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Gotham Knights Review: Batman Arkham Meets Marvel’s Spider-Man, Minus the Ingenuity

October 20, 2022

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The great tragedy of Gotham Knights — out Friday on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series S/X — is that it was always going to be pitted against the beloved and critically-acclaimed Batman: Arkham games. For one, it’s the first open world Gotham City entry since 2015’s largely well-received final chapter, Batman: Arkham Knight. And two, more importantly, Gotham Knights comes from the same developer — in WB Games Montréal — who gave us that series’ poorest instalment, the 2013 prequel Batman: Arkham Origins. The comparisons were inevitable and unavoidable.

But in the seven years it’s taken for a return to Gotham, a rival superhero has left its mark on the video game world: Spider-Man. The PlayStation-exclusive won awards after its arrival in 2018, delivered a beautiful-looking spin-off in 2020, and is due for a sequel next year. Interestingly, you can feel traces of inspiration from Marvel’s Spider-Man here. Gotham Knights certainly doesn’t have the same cinematographic flair or fluidity to combat that the Spider-Man games have done so well, but there are traces of stylish camera angles at times.

Annoyingly, Gotham Knights also shares some of its problems. Marvel’s Spider-Man was rightly criticised for its lack of open-world innovation. Its New York seemed a little too crime-infested, with a carjacking, an armed robbery, or a hostage situation happening in virtually every other city block. All that is true of Gotham Knights’ Gotham City as well. But unlike Spider-Man, there’s even less variety on offer here outside of petty crimes. The side quests are meh, forgettable, and repetitive.

There’s still fun to be had. Whenever you encounter a new criminal activity, Gotham Knights will assign primary and bonus objectives. The latter can be stealth-based, or something different like an environment takedown. On top of that, Gotham Knights encourages you to scan and identify potential informers among the criminals. (You can hit down on the D-pad to trigger AR scan, which puts a red outline around all threats. And holding down the button gives you more info on each criminal.) If you interrogate them before putting them to sleep, you can discover locations of future crimes. While you can always jump straight into fisticuff combat and ignore the rest, it’s interesting to figure out a gameplan that allows you to achieve more.

Everything You Need to Know About Gotham Knights

Gotham Knights review: devoid of life

But the Gotham of Gotham Knights is not a living breathing world. Apart from the comments you hear as you pass them by on the street, there’s little to no interaction between the heroes and the denizens of Gotham they protect. In Marvel’s Spider-Man, New Yorkers would applaud, whoop, or recoil as you swung close to them or moved amidst them. In Gotham Knights, they will move if you try to run them over with the Batcycle. But outside of that, there’s nothing. What makes it laughable is that civilians don’t react to crime at all. As armed thugs shot at cops in a police vehicle, I saw a passer-by with an umbrella stroll by, as if it was a lovely Sunday morning.

And it isn’t particularly rich either. It’s too …clean? It’s almost as if the Gotham Knights set designers and their teams weren’t given time or resources to make the city feel real. The world feels empty, and comes across as a sandbox built just for you. This Gotham doesn’t feel like a city riddled with crime, and not one occupied by millions of citizens who go about their lives every day. In this sense, Gotham Knights could’ve looked to The Batman — Matt Reeves’ moody take on the Dark Knight, starring Robert Pattinson — which knew not only how to create a mood, but a distinct Gotham that was ugly, lived-in, and infested.

Gotham Knights does share one aspect with The Batman. And it’s that we almost never see Gotham during the day. To prevent themselves from having to design and animate the city twice, WB Games Montréal have come up with a justification to keep our heroes cooped up in their Belfry headquarters when the sun is out. Every time you leave the HQ — to patrol, solve crimes, collect clues, and progress the story — the clock fast forwards to night. The clues you return at dawn with help unlock new crime locations for the following night.

Gotham Knights Has The ‘Biggest Version’ of Batman’s City in a Game Ever

Nightwing in Gotham Knights
Photo Credit: WB Games Montréal

Gotham Knights review: heroes and combat

Before you set out for the evening patrol, you can rotate freely between the four heroes: Dick Grayson/ Nightwing (Christopher Sean), Tim Drake/ Robin (Sloane Morgan Siegel), Barbara Gordon/ Batgirl (America Young), and Jason Todd/ Red Hood (Stephen Oyoung). The responsibility to keep Gotham City safe has fallen on their shoulders, following the death of their mentor and father figure, Bruce Wayne/ Batman (Michael Antonakos).

But once you venture out into the Gotham night, there’s no option to switch between the four heroes. You must return to the Belfry HQ to change characters, which isn’t convenient as it “ends” that night of patrol. Any unsolved crimes will disappear off the map. In other words, Gotham Knights encourages you to stick with the hero you’ve chosen every night.

This is a weird sort of restriction, one that I never understood. Why is WB Games Montréal getting in the way? Is it implying that the other heroes are out and about — and hence unavailable? That logic wouldn’t track as you learn, time and again, that all four heroes were “doing” the same task you were given. Non-playable characters (NPCs) will often talk to character #2 about an event that character #1 was involved in. It’s unintentionally funny. It then reads as though the rest of them were just chilling at home.

The problem is that Gotham Knights hasn’t really figured out how to make it seem that all four characters have their separate lives. Yes, their personalities are different — Jason takes things head on, Tim seems laid-back (and loves taking selfies), Dick is a bit closed off, and Barbara is the group’s heart — but it pretty much stops there. (They also have different superhero friends, with the likes of Superman, Wonder Woman, and Black Canary dropping into your emails, depending on what hero you play as. But that’s an Easter egg, it doesn’t mean anything.)

And that — the lack of differences — extends to combat in Gotham Knights. All four heroes can perform melee (A on Xbox, cross on PlayStation) and ranged attacks (Y or triangle), in both “light” and “heavy” forms. A tap performs a light attack, while holding down the same button does a heavy. Heavy attacks can break through enemy armour, and open them up to more blows.

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Robin in Gotham Knights
Photo Credit: WB Games Montréal

When you’re first asked to pick between the four heroes at the start, Gotham Knights offers a glimpse of what they are good at, letting you decide what your preferences are. For example, Nightwing can jump around, Robin is shifty, Batgirl is tech-heavy, and Red Hood has guns. (Combat isn’t always compulsory — you can use stealth to get around certain situations.) But despite that, playing as every character feels more or less the same.

You can help expand the differences with their additional skills. Levelling up in Gotham Knights grants ability points to every character, which can be spent on their individualised skill tree. You can also unlock new “Momentum Abilities” — think of them as powerful combos — by completing in-game challenges. But you won’t feel any of this for the first few hours. It’s only as you delve deeper into their skill trees that you will be treated to abilities that push them in different directions. While Batgirl becomes more of a hacker, Robin prefers decoys and evasion, while Red Hood and Nightwing embrace brute force.

Gotham Knights review: traversal

The four heroes also share the aforementioned vehicle: the Batcycle. Every time you hit its dedicated call button (up on the D-pad), the Batcycle emerges out of thin air, as if it was cloaked like James Bond’s car from Die Another Day. (A bit like the horse in The Witcher 3.) And in what is a campy inclusion, there’s a button to do wheelies. Because, why not? Despite that, the Batcycle isn’t great fun to drive in Gotham Knights. It never felt as thrilling as it did to see Anne Hathaway’s Catwoman roll around in The Dark Knight Rises, the climactic third chapter in Christopher Nolan and Christian Bale’s trilogy. But I was forced to use it anyway, as Gotham Knights doesn’t offer fast travel options for the first few hours.

When distances were short, I relied on “parkouring” — if you can call it that. As with the Batman: Arkham games, you can use the grappling hook and latch onto the edges of most buildings and structures. Before you get to the end of your tether, you can jump and spring yourself forward. Then, you try and latch again with the grapple. Unlike Batman though, none of the four heroes can glide. (Well, not until you unlock Nightwing’s glider anyway.) The heroes just sink to the ground, in between the jumps and the next grapple on Gotham Knights.

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Red Hood in Gotham Knights
Photo Credit: WB Games Montréal

More importantly, traversal in Gotham Knights doesn’t have the same flow or smoothness, as in Batman: Arkham or Marvel’s Spider-Man. (This is a general issue in fact. Body animations don’t feel as natural as what we’ve seen elsewhere, be it superhero games or the likes of The Last of Us Part I.) Swinging around New York was one of my favourite things to do in the latter series of games, but I never felt that sense of joy here. It felt like a stop-and-start thing, where I was constantly losing momentum. With Batman: Arkham, even though it was never as cinematic, the Dark Knight’s cape added to both flair and functionality. Capes are impractical in most cases, but I missed them in Gotham Knights.

Gotham Knights review: co-op, performance, and verdict

What I also missed was support for cross-play. While Gotham Knights allows for two-player co-op in campaign and four-player co-op will be added in an upcoming standalone mode, you can’t play with friends across platforms. PC, PS5, and Xbox Series S/X lobbies are treated separately. For what it’s worth, Gotham Knights gives you a variety of ways to look for co-op partners. You can manually invite friends, open your lobby to friends of friends, or even have a public lobby should you desire. I opted for the last of them, and had a couple of players drop in. Gameplay was smooth and I encountered no issues.

This was also largely true of performance in general with Gotham Knights. The only time I felt stutters or frame drops was when I was on the Batcycle at high speed. A lot has been made of its 30fps console restriction — the demands on PC to achieve 60fps are, well, staggering — but what’s more important is how it performs with those limitations. This is no Cyberpunk 2077 at launch, where the game regularly dropped into single-digit frames per second. Sure, Gotham Knights could have been better and more equipped, but it’s playable and that’s what matters.

In fact, that’s how I feel about Gotham Knights at large. Drawing from the refined toolkit that powered Batman: Arkham and Marvel’s Spider-Man, WB Games Montréal has produced a cookie-cutter superhero experience that’s not looking to push any boundaries. It’s got flair in parts, an attempt to do a bit of heartfelt storytelling, and limited ideas for what an open-world Gotham can be. But it’s also lacking charm, the oomph and drive to its narrative, and the desire to be something special. Gotham Knights is a cash grab in the era of superheroes — and nothing more.

Pros:

Fun to strategise combat
Four heroes to choose from
Campaign co-op
Traces of flair

Cons:

Unrealistic open world
Traversal isn’t free-flowing
Side quests are repetitive
Can’t freely switch between heroes
Batcycle isn’t great fun to drive
No cross-platform play
Heroes don’t have separate lives
Combat feels the same with every hero in the beginning
Minor stuttering in Batcycle segments

Rating (out of 10): 6

Gotham Knights is released Friday, October 21 on PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series S/X.

Pricing starts at Rs. 2,999 on Steam and Epic Games Store for PC, and Rs. 4,399 on PlayStation Store and Xbox Store.

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Oppo Enco Buds 2 Review: Good for the Price

hitesh

October 19, 2022

Oppo Enco Buds 2 Review: Good for the Price

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Oppo’s approach to true wireless earphones has always been a value-driven one, with the company actively promising and delivering more than you would expect from similarly-priced alternatives. The recently-launched Oppo Enco X2 is a great example of just how far Oppo is willing to go to position itself as the brand delivering the most bang for your buck. However, you can’t talk about the value-for-money proposition without taking on the truly affordable segment, and that’s where the new Oppo Enco Buds 2 comes in.

Priced at Rs. 1,999 in India, the Oppo Enco Buds 2 is among the company’s most affordable true wireless headsets right now, and is the successor to the Oppo Enco Buds launched in 2021. With an interesting and entirely different design to the Enco Buds, as well as a promise of good performance, is the Enco Buds 2 the best affordable true wireless headset you can buy right now? Find out in this review.

The Oppo Enco Buds 2 has a design that is considerably different from that of the original Enco Buds

Oppo Enco Buds 2 design and features

Although the Enco Buds 2 is pitched as the successor to the original Enco Buds, the new headset is significantly different, particularly when it comes to the design. The stem-less design of the original makes way for one with a full-length stem, and naturally, smaller casings near the top. The earphones are made from plastic and have a proper in-canal fit, which offers good passive noise isolation. The earpieces are also quite light at 4g each, adding to the overall comfort level.

The Oppo Enco Buds 2 is available in a single colour in India — black. The earpieces are completely black in colour with a matte finish, while the charging case has a similar matte black finish on the outside and a glossy light blue colour on the inside. It’s a strange combination of colours, but it doesn’t look bad.

Touch controls are present on the earpieces of the Oppo Enco Buds 2, which can be customised using the app or native Bluetooth settings on Android devices. The touch-sensitive area is near the top of the stems, and has a slightly flattened-out texture to distinguish it from the rest of the stems. Gestures can be set up to control playback, volume, invoking the default voice assistant on your smartphone, or activating game mode.

The charging case of the Oppo Enco Buds 2 also sees some big changes in design, essentially in line with the shape of the earphones themselves. It is now a bit flatter and wider, with the USB Type-C charging port and indicator light at the bottom. It’s small and easy enough to carry in a pocket or a compartment of a handbag.

Although fairly basic, there is app support for the Oppo Enco Buds 2, along with features such as using the earpieces to control the camera shutter on supported devices, AI environmental noise cancellation on calls, and IPX4 water resistance for the earpieces. The sales package has three pairs of silicone ear tips of different sizes, but notably no charging cable, which is a bit disappointing even at this price.

There is no ANC on the Oppo Enco Buds 2, but there is environmental noise cancellation for calls

Oppo Enco Buds 2 app and specifications

Like many other Oppo and OnePlus audio products, the Oppo Enco Buds 2 works with the HeyMelody app to enable customisation, and some additional features and functions. If you have some Oppo or OnePlus smartphones, you won’t even need the app; the same functionality has been integrated into the native Bluetooth settings menu, and can be accessed by tapping on the earphones within the Bluetooth settings.

It’s worth mentioning here that while HeyMelody is available for iOS, the Oppo Enco Buds 2 is not supported on iOS and only works with Android smartphones. I used the earphones with a OnePlus 9 Pro for this review, which had the app functionality built into the Bluetooth settings.

Once paired and connected, I could access the app-based functions, including equaliser presets (original sound, bass boost, and clear vocals), customisation for the controls based on tap or touch-and-hold gestures, and the toggle that enables you to use the earpieces to control the camera shutter when taking a photo. You can also view the battery levels for the earpieces and case, and update the firmware. All of this is well presented and worked as expected for me.

Oppo Enco Buds 2 performance and battery life

Oppo’s value-for-money approach to the true wireless earphones segment deserves a lot more attention than it already gets, particularly thanks to excellent headsets such as the Enco X2. With the Enco Buds 2, Oppo hopes to make a strong impact on the affordable segment, and it does have a strong contender that can take the fight to products from competing brands.

Things have changed significantly in this price segment over the past year, and apart from the improvements in the features on offer, even sound quality seems to have improved a fair amount. The Oppo Enco Buds 2 offers sound that is loud, punchy, and driven, while retaining a fair amount of detail and capability even in the mid-range and highs. It’s a characteristically aggressive sound — typical of what you’d expect on a true wireless headset priced at under Rs. 2,000 — but didn’t feel too overbearing or fatiguing.

Battery life is decent on the Oppo Enco Buds 2, with the charging case adding three full charges to the earpieces

Listening to Conundrum by Shur-i-Kan, the mid-tempo beat of this deep house track immediately felt punchy and attention-grabbing. That said, the gentle, soulful melody did have plenty of room to shine, and the rumbling lows never felt too aggressive or overpowering. The secure fit and decent passive noise isolation helped in making for good, clean sound for much of my listening.

Even with the volume at around the 30 percent level, the earphones sounded adequately loud for typical indoor use. Anything beyond the 60 percent volume level was unsafe to listen, in my opinion, so it’s fair to say that this is a very loud pair of true wireless earphones. Aggressive electronic tracks were best listened to with the volume on the lower end, while some soft, gentle tracks such as Truth by Kamasi Washington sounded best at around the 50 percent volume level.

The lows didn’t quite strike as capably and precisely as I’ve heard on slightly more expensive headsets such as the Oppo Enco Air 2 Pro, but this is an expected point given the price of the Enco Buds 2. The tuning of the sound does manage to keep the headset in control with the low end, but it often sounded like the headset was facing a fair amount of strain in holding itself back.

The loud volume capabilities of the Oppo Enco Buds 2 helps cover for the lack of active noise cancellation, and also makes it an effective headset for voice-based content such as videos, movies, and TV shows. Call quality was decent on the headset as well, both indoors and outdoors.

Battery life on the Oppo Enco Buds 2 is very good even for a budget headset, with the earphones having 40mAh batteries and the charging case having a 460mAh battery. I was able to use the earphones for around six hours on a single charge with the volume at around the 30-40 percent level, and the charging case added three full charges, for a total run time of around 24 hours per charge cycle.

Verdict

Brands are often tempted to double-down on features with affordable true wireless headsets, but I’ve found that simplicity and a focus on sound quality is a far better than earphones that can do many things, but none too well. The Oppo Enco Buds 2 ticks the boxes for what is expected at under Rs. 2,000, offering a music-focused, clean listening experience for the most part, along with decent battery life and app support.

Although the sound did sometimes feel a bit strained, the Enco Buds 2 are, for the most part, a capable pair of true wireless earphones for its price. You might also want to consider options such as the Realme Buds Air 3 Neo and OnePlus Nord Buds CE which are similarly priced, but the Enco Buds 2 is an equally reliable choice that’s worth checking out.

Affiliate links may be automatically generated – see our ethics statement for details.

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Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection PC Review: A Breathtaking Sight, With a Few Rough Patches

hitesh

October 18, 2022

Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection PC Review: A Breathtaking Sight, With a Few Rough Patches

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Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection — out Wednesday on PC — is no doubt a potent brew of blockbuster storytelling and epic-scale thrills. Its arrival marks the first time PC players get to experience this globe-trotting adventure franchise since its founding nearly 15 years ago, as it has been PlayStation exclusive starting with the PS3. This version expectedly comes with added enhancements, which are foreign to even the recent PS5 remaster. Seeing Iron Galaxy Studios at the helm of Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection, I had been erring on the side of caution, as these are the same folks behind Batman: Arkham Knight’s terrible PC port. Now, to be fair, that was outsourced to a small team of 12, under heavy time constraints — grounds for all kinds of technical issues. Even so, I kept my fingers crossed and dove into Uncharted PC with a sliver of hope. Here’s my full review.

Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection PC review — Prep work

As was the case with the PS5 remaster, Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection is essentially a refined version of Naughty Dog’s latest treasure-hunting games. It’s a charming crate that holds together 2016’s Uncharted 4 and its subsequent spin-off title, Uncharted: The Lost Legacy, letting a new generation of players experience Nathan Drake and Chloe Frazer’s adventures in the wild.

Let’s talk about distribution first — my primary point of concern. Iron Galaxy took the literal definition of “collection,” and bundled both games into a single application. This amounts to an 89.6GB download for Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection, which after extraction and installation, takes up 124GB of drive space. Even if you lack interest in one of the titles, you’d still be forced to dedicate that massive space to both of them.

The Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection homescreen lets you switch between Uncharted 4 and Uncharted: The Lost Legacy at will. However, it’s a bizarre process. Attempting to do so triggers a forced restart, making you sit through a loading screen before you can get into the actual game. As evidenced by the install folder, it’s clearly jumping between two different .exe files. This begs the question, why aren’t they offered separately? “Convenience” isn’t the answer, as it takes the same amount of time to manually launch a different game anyway.

First-time setup for Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection can feel like a chore, especially on lower-end PC builds, owing to a “shader building” process (according to a message on screen). This could take anywhere from 15 to 20 minutes for each game, depending on your specs — in turn, affecting Steam’s two-hour refund policy. Sure, you can still play the game while this happens in the background, but it would be far from an optimal experience, with flickering screens, lag, and maybe even a hard crash. So, it’s recommended that you wait it out.

Uncharted Legacy of Thieves Collection PS5 Review

Uncharted 4 is clearly the more optimised out of the two
Photo Credit: Naughty Dog

Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection PC review — Gameplay

I wouldn’t be the first to suggest that the Uncharted series has lost its lustre over time, with predictable plot beats, corny dialogue, and dated mechanics. Don’t let that distract you from the bigger picture though, which still manages to be an absolute blast to play through. Be it parkouring along wet scaffoldings, disassembling a clock tower, or gunning down foes in that cinematic chase sequence in Madagascar, the Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection screams unbridled mayhem.

The keyboard and mouse control scheme, which is super responsive, benefits mildly from the game’s accessibility features. While not as intricate as the PS4 and PS5’s The Last of Us Part II, you get basic aids such as lock-on aim, a persistent centre dot, and mono audio, aimed at those suffering from unilateral hearing loss. Hand-to-hand combat segments in Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection require some button-mashing — my sworn enemy — building up tendon pain in my wrist and palm. Luckily, I could just configure the ‘Hold’ action, making the ordeal near effortless.

Core gameplay remains the same, with grappling hooks to swing around, puzzles to solve, and driving segments, all of which are slightly expanded in The Lost Legacy. Tiptoeing along narrow beams requires some precision, but you can continue making far-off, physics-defying leaps with ease. I was hoping for some minor conveniences such as ammo auto-pickup, which would streamline the run-and-gun experience, but unfortunately, all changes are limited to the technical side.

Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection PC System Requirements Announced

The action set pieces in Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection screams unbridled mayhem
Photo Credit: Naughty Dog

Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection review — Graphics

In keeping with past PlayStation-to-PC ports, Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection prioritises character models above all else, and what better setting than the snow-capped vistas of Scotland, bursting with vibrant vegetation and ancient pirate ruins. Heading into Chapter 8, I was worried about how the ‘Low’ graphics preset would affect inscriptions, a vital type of clue in the quest for Henry Avery’s gravestone. As it turns out, Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection makes an exception for objects that characters interact with, akin to 2D animation, adding an extra level of detailing that sets these apart from other assets.

For example, angular objects such as doors and vehicles have blurry decals, and text is prone to jagged edges. However, humans remain pristine, with sweat-glossed foreheads, realistic skin texture, and attire that collects dust and grime over time. When thrown into the same cutscenes in Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection, there’s a jarring effect, as the subject and background textures do not match. And honestly, that might be the only blatantly obvious downside to playing at the lowest settings. Unlike Marvel’s Spider-Man Remastered on PC, there isn’t much to fiddle around with in the graphics menu. Fine-tuning shadows, reflections, and ambient occlusion do add that oomph, but it’s not significant to gameplay — at least not at full-HD 1080p.

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On higher presets, foliage gets denser with added shadows
Photo Credit: Screenshot/ Rahul Chettiyar

Compared to their original PS4 builds, both Uncharted games look breathtaking. Hightailing across the sandy terrains of Madagascar feels hypnotic, as the scorching heat drenches you in growing streaks of sweat. That allure is amplified by the rugged, real-time dirt tracks you leave behind, packs of lemurs scurrying about, and locals cowering in fear as you steamroll past them. The Lost Legacy’s PC port ups the ante for visuals, populating the screen with denizens bartering in the bazaar, exotic flora, and gigantic moss-covered idols and shrines to scale. It’s insane how good Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection looks — it made me want to invest in an ultra-wide monitor.

The ‘Medium’ quality preset in Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection adds lighting effects, making streams and puddles shimmer when trudging along. Human reflections were fairly solid on the marble floor of the Italian Rossi Estate, but those on water bodies were inconsistent.

At the ‘High’ preset, minute details such as ridges and cracks are defined, adding undeniable stress to your GPU. This helps distract from the blurry, pixelated mess that plagues rocky surfaces you latch onto, in addition to separating foliage and flower beds, for even more realism. I didn’t bother much with the ‘Ultra’ preset on Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection, as my graphics card was maxing out on memory.

Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection review — Performance

While not fully on par with past PlayStation–PC ports, Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection is decently optimised. My test rig consisted of an AMD Ryzen 5 2400G 3.6GHz processor, an Nvidia GeForce GTX 1660 Super GPU with 6GB of VRAM, 16GB of RAM, and a 500GB SSD. With this configuration, I was able to hit a sweet spot at Medium–High settings, resulting in stunning graphics. The experience was nearly smooth, but frame rates in this game can be quite erratic — at times, situational, depending on what chapter you’re on.

At these settings, Uncharted 4 ran at 65fps on average, with frequent dips to 51, depending on scenery changes and camera movement. This remained true for both gunplay and exploration segments, with highs of 73fps reserved for select cinematics and closed-room events. When jostling through the Madagascar market or the auction setting earlier in Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection, the frame rate plummeted to 32fps, before settling somewhere in the 40s. That drop was very noticeable, even at the Low preset, sometimes even causing the audio to cut out for a split second.

The adrenaline-fueled Madagascar chase sequence is undeniably the finest zone to push Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection to its limits. It’s not enough that you’re thrown onto a large-scale playing field, with a tank right behind you. But then you’ve also got mercenaries, explosions, gunfire, mud flying off tires, destruction, and ongoing environmental changes to account for. At the aforementioned settings, the game managed to chug out 44fps on average, with the highest peak being 55fps. Bursting down a stairway filled with stalls, vendors, and brightly coloured umbrellas, triggered massive stutters, dropping the frame rate to 28fps at one point. The camera shaking does help with immersion, but some lag spikes are unavoidable.

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The adrenaline-fueled Madagascar chase sequence pushes your GPU to its limit
Photo Credit: Naughty Dog

At the time of writing, Uncharted: The Lost Legacy feels slightly rough in comparison, though that is somewhat justifiable. A decent chunk of the gameplay here involves traversing through wilderness. This generated an average of 50fps, with sharp declines to 32fps during intense sequences. On the other hand, puzzle sequences, wall climbing, and cutscenes saw numbers maxing out at 63fps.

The Lost Legacy’s Chapter 2 pits Chloe Frazer and Nadine Ross in a high-stakes platforming run, as they’re shot at by mercenaries in heavy rainfall. In addition to strong reflections on wet surfaces, you’re faced with sparking bullet streams and environmental destruction. This sequence pushed out 46fps on average, and a quick brawl against enemies ran at 28fps. Having motion blur on helped avoid screen tearing, which I would recommend since Sony never goes overboard with it — there’s no nauseating effect.

Bear in mind that both aforementioned chase sequences will cause significant lag spikes at certain intervals, if your hardware is in the same ballpark as mine, no matter which quality preset you choose.

Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End (all values are in fps)
LOW			MEDIUM			HIGH			ULTRA
LOW	AVG	HIGH	LOW	AVG	HIGH	LOW	AVG	HIGH	LOW	AVG	HIGH
55	68	83	51	65	73	47	55	63	39	48	57
Uncharted: The Lost Legacy
LOW			MEDIUM			HIGH			ULTRA
LOW	AVG	HIGH	LOW	AVG	HIGH	LOW	AVG	HIGH	LOW	AVG	HIGH
35	51	66	32	50	63	30	42	55	30	40	50

Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection review — Verdict

Through gorgeous imagery and robust level design, Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection promises a delectable adventure for newcomers to the franchise. Sure, the launch timing makes it seem like compensation — a playful jab — for PC gamers not being able to play God of War Ragnarök at launch, but Sony is not interested in matching Microsoft’s day-and-date release strategy. For the Rs. 3,299/ $50 price tag, you practically receive one and a half games here — a splendid offer, if you can overlook its original last-gen release window.

Its shortcomings are exposed in Uncharted: The Lost Legacy, which lacks a bit of polish. And while support for ultra-wide displays and native 4K 60fps appear mouthwatering, I’m not sure that will be enough to draw in those who have already experienced these games on PS4 or PS5 for a second helping.

Pros:

Looks and sounds amazing
Decent accessibility features
Motion blur is not obnoxious

Cons:

Packaged as a single, large application
The Lost Legacy is not as polished
No ammo auto-pickup or gameplay improvements
First-time setup can take time

Rating (out of 10): 7

Gadgets 360 played Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection on a PC with AMD Ryzen 5 2400G 3.6GHz, Nvidia GeForce GTX 1660 Super GPU 6GB, 16GB RAM, and a 500GB SSD.

Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection is priced at Rs. 3,299 on Steam and Epic Games Store.

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A Plague Tale Requiem Review: Gripping Narrative and Memorable Characters

hitesh

October 17, 2022

A Plague Tale Requiem Review: Gripping Narrative and Memorable Characters

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A Plague Tale: Requiem — out Tuesday on PC, PS5, Xbox Series S/X, and Nintendo Switch via the cloud — is set six months after the events of the previous game, A Plague Tale: Innocence. Having survived the grasp of the Inquisition and with the Black Plague rat swarm off their scent, the de Rune family has found some respite in the outskirts of the Provence region. However, a chance encounter with bandits pushes Hugo to his limits, and it is now up to elder sister Amicia to search for a cure for the mysterious Macula poisoning his veins. It is this psychologically and physically downward spiralling journey of the de Rune siblings that is the captivating core of this sequel to 2019’s critically acclaimed A Plague Tale: Innocence.

Developer Asobo Studio has masterfully crafted the narrative of A Plague Tale: Requiem. It progresses in a way that sinks its teeth into you right from the beginning, and never lets go. Adding to that are complex characters who have been given life by some of the best voice acting that I have ever experienced in gaming. Their moments of sorrow, compassion, rage, and despair are elevated by the surreal — and at times, haunting — background score composed by the returning Olivier Derivière.

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A Plague Tale: Requiem has been sculpted meticulously in every aspect. Technical improvements to the game engine allowed for over 35fps at the Medium preset at full-HD 1080p resolution on my PC, which has an AMD Ryzen 5 5600X CPU, 16GB of RAM, and a Radeon RX570 GPU. More importantly, the game looks gorgeous even at lower graphics settings. A Plague Tale: Requiem does not lose its visual appeal if you choose to go for improved frame rates. This sequel is able to pull at your heartstrings with the endearing brother-sister relationship of Amicia and Hugo, while also offering thrilling stealth survival gameplay.

A Plague Tale Requiem review: campaign

As stated previously, A Plague Tale: Requiem’s story picks up six months after the end of A Plague Tale: Innocence. This sequel assumes that you are familiar with the events of the first game, and spends no time jumping into the new adventure. If you haven’t played the first entry, you can still experience the story with a completely fresh perspective.

The game takes place in a new setting — the region of Provence — with new enemies on the tail of Amicia and Hugo. Newcomers to the franchise will not feel completely lost here. References to past events are scattered throughout the campaign to provide some context, without an exposition dump boring you or breaking the intense flow of the narrative. This approach by the writing team ensures that A Plague Tale: Requiem’s story can stand on its own.

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As players, we primarily control Amicia throughout the 15-20 hours of the A Plague Tale: Requiem campaign. She is a force of unwavering resolve and will go to any length for the sake of her brother’s health. It is this desire to protect her brother that gets corrupted into disdain for the royal soldiers, mercenaries, and anyone else who might cause harm to Hugo. Her moments of blinding rage — exceptionally voice-acted by Charlotte McBurney — are jaw-dropping.

Despite her strong resolve, Amicia is not invulnerable. Her increasingly violent actions chip away at her sanity and physical well-being. During my playthrough, I felt compelled to take a passive approach, so I might not unwittingly contribute to her psychological downfall — not that it actually affected the game’s narrative. Still, I felt so emotionally connected to Amicia that I wanted to prevent her from turning into a mindless killer.

Amicia is not alone on this journey through A Plague Tale: Requiem. Other characters offer a helping hand. Hugo, her younger brother, is as sweet as ever, but has to risk escalating the hold of the mysterious Macula on him, which allows him to control the rat swarm and protect his sister when she is left incapacitated. Lucas, an alchemy apprentice, accompanies the de Rune family on their journey. He serves as the sound of reason who tries to calm Amicia down during her fits of rage, and offers passive alternatives to violence. Finally, Amicia and Hugo’s mother Béatrice cuts a sorry figure — struggling to pick between the desire to keep her children safe and her faith in an ancient order, which may or may not have Hugo’s best interests at heart.

Throughout your playthrough of A Plague Tale: Requiem, you will be accompanied by one or more of these allies — each of whom have unique abilities. Lucas can distract enemies, and constantly comes up with new alchemic recipes to assist in a pinch. Hugo gets more attuned to the rat swarm, and can control it to devour helpless foes. He can even leverage their senses to detect enemies through walls. There are also other characters who assist you on this adventure, either through the goodness of their heart or for personal gain.

A Plague Tale Requiem review: graphics and gameplay

A Plague Tale: Requiem is a visually stunning game with engrossing environments and almost lifelike character animations, especially facial expressions during emotionally charged scenes. Depending on where you find yourself in the story, the levels can be teeming with life or reeking of death. The excellent sound design and masterfully orchestrated background score further pull you into the beautifully horrifying 14th-century France setting that the developer has created.

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Technical improvements to the engine underpinning A Plague Tale: Requiem mean that there can be up to 300,000 rats on your screen at a time. This allows the rat swarm to take unfathomably monstrous forms, causing death and destruction on a massive scale. There are a few exhilarating chase sequences against the rat swarm that really got me sweating. I was not prepared for the apocalyptic horrors that these rats brought, which will no doubt fuel my nightmares in the future.

Amicia is not completely helpless against the rats — or other human foes she encounters on this journey. Yes, A Plague Tale: Requiem focuses on stealth and survival, but it also provides you with a decent arsenal for dispatching enemies. Starting with just a rock and a sling, Amicia will acquire knives, pot bombs, and a crossbow as the game progresses. She can also craft various alchemic mixtures, which can be used to modify the impact of her weapons and tackle environmental puzzles. These increasing options prevent the enemy encounters from becoming stale. The puzzles are also challenging enough to offer you a sense of accomplishment, but are not so hard that you are scouring forums online in search of the solution.

Considering the attention to detail that I observed throughout my playthrough, an uncharacteristic shortcoming in A Plague Tale: Requiem is the lone animation for Amicia’s takedowns and counters. (Meanwhile, Amicia’s trembling breaths become more and more audible as an unaware enemy gets closer.) In the beginning, I was sceptical that this might make enemy encounters mundane after a few hours. But thanks to the constant influx of new weapons, abilities, and allies, no level felt the same as there was always room to test alternate approaches.

As you level up, you will be able to unlock new skills, but character progression does not reward you with skill points that you can use to unlock abilities you wish for. Instead, depending on the path you take — stealth, assault, or alchemy — you will unlock new abilities only in that skill tree. A Plague Tale: Requiem takes an interesting approach to progression that I found refreshing.

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A Plague Tale Requiem review: verdict

A Plague Tale: Requiem is one of those rare gems that comes when a developer refrains from sullying a great game with AAA fluff. There are no microtransactions anywhere. What we get is a game with a tightly knit narrative, breathtaking visuals, and characters that leave a lasting mark on your heart.

Amicia’s despair and resulting rage as she searches for a cure for the terrible illness plaguing her brother Hugo are bone-chilling. The masterfully written characters of A Plague Tale: Requiem become even more endearing thanks to excellent voice acting. The rich graphics and equally riveting background score further enhance this experience.

Character progression is paced adequately, and the gradual introduction of new allies on your journey prevent A Plague Tale: Requiem’s gameplay from ever becoming stale. Its level design also encourages you to try different approaches as new tools become available to Amicia.

Ultimately, A Plague Tale: Requiem is hands down one of the best single-player campaigns I have played recently.

Pros:

Excellent voice acting
Captivating sound design, background score
Great graphics, even at relatively low settings
Endearing characters
Nerve-wracking chases
Multiple approaches to levels

Cons:

Repetitive takedown, counter animations

Rating (out of 10): 9

We played A Plague Tale: Requiem on a PC with an AMD Ryzen 5 5600X CPU, AMD RX570 GPU, and 16GB of RAM.

A Plague Tale: Requiem is released Tuesday, October 18 on PC, PS5, Xbox Series S/X, and Nintendo Switch (Cloud).

Pricing starts at Rs. 1,999 on Steam for PC, Rs. 3,499 on Xbox Store and PlayStation Store, and $59.99 (roughly Rs. 5,000) on Nintendo Store.

A Plague Tale: Requiem is also part of Xbox Game Pass and PC Game Pass, with subscriptions beginning at Rs. 349 per month on PC and Xbox. The Ultimate membership, including online multiplayer and more, is priced at Rs. 499 per month.

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Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope Review: Richer, Bigger, but Also More Ubisoft-y

hitesh

October 17, 2022

Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope Review: Richer, Bigger, but Also More Ubisoft-y

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Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope — out Thursday on Nintendo Switch — does what you’d expect from a sequel to a well-received game by immersing you in a richer and more expansive world. While the first game, Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle, proceeded in a linear fashion, Sparks of Hope tries to be more exploratory with a semi-open world of sorts. There’s now an in-game map, with quests marked on it. Thankfully, it’s not as littered with icons as some of Ubisoft’s other open world games. There is a bit of level-gating, as you might expect — it never really got in my way, though your mileage may vary depending on the route you take. Each new Sparks of Hope planet opens up a dozen or so quests that you must complete before you tackle the big bad. You can roam around freely, and decide what you want to do first.

Ubisoft Milan and Ubisoft Paris — the returning team of developers on Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope — have reconsidered their approach to the game’s turn-based arena too. Unlike in Kingdom Battle, where your heroes moved in a grid-based layout, Sparks of Hope is entirely freeform. During your turn, you can move around endlessly as you ponder your choices. After activating team jump, you’re lifted into the air and free to move around before you fall to the ground. Additionally, some new enemies, like the Bob-omb, can be picked up and thrown after you dash into them. In both cases — team jump and dash-and-throw — you have a few seconds to make up your mind. Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope is still a turn-based tactics game, but there’s a now a real-time element to it.

While most of those are welcome introductions, there are some unwelcome ideas as well. Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope has three in-game currencies now: the existing “Coins” for purchasing new items and weaponry, “Starbits” that are used to upgrade power-up characters Sparks, and planet-specific coins — there are five planets on Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope — to unlock one-time usable items. Kingdom Battle only had Coins for both weapons and items. To help manage it all, Ubisoft has given Sparks of Hope an in-game store. Its merchant shows up before the start of every level, giving you the option to top up everyone’s health for Coins. Given what we’ve seen with other Ubisoft games, I’m afraid microtransactions and limited-time cosmetics aren’t very far off.

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Following the events of Kingdom Battle, Mario and the gang are blissful in the Mushroom Kingdom. The biggest calamity seems to be Rabbid Mario having his trousers stolen. But, as anyone who’s seen any film or game sequel will tell you, peace can never last. The new villain in Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope is a floating tentacled entity called Cursa, who is taking over the galaxy by using mind-control and inflicting black gooey Darkmess that takes over everything. To further its plans, Cursa is using the energy of the Sparks — a combination of Rabbids and Lumas — who grant bonuses and special abilities to our playable roster of heroes. You can eventually assign up to two per hero, picking from the 30 Sparks in total, who are unlocked as you play and complete quests.

Speaking of heroes, the gang are all available from the start: Mario, Luigi, Princess Peach, Rabbid Mario, Rabbid Luigi, and Rabbid Peach. New heroes Edge, Bowser, and Rabbid Rosalina join them along the journey. More importantly, you aren’t forced to use Mario as was the case on Kingdom Battle. In Sparks of Hope, Mario can be replaced by a different hero. I’m glad that Ubisoft didn’t opt for some contrived method to re-lock character rosters. That said, their abilities have been re-locked. To save some time, individual skill trees can be auto-filled with recommendations provided by Jeanie, a new AI created by Beep-O whom he’s now jealous of, as she seems to have better ideas. Beep-O and Jeanie are both fully voiced, which wasn’t the case in the first game.

Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope also introduces new enemies — and new ways to defeat them. The instantly recognisable Goombas are now part of the game, and you can even dash through multiple Goombas to knock them out at once. With the aforementioned Bob-ombs, you can dash through one to light it up, and then throw it at others. At times, you end up with a beneficial cascading effect — with one Bob-omb blowing others up, which in turn damage even more enemies. Of course, you can also use the variety of weapons at your disposal. With the Sparks, you can turbocharge your attacks, deflect and absorb damage, or add fire, freeze, and a myriad of elemental effects. One-off items can help you heal, deal area damage, or even reset cooldowns when you’re in a pinch.

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Rabbid Peach throws a Bob-omb in Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope
Photo Credit: Ubisoft/Nintendo

What’s cooldown? As with Kingdom Battle, Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope puts a timer of multiple turns on the use of Sparks and special abilities to prevent them from being OP. And of course, as was the case earlier, the game also limits how many actions you can perform per turn. You can choose two out of four options: weapons, Sparks, items, and abilities. The rise in complexity impacts your Kingdom Battle strategies, forcing you to find new ways to succeed in the new Mario + Rabbids game. On top of that, you have to take other factors into account, such as enemies who move after you fire at them, and randomly appearing portals that generate new baddies for you to deal with. You can destroy such portals to avoid fighting new enemies, but that throws another factor to consider into your approach.

If it ever gets too much for you, Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope offers a lower difficulty option, as was the case with Kingdom Battle. Here, it’s called “Relaxed”. You can even choose to make Mario and the gang invulnerable, if you’re just in it for the story. (This option isn’t turned on even if you choose Relaxed. You will need to dive into Options > Gameplay. There, navigate to the bottom and turn on Invulnerability.) But while the first game had only two choices, Sparks of Hope has three. For players who want a challenge, Ubisoft has included “Demanding” — in which enemies are tougher and deal more damage, and hero health is not restored after battle. The default difficulty setting is called “Average”, and that’s how I played through Sparks of Hope.

Outside of the turn-based fighting levels, Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope offers light environmental puzzle work in the open world. Some of it is carried over from Kingdom Battle. You move around objects to unblock a stream. You reorient statues to answer a riddle. You run after coins in time-based challenges. The Sparks of Hope open world has nooks and crannies that you will run into as you explore. (This might lead you to an extra helping of coins, or you might run into an enemy that kicks off a battle.) While a new area might seem barebones from the outside, it’s only once you begin to roam around — and attempt to tick off every quest — that you realise you’ve spent hours there since you came through that first door.

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Rabbid Rosalina, Luigi, and Rabbid Peach explore one of five planets in Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope
Photo Credit: Ubisoft/Nintendo

And should you decide to buy the game’s Gold Edition / Season Pass — it’s a $30 (about Rs. 2,500) premium over the base game — you will be treated to even more content down the line. Ubisoft is promising three story-based downloadable content (DLC) expansions for Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope, with one to feature Rayman, a Ubisoft character with its own franchise that spawned Rabbids in the first place. As per the Nintendo Store, two are expected in 2023, and the last of them in 2024.

But I’m sad that I can’t play any of this — be it Sparks of Hope, or any of the three expansions — with friends and family. While Kingdom Battle’s co-op and PvP multiplayer was complementary and had its own drawbacks, this has disappeared entirely from Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope. The game’s producer Xavier Manzanares says they cut it out due to balancing issues caused by the additions to combat, which would have led to “a game that never ships.” It’s still an unforgivable decision in my books.

For those planning to play on a big screen by passing Joy-Cons around, you should know that the graphics quality in Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope isn’t all that impressive. My experience on a 55-inch TV wasn’t anything great, and the game is clearly designed to be played on the Switch’s own screen at arm’s length. (The Nintendo handheld’s internals have been throttling graphics almost ever since its launch.) That said, I did appreciate surround sound with my TV hooked up to a 5.1 speaker setup.

Ultimately, the new Mario + Rabbids game is a solid sequel to the five-plus-year-old Kingdom Battle, though Ubisoft’s attempts to give it an open world spin end up with mixed results. Do I appreciate the increased ambition? Yes. Am I turned off by the controversial additions, and wary of the Ubisoft-y trappings I’ve seen elsewhere? A yes to that too. But that is the price we pay for the world we live in. When it was first conceptualised, despite the obvious brand synergy with characters coming together, Kingdom Battle felt like an innocent little experiment. Now, with success on their backs, there is hunger for more, and both Ubisoft and Nintendo are seeing dollars in their eyes. Mario + Rabbids is akin to a franchise now — and it shows.

Pros:

Richer, more expansive world
Easy to pick up, hard to master
Freeform arena layout
Three difficulty choices
Six hero choices from the start
Mario can be removed from roster

Cons:

Concept of an in-game store
One-time usable items
Mix of real-time and turn-based gameplay
Three in-game currencies
No co-op or PvP multiplayer

Rating (out of 10): 8

Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope is released Thursday, October 20 on Nintendo Switch. It takes up 5.8GB of storage space post download.

Priced officially at Rs. 3,999 in India on Games The Shop, Game Loot, and Mcube Games, you can get Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope for Rs. 3,599 at e2z Store.

Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope costs $59.99 (about Rs. 4,930) on the online Nintendo Store.

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ViewSonic TD1655 15.6-Inch Portable Touch Monitor Review: Great for Dual-Screen Setups

hitesh

October 17, 2022

ViewSonic TD1655 15.6-Inch Portable Touch Monitor Review: Great for Dual-Screen Setups

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A portable, touchscreen monitor is a niche product, but could be a handy solution for those who require the extra screen real estate on the move. The use case for such a device could be anything from enabling touch controls for a laptop or desktop that doesn’t have a touchscreen, dual-screen connectivity on the go, or generally having a larger screen to use with a compact laptop as needed. One such product that fits this description is the ViewSonic TD1655 15.6-inch portable touch monitor, which I’m reviewing here.

Priced at Rs. 33,500 officially (but available for as low as Rs. 23,999 online), the ViewSonic TD1655 monitor promises convenience of connectivity and usage, portability, and touchscreen capabilities. Is this unique portable monitor worth the asking price? Find out in this review.

The ViewSonic TD1655 is available in a single 15.6-inch size, and has a resolution of 1920×1080 pixels

ViewSonic TD1655 Monitor design

The ViewSonic TD1655 monitor, at first glance, looks more like a laptop than a dedicated monitor. It has a 15.6-inch screen and the thickness is roughly the same as some laptops, such as the Samsung Galaxy Book 2 Pro 360 (Review) that I used for this review. It’s this shape and size that makes the TD1655 so portable; you can slip it into a backpack or laptop bag just as easily as your laptop, and often even with the two devices stacked together. The monitor weighs a little under 1kg.

The 15.6-inch full-HD IPS LED screen naturally dominates the front of the ViewSonic TD1655 monitor, with narrow bezels on three sides and a slightly wider bottom bezel that also has the company’s logo on it. There is an included magnetic screen cover that folds away behind it when the monitor is in use, and a kickstand that can be extended to keep the TD1655 standing upright.

There is also a power button which doubles up as a navigation controller to browse the basic settings and functions of the monitor. At the bottom are small speaker grilles for the built-in two-speaker setup, comprising of two 0.8W speakers for a total (and rather basic) rated output of 1.6W.

Connectivity options on the ViewSonic TD1655 include two USB Type-C ports, one Mini-HDMI port, and a 3.5mm headphone jack, all on the left side. The sales package of the unit that was sent to me included an HDMI to Mini-HDMI cable, a USB Type-C to Type-C cable, and a 60W power adapter. However, ViewSonic’s product page for the TD1655 also mentions the inclusion of a USB Type-A to Type-C cable and a passive stylus, as part of the bundle.

ViewSonic TD1655 Monitor specifications and connectivity

As mentioned, the key specification of the ViewSonic TD1655 is its full-HD (1920×1080-pixel, 60Hz) IPS-LED touch display, with support for 10-point multi-touch and gestures. The rated brightness is 250 nits. The monitor is further compatible with various operating systems, including Windows, macOS, Chrome OS, Android, and Linux.

For my review, I used the Windows-powered Samsung Galaxy Book 2 Pro laptop as the source device for the ViewSonic TD1655 monitor. This let me use the USB Type-C cable as a single connector, with the monitor drawing power, the display signal, and the touch input from the same cable. That said, this only worked with the provided USB Type-C cable; other cables, including the Samsung laptop’s included charging cable, were incompatible with the monitor.

The ViewSonic TD1655 has two USB Type-C ports and one Mini-HDMI port for connectivity

Alternatively, I was able to power the monitor with its own adapter and cable, and then separately connect a second USB Type-C cable or the included HDMI to Mini-HDMI cable to a source device. The convenience of a single cable is excellent, but do keep in mind that the monitor will draw power from the laptop in this case, and you’ll see the battery of the laptop drain a lot faster.

Windows allowed me to set up the ViewSonic TD1655 monitor either as the main display, or as a second display to be used alongside the laptop’s own screen. Both of these worked as expected, according to how I had set it up. The monitor powered up and displayed the source signal within just a few seconds of being connected, when using the correct cables.

ViewSonic TD1655 Monitor performance

The ViewSonic TD1655 monitor’s screen isn’t much larger than that of most laptops, but the use case of this device is less about size (usually why you would want a monitor) and more about convenience and enabling touch functionality for a device which may not have it. Indeed, it does a great job with this, focusing on ease of use and function.

As mentioned, the ViewSonic TD1655 monitor quickly powers up and displays the signal from the connected device without any need for user input. That said, if you have two devices and cables connected at the same time, you’ll need to access the settings menu to switch between the two. When powered on and with the display active, a single press of the menu button at the back shows the options to do so.

Other controls include detailed settings for sound, picture mode, colour adjustments, manual image adjustments, and miscellaneous device settings. Navigating these menus is a bit tricky with the joystick-style button at the back, but this is presumably not something you’ll have to do often. The customisation options themselves are quite detailed, allowing for a fair amount of control on the specifics of the monitor.

The ViewSonic TD1655 worked well to enable a dual-screen setup, when used with a laptop

With the default picture settings active, the ViewSonic TD1655 offered a sharp and detailed picture, and with slight tweaks to the brightness and contrast levels, I was able to get it to look clean and legible even in a brightly lit room. While understandably not as impressive as the AMOLED HDR display of the Samsung laptop, the monitor’s 15.6-inch screen was a bit larger and worked well alongside, for an impressive dual-screen, productivity-focused setup.

The touch controls for the screen worked well, with the monitor able to recognise even the lightest of taps and swipe gestures accurately. Of course, this also has to do with Windows 11 itself being a lot more touch-friendly than earlier versions, but the ViewSonic TD1655 was itself able to handle my typical usage easily enough. I liked being able to use it to watch video-based content or read text, while keeping a second browser window with my email and other websites open on the laptop itself.

Productivity on-the-go is, in my opinion, the best use case for the ViewSonic TD1655 portable monitor. The kickstand can be freely used at any angle up to 60 degrees, thereby giving you a wide range of usable angles. With a stylus, it could come in handy for creative and design-focused users as well, providing an additional screen for note-taking, sketching, or viewing documents and blueprints, among other possibilities. Portability is a key factor here, since it is quick to set up and use as a second screen, and it can be stowed and put away just as easily as any typical laptop.

Sound quality on the ViewSonic TD1655 monitor isn’t particularly good, given the small size and low rated output. Even at the highest volume, it was only just loud enough to be heard in a quiet room, and the issue is worsened by the fact that the monitor took over audio from my test laptop (and its much better speakers) when connected. Any available alternative (wired or wireless) is recommended here, although it is admittedly better than having no speakers at all.

Verdict

The TD1655 monitor is among Viewsonic’s most interesting products right now, and serves a rather unique set of use cases admirably well. The monitor is easy to set up and use, works well for its intended purposes, and is very convenient to carry around, even alongside a laptop. Additionally, the necessary cables and equipment to use it properly are helpfully included in the box.

I did have trouble using the monitor with anything except its own USB Type-C cable and adapter, and sound quality from the built-in speakers was inadequate, to say the least. However, these are relatively small drawbacks that didn’t really hamper my ability to use the ViewSonic TD1655 monitor, particularly for on-the-go productivity and the useful ability to have a dual-screen setup without occupying too much space and creating much clutter.

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House of the Dragon Episode 9 Review: The King Is Dead, Long Live the King

hitesh

October 17, 2022

House of the Dragon Episode 9 Review: The King Is Dead, Long Live the King

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House of the Dragon episode 9 — out now on HBO Max and Disney+ Hotstar — isn’t the traditional penultimate episode that Game of Thrones had gotten us used to. There are no big set-pieces here (with that dragon at the end more a sign of things to come). And this new episode doesn’t wrap up any long-running storylines (which, on Game of Thrones, opened up the finale to set the table for the next season). In fact, it’s an extremely contained episode. Set during the two days immediately following the death of King Viserys Targaryen (Paddy Considine), House of the Dragon episode 9 finds the Queen and her father — Alicent (Olivia Cooke) and Otto (Rhys Ifans) — bickering over how succession will play out. They share a common goal, but their approaches are wildly different.

Having entirely misunderstood what her husband was talking about, Alicent confides in her father that Viserys “wished” for Aegon to be king with his dying breath. Otto has always desired this — it’s why he was removed from his Hand of the King position by Viserys — and naturally, he jumps at this opportunity when the small council is convened in House of the Dragon episode 9. But as the ball begins to roll and the Queen discovers that they have secretly been planning for every step in Aegon’s ascension, she stops in her tracks. It’s one thing to want her son to be on the Iron Throne, but it’s another to sanction the murder of her childhood companion, Princess Rhaenyra (Emma D’Arcy), her husband Prince Daemon (Matt Smith), and all her children.

And she’s not alone. Ser Harrold Westerling (Graham McTavish), the Lord Commander of the Kingsguard, has seen enough too. Told to go to Dragonstone and slay the very princess he was once sworn to protect, Harrold resigns from his post, noting that he has no place in these halls until there’s a new king. What he’s basically saying is that he won’t listen to any one of them. The way he deals with these scumbags is clever, beautiful, and top notch. Five stars, no notes. Meanwhile, Ser Criston Cole (Fabien Frankel) once again shows he has no honour in House of the Dragon episode 9. Not only does he callously murder a council member who tries to protest, but he also raises his sword to his own Lord Commander. Remember how everyone was fawning over him just a few weeks ago? Ew.

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Graham McTavish as Ser Harrold Westerling in House of the Dragon episode 9
Photo Credit: Ollie Upton/HBO

But there are bigger concens than a problematic man-child in House of the Dragon episode 9. The boy everyone wants to be king is nowhere to be found. A quiet search begins for Aegon (Tom Glynn-Carney), who loves to abandon his lady wife-sister and tour the city’s brothels each night. Otto dispatches the Kingsguard twins, Ser Erryk (Elliott Tittensor) and Ser Arryk Cargyll (Luke Tittensor). Alicent sends Criston along with her one-eyed son Aemond (Ewan Mitchell). All this allows for conversations to play out. The twins note how Aegon has fathered numerous bastards, many of whom are used in fighting pits. Meanwhile, Aemond reveals his interest in being king to Criston, noting he rides the biggest dragon and practices more with his sword. As if that has ever mattered, LOL.

Inside the Red Keep, it’s politics as usual in House of the Dragon episode 9. Otto gathers the lords and asks them to pledge fealty to “King Aegon”. It doesn’t look as though they are being given much of a choice, to be honest. It’s bend the knee or lose their necks.

The Queen pays a visit to the Queen Who Never Was, who’s been locked in her own room. Alicent makes a plea to get Rhaenys Targaryen (Eve Best) and her dragon on their side, but she isn’t easily swayed. “You desire not to be free but make a window in the wall of your prison,” Rhaenys says on House of the Dragon episode 9 — a line that’s gorgeous in its succinctness. Alicent has served her husband, her father, and now, her sons. Have you ever imagined yourself on the Iron Throne, Rhaenys asks Alicent. As hard as that might come across, the Queen is more practical than any of them. She’s looking out for the survival of her family, and not just her own ambitions. The very thing that doomed House Velaryon, thanks to Sea Snake’s — Rhaenys’s husband — relentless pursuit of the throne.

Outside, in Flea’s Bottom, a stranger tells the Kingsguard twins she knows someone who can lead them to Aegon, but she will only meet with Otto. Turns out, Mysaria (Sonoya Mizuno) — the woman who was once Daemon’s confidante and paramour, and a character who’s been ignored all season — has a role to play here. Having fallen out of favour with Daemon, she uses Aegon as a bargaining chip to regain some sense of power in House of the Dragon episode 9.

Prey, House of the Dragon, and More on Disney+ Hotstar in October

Eve Best as Rhaenys Targaryen in House of the Dragon episode 9
Photo Credit: Ollie Upton/HBO

But when Aegon is eventually found by the Cargylls in House of the Dragon episode 9, Criston and Aemond show up and snatch him. Aegon just wants to be left alone by everyone. He even tells Aemond he’s willing to sail away from Westeros for good, allowing his brother to be king. Criston isn’t giving any of that a chance; he’s made a promise to the Queen, after all.

With Alicent now firmly in control, she pays a visit to her father. They rehash some of the stuff they’ve said before. Otto notes that killing Rhaenyra, Daemon, and their children is necessary for the stability of the realm. Otherwise, many might die in war. It’s brutal, but he might have a point. He thinks his daughter is being squeamish because Rhaenyra was her friend, but Alicent says that reluctance to murder is not a weakness. The Queen believes she can oversee a bloodless transition if they give Rhaenyra “good terms”, but that’s the second occurrence of naivety on her part in House of the Dragon episode 9. (The first was her shock at how everyone had been planning on Aegon’s succession. Does she not realise how the patriarchy works?)

It’s indicative of the blinders she’s been wearing all episode. Alicent wants her son to be king, all because her husband wished it on his deathbed. For 20 years, Viserys kept saying that Rhaenyra was his chosen heir. Does Alicent really believe that her husband changed his mind less than an hour after dinner where he settled the matter? Why is she putting so much stock in the words of an old ailing man whose body was full of strong medicine? Her intentions are clear from the fact that she wants to crown Aegon as soon as possible, without bringing Rhaenyra into the loop. While the Queen might not desire bloodshed, she’s essentially called for it by pulling off a usurper’s move in House of the Dragon episode 9.

House of the Dragon episode 9 is now streaming on Disney+ Hotstar in India, and HBO Max wherever available. New episodes release every Monday at 6:30am IST/ Sunday at 9pm ET.

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iPhone 14 Pro Review: Islands in the Screen

hitesh

October 15, 2022

iPhone 14 Pro Review: Islands in the Screen

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In a world where even Android phones priced below Rs. 20,000 can do pretty much everything the average person might need, Apple’s Pro tier of iPhones, which all cost well over Rs. 1,00,000, have to push above and beyond. Each new model has to advance the state of the art, or has to at least seem fresh and fashionable. This is the route that Apple has taken for the iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max – they don’t do anything drastically new and they don’t look much different, but there are a few updates that might make you decide to upgrade if you haven’t felt the need to before now.

We’re reviewing the iPhone 14 Pro, but its larger sibling, the iPhone 14 Pro Max, offers identical functionality for those who want a bigger screen or better battery life. In my review of the iPhone 13 Pro Max, I found it a bit too heavy and unwieldy for everyday use, and that hasn’t changed with this generation. After spending a bit of time with both at Apple’s big launch event, it was time to decide, and I think the iPhone 14 Pro offers the right balance for me. Read on for my full review.

iPhone 14 Pro price in India

Unfortunately, Apple has raised prices in India even though both these phones cost the same as their predecessors in the US. Both models are available with 128GB, 256GB, 512GB or 1TB of storage. The iPhone 14 Pro in each of these capacities costs Rs. 1,29,900, Rs. 1,39,900, Rs. 1,59,900 and Rs. 1,79,900. The iPhone 14 Pro Max costs Rs. 10,000 more for each, so the equivalent variants are priced at Rs. 1,39,900, Rs. 1,49,900, Rs. 1,69,900 and Rs. 1,89,900 respectively.

You still don’t get a charger or headset in the box; only a Lightning cable and a SIM eject pin. You’ll need to spend more if you want a 20W or higher USB Type-C adapter since even if you got one with an older iPhone, it won’t be quite as fast.

The Gold and Silver colour options are the same as before, but Graphite has been replaced with a darker Space Black option. The signature colour for this launch is Deep Purple, and this is what I have with me. Apple has released an additional colour option mid-cycle for the past two generations, so we might see something fresh around March next year if that continues to happen.

The Deep Purple colour is unlike anything Apple has released before, and looks different indoors and under sunlight

iPhone 14 Pro design

Of course the big news is the Dynamic Island, which, as Apple says, was developed as a combination of hardware and software capabilities to make the best use of the fairly massive camera hole. It also gives Apple something unique to market – while the Android world has been quick to try replicating it, it’s obvious that no other company had even thought about doing something along these lines before, and they might not achieve the same level of integration. We’ll talk more about this in a minute.

As for overall design, nothing much has changed for the past few years. Apple’s MagSafe accessory ecosystem requires a flat back, and we also still have a flat stainless steel band with rounded corners running around all four sides. The iPhone 14 Pro isn’t the easiest phone to hold, and the larger iPhone 14 Pro Max is even more awkward without a case. The two weigh 206g and 240g respectively. If you look closely, you’ll notice that the borders around the screen are slightly narrower than on previous models.

The Deep Purple unit that I have looks quite sober indoors – you might not even realise it isn’t grey. However, when the panel catches the light, you can see a rich plum colour with an almost metallic tone. The stainless steel band and the metal rings around the three cameras match the colour of the rear panel but are very susceptible to smudges. The raised camera island is made of clear glass, and if you aren’t using a case its edge can feel uncomfortable.

Apple continues to use its trademarked Ceramic Shield material for the display, and toughened glass on the back. All current-gen iPhones are IP68 rated for water and dust resistance. Units sold in the US do not have a physical SIM tray – Apple wants to transition to eSIMs only – but thankfully the ones sold in India still work with one Nano-SIM and one eSIM. There’s still a Lightning port on the bottom – ff you were hoping for a switch to USB Type-C, you might have to wait another year.

The iPhone 14 Pro’s stainless steel frame picks up smudges easily

iPhone 14 Pro Dynamic Island and always-on display

The biggest change to the iPhone 14 Pro siblings is their displays. The good news is that Apple has finally dispensed with the notch, which although instantly recognisable, has become a bit old-fashioned. The bad news is that the Dynamic Island, which takes its place, isn’t a huge improvement. In promotional videos, it looks superbly slick – and it is, visually at least. That’s because of Apple’s tight control over hardware and software, allowing it to do things like optimise animations with anti-aliasing, and make the homescreen seem to “flow” around it. The concept is also incredibly imaginative and feels fresh, in a world where so many phones are physically indistinguishable.

The idea of using the blank space between camera holes, and in fact expanding it rather than trying to make it blend in, took the entire audience at Apple’s launch event by surprise. Supply chain leaks gave us an idea of the hardware, and if you look at the front of the iPhone 14 Pro under strong light, you’ll see the borders of the pill-and-hole cutouts that we expected. It’s software that allows Apple to use space around and below these gaps, arranging information and icons so that it all still looks cohesive. You can even tap over the actual camera hardware – there are no dead zones for touch detection. This could lead to smudges over the lens, though.

What Apple has done, essentially, is lean on the fairly old concept of a second screen. LG Models such as the X screen (Review) and V20 (Review) from 2016 experimented with an extended screen area filling the lateral gap next to the front camera, used for background information and controls. What was missing back then was wider OS-level integration, and it will be interesting to see how Apple encourages developers to work with the Dynamic Island and what they come up with.

Up to two apps can show status information and you can tap either island to jump back into its app

There’s usually space for two small icons or text labels on either side of the front camera and Face ID hardware, and everything is enclosed in a single black oval. Long-pressing this can expand the “island” to show more context or controls. For example, if you’re playing music, you’ll see a small album art icon and an animated waveform, but tapping the island will bring up a full set of controls along with a progress bar, bigger thumbnail and artist/album information. Some indicators are simpler – a padlock when the screen is locked, a bright green icon when you’re tethering, and a bell plus text label when activating or deactivating silent mode, amongst others. You can also have a second app showing its status as a single icon in a secondary “island” to the right.

The ”island” itself is however very large and awkward, even when completely blank. Much like the notch, it requires that content and controls in most apps start below it, so it often feels as though there’s a thick band at the top of the screen doing nothing but occupying space. It took some getting used to the visual distraction of the island when using some apps, and yes, video as well as some games display all around it when stretched to full screen (though without any status icons).

In terms of utility, there were times during my review period when I really liked the dynamic island, but also times when I wished it could be turned off. It’s nice to be able to quickly change music tracks when scrolling through Reddit, for example, but on the other hand the animated waveform was constantly distracting and a skip button there would be more useful.

You can clearly see the hardware within the large “island”, which is what early rumours were based on

It’s easy to imagine the Dynamic Island in secondary screen use cases, like keeping an eye on real-time sports scores or situational updates while you’re doing something. I quite liked seeing a progress indicator ring when copying huge files over AirDrop. Conversely, I really didn’t need a huge, bright green tethering icon in my face all the time. Other system animations, such as when registering for Face ID recognition or connecting AirPods, don’t really need the island but just use it for design. More types of notifications could have been integrated here. In fact, the design could easily be adapted to work around and below the notches on the iPhone 14, iPhone 14 Plus, and even older models, though it might not be as visually slick.

The other big exclusive feature is the always-on display mode. This is something the Android world has enjoyed for years (and even Symbian phones had more than a decade ago) – but of course Apple has done it differently. The company apparently waited for its SoC, display, and software to all be good enough, and you shouldn’t see too much of an impact in terms of battery life.

Instead of going off, your display now dims, but your lockscreen widgets and wallpaper stay put. Apple’s ability to tweak contrast and brightness mean that information and even details in your wallpaper image are still visible. The refresh rate drops, so some widgets and active notifications don’t refresh constantly. Apps might even be able to stay partially active when the phone is locked. The always-on display will turn itself off if the phone is still for a while or placed in a pocket, and of course when low power mode is active.

I found the always-on display to be a bit disconcerting, and given the fact that all modern iPhones unlock themselves automatically when your face is in the frame, even inadvertent taps on the screen can result in unintended interactions. It feels as though the screen is actually on. There’s also the matter of iOS 16 automatically collapsing notifications into a pile, so you don’t have as much information at a glance as you do on some Android-based implementations. Icons for apps that have generated notifications would have been useful. Overall, the always-on display was nice to have when the iPhone 14 Pro was lying on a table or couch as I worked, but it will take some time to get used to.

The always-on display (right) is the lockscreen itself (left), just optimised to consume much less power

iPhone 14 Pro specifications and software

In Apple’s world, specifications are less important than the overall user experience, but we still like to know what’s going on inside our devices. The new A16 Bionic SoC is exclusive to this year’s Pro iPhones, so there’s a bigger performance gap than ever. This comes to the fore with photo and video processing, graphics, and power efficiency. Apple says this SoC uses 16 billion transistors and is manufactured on an industry-leading 4nm process. For years now, Apple’s in-house silicon has been able to outperform competition from Qualcomm and MediaTek, and the company is claiming a 40 percent speed bump over today’s leading competitors.

The A16 Bionic has two performance cores and four efficiency cores, plus a five-core integrated GPU and a 16-core “Neural Engine” for on-device AI and machine learning acceleration. There are also dedicated blocks for image processing (now branded “Photonic Engine”), display handling, and various other subsystems.

The iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Pro both have 6GB of RAM across all variants, which Apple for some reason doesn’t disclose publicly. Battery capacities are also not specified, but third-party teardowns tell us that the two models have 3,200mAh and 4,323mAh units respectively. Battey life is described only in terms of time – up to 28 hours and 29 hours of local video playback with the two models respectively.

Charging speed is also not specified but has been pegged at 27W which is far below current norms in the Android world – maybe a switch from Lightning to USB Type-C, widely expected next year, will finally allow Apple to raise this. Also, speaking of Lightning, you’re still stuck with USB 2.0 speed for wired data transfers, which is a real shame when you might have up to 1TB of photos and videos to transfer. Wireless charging works at up to 15W with certified MagSafe accessories and there’s no reverse wireless charging.

While units sold in India do still have a Nano-SIM tray, that might go away in the future

The 6.1-inch Super Retina XDR display uses an LTPO OLED panel, and has a resolution of 1179×2556 pixels. The refresh rate can go from 1Hz to 120Hz. HDR peak brightness now goes up to 1600nits and the display can briefly hit 2000nits outdoors if needed. You get support for the Dolby Vision, HDR10, and HLG HDR standards as well as Dolby Atmos sound.

Other little hardware improvements include a move to dual-band GPS for better accuracy, much more sensitive accelerometer and gyroscope for crash detection, and the inclusion of satellite connectivity hardware to enable Apple’s new Emergency SOS capability (which isn’t available in India yet).

Apple ships the iPhone 14 series with iOS 16, and a few minor updates received during the course of this review have brought us up to version 16.0.3. The big new software features, many of which are available on older models, include lockscreen widgets and personalisation, AI tweaks such as automatic image cutouts and text recognition in videos, a Fitness app that works even without an Apple Watch, and assorted tweaks across many of the default apps. In India, users can now interact with Siri in mixed languages. More features such as iCloud Shared Photo Library and Live Activities will roll out later this year.

iOS has gained quite a few capabilities of late and is beginning to feel a bit disjointed. For example, adding lockscreen widgets isn’t entirely intuitive. If you want to show the world time widget, for example, it doesn’t choose cities that you’ve already added within the clock app, and it takes a while to figure out that you need to tap it while the widget selection panel is open to bring up a separate list of cities that you can edit. It also won’t automatically show your home city when you’re traveling elsewhere. You can also now have multiple lockscreens with their own wallpapers and sets of widgets, each linked to a different Focus mode state. However, if you just want to change Focus but keep the same widgets, you’ll have to manually set up the same arrangement for each lockscreen.

The iPhone 14 Pro has a bright, crisp HDR-capable 120Hz display

iPhone 14 Pro performance and usability

Unsurprisingly, with its 120Hz display, the iPhone 14 Pro feels buttery smooth. Animations are slick, iOS 16 is responsive, and you won’t have any problem getting things done. There are loads of preinstalled apps – several of which you might not ever use, but nearly all are removable. In day-to-day use, the only disappointment was relatively slow charging. I also noticed the iPhone 14 Pro getting a bit warm when plugged in to charge (using an official Apple 30W USB Type-C adapter) on occasion.

There’s nothing life-changing about the iPhone 14 Pro. It’s largely an iterative update, with the added novelties of the Dynamic Island and always-on display. That said, it’s familiar, comfortable, and easy to use.

Gaming won’t be a problem. I played Call of Duty: Mobile and Asphalt 9: Legends for a while with zero trouble. I also spent some time catching up on less demanding games such as Alto’s Odyssey and Fieldrunners 2 (which unfortunately showed that older titles need to be optimised for the screen resolution, rounded corners, and Dynamic Island). If you’re seriously into gaming, you might prefer the iPhone 14 Pro Max for its bigger screen and battery.

The new 3DMark Wild Life Extreme test, which renders at 4K, managed a total of 3,381 points with a frame rate of 20.2fps, and the standard Wild Life test maxed out with a frame rate of 59.3fps on the iPhone 14 Pro. For reference, an iPhone 13 Pro updated to iOS 16 managed 18.7fps and 54.4fps in the same two tests respectively. I also ran the Wild Life Extreme Stress Test, which loops for 20 minutes. This made the entire back of the phone almost uncomfortably hot, but showed that thermal throttling isn’t a huge problem as the lowest loop score was 2,051; roughly 60 percent of the best run. The iPhone 14 Pro also maxed out all of GFXBench’s test scenes, including the most demanding Aztec Ruins (High Tier) one.

The A16 Bionic SoC is exclusive to the iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max

Geekbench 5’s single-core and multi-core CPU scores were 1,884 and 5,305 respectively, compared to 1,739 and 4,862 respectively for an iPhone 13 Pro. The browser-based Basemark Web 3.0 test managed 1,295.82 points, and Jetstream 2.0 turned in a score of 266.893, as opposed to 1,172.84 and 188.152 for last year’s model.

Video in streaming apps looked bright and crisp. The Dynamic Island is immensely distracting if you want to fill the screen, but most 16:9 videos won’t overlap it. Apple also continues to deliver good stereo speakers that make video immersive and dialogue clear.

Battery life was decent for a flagship-class phone. I managed to get through a full day with quite a bit of camera use, including video recording, plus gaming. I ended my day with about 20 percent left. I didn’t notice much of a difference with the always-on display disabled, but that could be because it goes off after a while and isn’t active when the phone is in a pocket. Our HD video loop test ran for a respectable 19 hours, 41 minutes.

Charging, as mentioned, is nowhere near as quick as what many Android phones offer these days. I got to 29 percent in 15 minutes and was still at 86 percent after an hour. Apple claims you can get a 50 percent charge in 30 minutes, which is about right. It’s still a bit galling that you don’t get a fast charger in the box with such an expensive phone.

The iPhone 14 Pro is relatively easy to handle but many will prefer its larger sibling

iPhone 14 Pro cameras

There’s a big change with this year’s Pro iPhones, but once again, this is something we’ve seen in the Android world for years now. Instead of a 12-megapixel primary camera sensor, you now get a 48-megapixel sensor, but with clusters of four pixels acting as one. This improves the surface area of each pixel, allowing more light to be collected which results in better overall quality at low shutter speeds. In typical Apple fashion, the user doesn’t get a choice – this is just the default way to take photos. It’s only if you switch to ProRAW mode that you can choose to capture 48-megapixel shots, but this is clearly not aimed at casual users.

This also allows Apple to capture 12-megapixel shots using only the centre of the sensor area, which effectively gives you 2X optical magnification. This 2X zoom mode is a midway point between standard shots taken with the primary camera and 3X shots taken with the telephoto camera. For video, being able to capture frames with a considerable buffer on all four sides allows for a whole new level of video stabilisation, theoretically equal to using a gimbal to compensate for hand shake, bumps, and uneven motion. Action Mode joins last year’s Cinematic Mode, but for some reason it’s implemented as a toggle button, not a separate mode that you can select from the carousel – and it isn’t always obvious when it’s active.

The 48-megapixel primary camera and 12-megapixel ultra-wide camera actually have poorer apertures than their equivalents on the iPhone 13 Pro, although the sensor quality, software, and A16 Bionic “Photonic Engine” should deliver improvements overall. There’s enough power now to run enhancement operations on uncompressed sensor data much earlier in the processing pipeline. Low-light shots are said to be another big area of improvement for the iPhone 14 Pro and Pro Max – 2-3X depending on which camera is used – which means specs don’t tell the whole story. Another evolution is autofocus for the front camera for more sharpness even with creative composition.

iPhone 14 Pro daytime camera samples (top-bottom): Ultra-wide, 1X, 2X, 3X (tap to see full size)

In real-world terms, photos taken with the iPhone 14 Pro in daylight came out looking excellent. Colours are natural without being overblown. 48-megapixel shots are huge in terms of file size but if you use Lightroom or any other post-processing tool, you’ll unlock a lot more detail and nuance. Close-ups are very finely detailed, but Apple still switches to macro mode automatically which can mess with attempts to frame a close-up subject. This can be disabled in the iOS Settings app. Macros are a little grainy but very usable.

Tricky exposures in the daytime were handled well, and you won’t be disappointed with any of the cameras. Ultra-wide shots preserved quite a lot of detail even in distant objects, and weren’t bad in terms of exposure, colour, or distortion at the edges. Using the 2X zoom level gives you an effective 48mm focal length so it can come in handy for portraits, and detail is impressive when it comes to things like the texture of animal fur. Depth of field is great with the primary and telephoto cameras. For objects at a distance, 3X will nearly always make more sense than 2X, but it’s nice to have the option.

Low-light shots are captured quickly and scenes are crisp, with excellent detail and vibrant colours. The telephoto camera’s 3X optical shots are a little weaker than the primary camera’s 2X cropped shots in terms of low-light detail and definition, but you do still get very usable shots and quite a lot of flexibility when it comes to framing and composition. The primary camera at 1X is excellent at night, taking detailed shots with remarkably good dynamic range, with very little lag and almost no motion blur.

iPhone 14 Pro low-light camera samples (top-bottom): Ultra-wide, 1X, 2X, 3X (tap to see full size)

Cinematic Mode is unchanged, except for a new option to shoot at 4K HDR at 30fps or 24fps. Action Mode is the main new video feature. It works on all cameras but with varying degrees of effectiveness. This seems far more likely to be useful to most people than Cinematic Mode, but it isn’t exactly new or pathbreaking for smartphones.

Standard video shot with all three cameras was also great, in the daytime and at night – the telephoto camera is of course the shakiest when walking and recording. Colours look natural and motion is smooth at 1080p as well as 4K.

Selfies had great detail and good depth of field. Exposures are weighted heavily towards your face rather than the background. Portrait effects are the same as with previous iPhones, using the 3D depth sensing hardware.

iPhone 14 Pro camera samples (top-bottom): Daytime selfie, low-light selfie, macro (tap to see full size)

Verdict

The iPhone 14 Pro is a solid iterative improvement over its predecessor. In the US, there hasn’t been any price increase, which makes sense. Unfortunately, we aren’t so lucky in India. What was already a luxury is now even harder to justify. If you’re looking for the best iPhone in terms of features, camera quality and overall performance, you’ll buy this phone (or its larger sibling) regardless of price, but for a lot of people, it’s simply too far out of reach. Many Android phones today (and even older iPhones) offer all the functionality that most people want, for much less money, though maybe not with quite the same level of polish.

The Dynamic Island is something you might want to show off, or at least play around with. For me, the novelty wore off soon enough and I found it less useful than I had hoped it would be, but I’ll see how I feel as Apple and app developers come up with new ways to use it. Crash detection and satellite-based emergency messaging aren’t relevant in India yet. A lot of the smaller quality-of-life improvements do add up though; I’m tempted by the low-light photo quality bumps across all cameras, and to a smaller degree, the always-on display.

For anyone with an iPhone X (Review) or older, it might be time to consider an upgrade, and the iPhone 14 series offers quite a lot. However, the iPhone 13 Pro is still available for now, and costs a fair bit less at each storage tier, especially with festive sales on. You wouldn’t really be missing out on much by choosing that instead. It’s also now more than likely that USB Type-C and fast charging will be coming with next year’s model, and you can’t be blamed for wanting to wait for that.

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The Rings of Power Season 1 Review: Puzzle-Box Origin Story for The Lord of the Rings

hitesh

October 14, 2022

The Rings of Power Season 1 Review: Puzzle-Box Origin Story for The Lord of the Rings

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The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power — Amazon’s millennia-prior prequel that draws from the appendices of J.R.R. Tolkien’s three-volume novel — was, in some ways, doomed from the very beginning. Years before cameras began rolling, it gained the notorious tag of being the world’s most expensive TV series. Amazon had made a billion-dollar five-season commitment, forking over $250 million (about Rs. 2,057 crore) for the rights alone. By the time cameras were done rolling on The Rings of Power season 1, it had spent another $465 million (about Rs. 3,826 crore) on the “infrastructure that will sustain the whole series.” Its inexperienced creators, showrunners and head writers, J. D. Payne and Patrick McKay, have mapped out all five seasons. They even know their final shot.

But it seems they overlooked what comes before the destination: the journey. While The Rings of Power season 1 finale was impressive and emotional in parts, the season as a whole got off to a poor start, with episodes that were all over the place and struggled to properly set up its ensemble cast. In the age of anti-heroes and morally-grey characters, it’s tougher than ever to write about black-and-white individuals who dominated Tolkien’s Middle-earth. And The Rings of Power never displayed those layers or credentials. On top of that, none of the storylines were engaging from the start. All it gave us was a tease of the big bad — mimicking the montage-like prologue structure of the first film, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring — before settling in for what feels like a 50-hour slog.

Not a lot happens a lot of the time. I must admit I’ve already blanked out on many episodes, even though I watched The Rings of Power season 1 on a weekly basis, rather than binge-viewing it. Most of the episodes — save for Friday’s finale, and episode 6 — were just listless. By comparison, and I do agree it’s a very different show, the Game of Thrones prequel spin-off House of the Dragon has some memorable episodes; ones that can be defined by what they stand for. There’s little drive or momentum towards a goal in The Rings of Power. In The Lord of the Rings film trilogy, we were witness to the Battle of Helm’s Deep five hours in. Five hours into The Rings of Power, we saw the series tread water.

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Lloyd Owen as Elendil, and Maxim Baldry as Isildur in The Rings of Power season 1
Photo Credit: Matt Grace/Prime Video

The shadow of Peter Jackson’s magnificent award-winning trilogy — considered among the most influential films ever made — certainly hangs over The Rings of Power. Despite Amazon stating that this series would be its own thing as it’s set thousands of years ago, and the Tolkien Estate deal specifying that it couldn’t be directly related to the book or the films, there are several characters here whom we’ve previously known. Except younger.

There’s the Elven warrior Galadriel (Morfydd Clark), who’s more or less the protagonist of The Rings of Power. She goes on to be the Lady of Lothlórien, as played by Cate Blanchett in the Lord of the Rings trilogy. The half-Elven politician Elrond (Robert Aramayo) anchors another storyline. He goes on to be the Lord of Rivendell, portrayed by Hugo Weaving in the films. And then we have Númenórean sailor Isildur (Maxim Baldry), who goes on to be King of Arnor and Gondor, played by Harry Sinclair for a few minutes in The Fellowship of the Ring. Who knows how many more might pop up in future seasons.

But nothing says you’re trying to cash in on the success of the Lord of the Rings films than The Rings of Power’s ultimate villain. They have literally the same antagonist: Sauron. After a brief tease at the start, just as with the movie trilogy, he mysteriously disappears. There’s no symbolic fiery omniscient Eye here — he’s just gone. That hollowness is intentional, for The Rings of Power season 1 hangs itself around the suspense of Sauron’s true identity. Take a trip around the Internet, and you will notice that a majority of the discussion about the first season during its six-week run revolved around “Who is Sauron?”

Would it be Adar (Joseph Mawle)? The tortured and twisted Elf — labelled Moriondor (sons of the dark) by Galadriel, but who prefers to call himself Urûk — is certainly the only visible leader of the Orcs in The Rings of Power season 1. It’s thanks to his human trafficking and slave labour efforts that Mount Doom is awakened, and the Southlands are transformed into Mordor. But in The Rings of Power episode 6, he admits to Galadriel that he “killed” Sauron, which more or less ruled him out.

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The Stranger (Daniel Weyman) is not who they think he is
Photo Credit: Ben Rothstein/Prime Video

Would it be The Stranger (Daniel Weyman)? After all, there’s no seeming importance to the Harfoots storyline beyond the mystery of “Who is this man that fell from the sky in a meteor?” And it’s not just the audience who thought he could be Sauron. The mysterious white-robed trio — identified off-screen as The Ascetic (Kali Kopae), The Nomad (Edith Poor), and their staff-wielding leader The Dweller (Bridie Sisson) — think The Stranger to be Sauron as well. As it turns out, this was misdirection on the part of The Rings of Power. He’s not Sauron, he’s Istar. The wise one or wizard, as The Stranger later says. If that clue isn’t enough for you, he’s young Gandalf, played by Ian McKellen in the films.

Or would it be Halbrand (Charlie Vickers)? Galadriel runs into the Southland deserter early into The Rings of Power season 1, before it’s hinted that he might be the lost King of the Southlands. Wait, aren’t those the very lands that serve as the future home of Sauron and his Orcs? It was also curious that Halbrand has been created specifically for this series. He had no place in The Lord of the Rings books. In the season 1 finale, after Galadriel hears the great Elven smith Celebrimbor (Charles Edwards) use words previously used by Adar, she discovers that the Southlands’ line of descent ended a thousand years ago. Halbrand isn’t who he claims to be — he’s Sauron.

The best TV shows of all time, from The Wire with its socio-political examination of Baltimore, to the aforementioned fantasy epic Game of Thrones, and from the anti-hero tragedy Breaking Bad to mobster-in-therapy masterpiece The Sopranos, have shown that it’s the interplay between deeply layered characters that is the heart of a long-running series. Instead, The Rings of Power season 1 opted for a more puzzle-box approach — reminiscent of Lost (mysterious island), Westworld (human or android?), and Severance (what is this office?). The creators of The Rings of Power encouraged theories around who Sauron might be, and Amazon even promoted the finale as the big “reveal of Sauron.”

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Charlie Vickers as Halbrand, who turns out to be Sauron, in The Rings of Power season 1
Photo Credit: Matt Grace/Prime Video

That’s not to say this kind of thing cannot work — Lost and Westworld had their highs, and Severance has been brilliant in its only season so far — but it feels like such an unnecessary and backwards approach to get people to talk about a mega-budget fantasy series with several characters and parallel storylines. As I said before, what we should’ve gotten were journeys. Game of Thrones understood this, with some of its best storylines happening during travels. But on The Rings of Power season 1, nothing worthwhile happens in the middle. The Harfoots migrate; Galadriel, Halbrand, and Isildur go from Númenor to Southlands; and Elrond and the Dwarven prince Durin IV (Owain Arthur) make multiple trips between Lindon and Khazad-dûm. It’s all point A to point B — origin to destination.

The season-long backstory for Sauron colours in the lines, but no one asked for this. Sauron is inherently interesting for he is pure evil. It doesn’t really matter who he used to be. But The Rings of Power was set on “building a relationship between Sauron and Galadriel”, as Payne put it. And given the season 1 finale shot of “Halbrand” looking over Mordor and Mount Doom, The Rings of Power seems set to give us even more backstory in season 2, with executive producer Lindsey Weber more or less noting that Sauron will be “openly on the move and working his plans.”

Maybe we ought to have expected this. After all, The Lord of the Rings prequel spin-off is called The Rings of Power. The Elves may be the first to create their three rings — as happened at the very end of the season 1 finale — but it’s Halbrand/ Sauron who gives Celebrimbor the idea to subdue mithril by alloying it. And in their hubris to retain their near-immortality, the Elves played a part in the start of something ominous. As we know from the prologue in The Fellowship of the Ring, and as hinted in the song that plays over The Rings of Power the season 1 finale credits, more rings will be made for Dwarves and Men. And ultimately, Sauron will secretly forge the One Ring to rule them all.

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Charles Edwards as Celebrimbor, Robert Aramayo as Elrond in The Rings of Power season 1
Photo Credit: Ben Rothstein/Prime Video

Heck, this isn’t even the first time that Sauron’s backstory has been explored, or that other characters have been brought back. Jackson did it himself with the utter bore that was The Hobbit film trilogy, a prequel extension that no one had asked for. Thanks to its association with The Lord of the Rings, the Hobbit movies made nearly as much at the box office — nearly $3 billion (about Rs. 24,713 crore). But they aren’t remembered anywhere as fondly.

The Rings of Power has to be wary of falling into the same trap. Spending a billion dollars, having “The Lord of the Rings” in the title, and 25 million people tuning in for the premiere don’t make the show better. Amazon might be happy that it can add and retain several million Prime members over the course of The Rings of Power’s multiyear run. But if this show doesn’t course correct, The Rings of Power will be relegated to the appendices it came from.

All eight episodes of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power season 1 are streaming on Prime Video worldwide. In India, The Rings of Power is available in English, Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, and Malayalam.

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Samsung, Google Team Up to Offer Support for Each Other’s Smart Home Ecosystems With Matter Bridge

hitesh

October 14, 2022

Samsung, Google Team Up to Offer Support for Each Other’s Smart Home Ecosystems With Matter Bridge

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Samsung and Google have announced that they will offer support for each other’s smart home ecosystems, the South Korean company announced on Thursday. Over the years, even though smart devices have gained traction, there exist compatibility issues between brands that ultimately cause headaches for users. The Matter protocol is aimed at making it easier to control a smart home that has a mix of devices from different makers, and a major step forward towards that goal has now been announced.

In order to resolve compatibility problems, Samsung and Google have agreed to build a bridge between SmartThings and Google Home devices, according to an announcement by Samsung on Thursday. The bridge is built on Matter’s multi-admin feature, which allows different apps to connect to one or more devices and control them.

This means that a device set up in Google Home will also appear in the SmartThings app and vice versa, so users no longer have to remember which app controls the lights and which controls the smart speakers, as per a report by GSMArena.

This will also free users up to buy the smart device they want rather than looking for one that uses the same app/ecosystem as the rest of their smart home.

As long as a device supports the Matter protocol, users will be able to control and automate it with either Samsung’s SmartThings or Google’s Home, whichever app they prefer. Google and Samsung are not the only supporters of Matter as the list includes Amazon, Ikea, LG, Midea, Tuya and several others, as per the report.

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