. Nearly every game, no matter how old, holds up.

The three games included in Super Mario 3D All-Stars are proof of this point. Included in the bundled release are three 3D platforming games featuring the moustachioed plumber:

• Super Mario 64 (originally released for the Nintendo 64 in 1996)
• Super Mario Sunshine (originally released for the GameCube in 2002)
• Super Mario Galaxy (originally released for the Wii in 2007)

Your mileage with the three games will vary depending on your relationship with them. People who were old enough to appreciate what Super Mario 64 introduced to the platforming genre mostly dislike Sunshine, which replaces the jumping mechanic with a jetpack of sorts.

The presentation of the three games differs based on the age of the original assets, too. Super Mario 64’s single colour objects look just fine scaled up for modern screens, but the multi-coloured textures are muddy. Sunshine, meanwhile, had better starting graphics so looks better here. And Galaxy is stunning in high definition.

Where Galaxy might be frustrating is in how the controls have – or haven’t – been tweaked from the original game’s Wii motion controls. The spin attack on the Wii, for example, required you to shake the controller and here is linked to a button. But some actions still require you to tap and swipe the Switch screen, which is difficult if you’re using that hand to hold the device.

Playing the three games is a great opportunity to see how Nintendo sparked a new genre – 3D platforming – and play through the continuing experimentation.

If you’re looking for some laid-back platforming fun, don’t wait. Super Mario 3D All-Stars is available only until the end of March 2021.