Weekend at Bernie's
Hey, good morning! You look fabulous.
Welcome to the weekend. The E3 2017 show floor has closed, but gaming news will continue to flow all weekend as we wrap up our coverage of the event. Of course, that's not the only thing that happened this week, so check below for a few more highlights.
Samsung starts testing voice features for its Bixby AI
Despite tons of hype, Samsung's Bixby virtual assistant launched with only some of its promised features enabled. Now, Samsung is ready for an "early preview test" of voice search and control, which Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8 Plus owners can register to join. The company has ambitious goals for Bixby, and this will be our first chance to see if it can really play in the arena with Siri, Google Assistant and Alexa.
Watch Sony's E3 2017 event in under 15 minutes
Sure, you could worry about what wasn't in Sony's E3 presentation (The Last of Us 2), but there is another option. Just enjoy a sleek preview of what's coming to PlayStation next year, with a few 2017 releases dropped in. In just a few minutes, we'll make sure you see the best of what Sony showed, including a new Spider-Man game, another Shadow of the Colossus remake and the next God of War.
Time to dust off those old carts, just leave E.T. where it is.
If you want to play retro Atari 2600 games, there's plenty of options, but a new console offers support for the original cartridges with all the modern day perks. The RetroN 77 plays most, if not all, of the original game cartridges in glorious 1080p, at a modern aspect ratio right out of the box.
Meet the people behind Engadget's $500,000 immersive art grant
We're at a critical moment in the development of new creative platforms. Companies like HTC, Sony, Microsoft and Google are fundamentally altering the way we experience the world through AR, VR and AI. Meanwhile artists, musicians, filmmakers and developers are pushing the boundaries of traditional storytelling, embracing those technologies to explore worlds beyond our own.
Engadget wanted to shed a light on that work, so we reached out to some of the people making that work possible and with their input created the Engadget Alternate Realities grant program. From now until June 30th, we're accepting submissions for new, existing or altered works that make creative use of new technologies to explore the theme of alternate realities. Those projects will debut at The Engadget Experience, a one-day event at the United Artists theatre in downtown LA on Nov. 16th, 2017.
Snipers, tanks and turrets don't exist in 'Lawbreakers'
According to Lawbreakers lead designer Dan Nanni, "The first thing we wound up doing was throw all the rules away." That's why this team shooter is lacking many of the tropes you've seen in games like Overwatch, Monday Night Combat and Team Fortress 2. That's why this game not only defined roles like sniper or tank, but also crouching, sight aiming and sprinting. Here, everything is about "vertikilling" across low- and zero-gravity zones of the map. Each character moves in a way that almost feels like it belongs in its own game. We only had a few minutes with the title, but it felt exciting and fresh.
'Skull and Bones' is about pillaging your friends' ships
Ubisoft's Skull and Bones takes the ship battles of Assassin's Creed: Black Flag and turns them into grand-scale, five-on-five multiplayer naval warfare. Mat Smith got a peek at some of the game's five-on-five multiplayer action, but he's still waiting to find out if Ubisoft can spin this feature into an entire game.
The most promising VR adventure yet stars an adorable sword-wielding mouse
It's difficult to create new characters that players can instantly love, but Polyarc managed to do just that with Quill. She's the star of Moss, an upcoming PlayStation VR game that harkens back to classic adventure games like The Legend of Zelda and The Secret of Mana. You exist as a character in the game that Quill interacts with, while also controlling her from afar. The game is made by a team including ex-Bungie and Rockstar employees and feels like it was ripped from one of Studio Ghibli's films. Interested yet?
Engadget at E3: Making virtual reality accessible for everyone
Amy Kneepkens, head video creator at AbleGamers, joined us onstage at E3 2017 to give us a view into accessibility issues affecting virtual reality. If it's not the gesture controllers, it might be how camera controllers are typically transplanted to the headset itself. If you can't move your head and neck easily, how are you supposed to look around your virtual world?
But wait, there's more...
- This worm grew a second head after a trip to space
- After saying "it's not our primary battle," Netflix is rejoining the net neutrality fight
- Tesla Model X earns a perfect NHTSA safety rating
- Xbox One X vs. the PlayStation 4 Pro
- Samsung's art-inspired Frame TV goes on sale Sunday
- iPad Pro 10.5 review: Where execution and ambition meet
- Elon Musk brings his Mars plan before the scientific community
- Dat 4K 'Minecraft' water doe
- Who wants to buy Microsoft's Xbox One X?
- The Xbox One X will be great ... next year
- 'Need for Speed: Payback' and the business of car crashes
The Morning After is a new daily newsletter from Engadget designed to help you fight off FOMO. Who knows what you'll miss if you don't subscribe.