The UK’s competition watchdog has opened a formal investigation into Ticketmaster after tickets for Oasis' reunion shows went on sale last weekend. The Competition and Markets Authority said it will look into the company’s dynamic pricing practice and whether it broke consumer law.
Dynamic pricing involves a business adjusting prices based on shifting market conditions, such as demand. Airlines are among those that use the model.
Some Oasis fans who tried desperately to get tickets for the band’s first shows in 16 years waited for hours in Ticketmaster’s virtual queues. When they were finally able to buy tickets, some found that they were two or three times more expensive than they may have expected due to dynamic pricing. With Ticketmaster often giving customers mere moments to complete a purchase after tickets are in their cart, fans were faced with having to make a snap decision about paying significantly more than they’d anticipated.
The CMA will look into the pressure of that ticking clock on consumers' purchasing decisions. It will also attempt to determine if Ticketmaster conducted “unfair commercial practices” that are banned under the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations Act 2008. Moreover, the watchdog will investigate whether customers were provided with “clear and timely information to explain that the tickets could be subject to so-called ‘dynamic pricing’ with prices changing depending on demand, and how this would operate, including the price they would pay for any tickets purchased.”
The CMA notes that while dynamic pricing isn’t inherently illegal under UK law, ticket sales platforms have to be transparent with customers, and provide clear and accurate details about how much they need to pay. The watchdog said that the practice could breach consumer protection or competition law in certain cases.
Oasis criticized the use of dynamic pricing for the band's long-awaited reunion gigs. "It needs to be made clear that Oasis leave decisions on ticketing and pricing entirely to their promoters and management," the band said in a statement. It claimed to have no "awareness that dynamic pricing was going to be used." Other high-profile artists — including Taylor Swift, Ed Sheeran and The Cure — have opted out of using dynamic pricing for recent shows.
Following the scramble for Oasis tickets, the UK government has pledged to look at dynamic pricing as part of a consultation into the secondary-ticket market this fall. In the US, the Justice Department and many state and district attorneys general filed an antitrust suit in a bid to break up Ticketmaster owner Live Nation. They claim it holds a monopoly over the live entertainment industry. Ticketmaster was also the victim of a cyber attack this year in which hackers obtained the personal information of 560 million customers.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/uk-competition-watchdog-opens-ticketmaster-probe-after-oasis-ticket-debacle-143233958.html?src=rss
NinjaLab, a security research company, has discovered a vulnerability that would allow bad actors to clone YubiKeys. As the company has explained in a security advisory, NinjaLab found a vulnerability in the cryptographic library used in the YubiKey 5 Series. In particular, it found a cryptographic flaw in the microcontroller, which the security researchers described as something that "generates/stores secrets and then execute cryptographic operations" for security devices like bank cards and FIDO hardware tokens. YubiKeys are the most well-known FIDO authentication keys, and they're supposed to make accounts more secure, since users would have to plug it into their computers before they could log in.
The researchers explained how they discovered the vulnerability because they found an open platform based on Infineon's cryptographic library, which Yubico uses. They confirmed that all YubiKey 5 models can be cloned, and they also said that the vulnerability isn't limited to the brand though they've yet to try and clone other devices.
That vulnerability has apparently gone unnoticed for 14 years, but just because it has now come to light doesn't mean anybody can exploit it to clone YubiKeys. To start with, bad actors will need to have physical access to the token they want to copy. Then, they have to take it apart and use expensive equipment, including an oscilloscope, to "perform electromagnetic side-channel measurements" needed to analyze the token. In the researchers' paper, they said their setup cost them around $11,000 and that using more advanced oscilloscopes could raise the setup's cost to $33,000. In addition, attackers might still need their target's PINs, passwords or biometrics to be able to access specific accounts.
Bottom line is that users part of government agencies or anybody handling very, very sensitive documents that could make them espionage targets would have to be very careful with their keys. For ordinary users, as researchers wrote in their paper, "it is still safer to use YubiKey or other impacted products as FIDO hardware authentication token to sign in to applications rather than not using one."
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/cybersecurity/yubikey-vulnerability-will-let-attackers-clone-the-authentication-device-143049198.html?src=rss
Well, it's official: everyone has a podcast. Today, the NSA launched No Such Podcast, a nod to the entity's nickname, No Such Agency, back when its mere existence was classified. The NSA bills the podcast as bringing "people to the table from across the agency to discuss our role as a combat support agency, our foreign signals intelligence and cybersecurity missions, and so much more. NSA is known as home to the world's greatest codemakers and codebreakers — their stories are now being decoded."
However, the podcast is far from Edward Snowden-level sharing. The NSA's chief of strategic communications, Sara Siegle, is quick to add that some of the agency's work is too sensitive to discuss. This podcast will be a platform to tell "more" stories while sharing expertise and highlighting government officials.
No Such Podcast is available on YouTube and wherever you regularly get your podcasts. The NSA published two episodes on launch day, with the first focusing on cybersecurity and the other detailing the agency's role in finding Osama Bin Laden. The NSA will release six more episodes weekly through mid-October.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/even-the-nsa-now-has-a-podcast-140028493.html?src=rss
DJI has just unveiled the Neo, its much-leaked $200 drone aimed at content creators and casual users. It’s tiny and easy to use thanks to novice-friendly features like propeller guards, palm takeoff and voice control.
However, the Neo is no toy (or Snap Pixy). It has a suite of powerful features like ActiveTrack, Quick Shots, FPV controller support, smartphone control and the ability to record yourself with the DJI Mic 2.
Video specs look promising as well, but not everything is perfect — it lacks obstacle detection and uses small propellers that are likely to be noisy. I wasn’t able to give it a full look as some features were missing, but I was still astonished by what DJI got a small, cheap drone to do.
The Neo is DJI’s lightest drone by a long way at 135 grams and is nearly small enough to fit into a pocket. That tiny size also means it's exempt from FAA registration and doesn't require a drone pilot permit.
It also has a feature we’ve not seen on the company’s drones before: a second button near the camera gimbal that lets you choose from different “Smart Shot” modes (Quick Shots on other DJI drones), like Follow and Dronie.
It comes with removable propeller guards that provide protection for use indoors and around people. Be careful when you fly, though, as there’s no obstacle avoidance apart from the main camera’s AI and a downward facing IR landing sensor.
The camera gimbal can tilt up 60 degrees and down 90, though it doesn’t flip for vertical video. The half-inch 12-megapixel sensor has an ultra-wide angle 13mm equivalent focal length with an f/2.8 aperture — good specs for a drone in this price range.
The Neo’s 1,435mAh lithium-ion battery is incredibly light but supports up to 17 minutes of fly time, or around 13 to 14 minutes in the real world. The small size means they charge quickly, but most users will want the two extra cells and a charger included in the Neo Combo kit.
To charge the batteries and transfer footage, there’s a USB-C port on the back. You won’t find a microSD card slot, though, as the Neo relies on 22GB of internal storage that holds about 40 minutes of 4K 30p footage.
Steve Dent for Engadget
Though small, the Neo offers features you’d expect on a high-end drone. To make it less intimidating for beginners, the Neo can be launched simply by placing it in hand and pressing the mode button. Then, it’ll automatically record video while performing one of six preprogrammed smart shots: Follow, Dronie, Circle, Rocket, Spotlight and Direction Track. To land the drone, just place your hand under it.
Settings can be tweaked with the new DJI Fly app, which now works without a controller and connects to the drone over Wi-Fi. For the smart modes, you can change things like follow distance and height, dronie radius and flight path, circle radius and more. You can also adjust video and photo resolution.
The Neo is DJI’s first model that lets you use voice control to launch the drone and perform Smart Shots and other actions. That feature wasn’t available in the beta software I tested, but DJI said it will be there when the drone goes on sale today.
Steve Dent for Engadget
If you want to pilot the drone yourself without buying a controller, that’s doable now too. Manual mode brings up touch screen controls for all drone movements, along with camera/video modes and a return-to-home (RTH) toggle.
Touchscreen piloting worked surprisingly well, letting me fly the Neo with precision. Outdoors with a GPS lock the drone is quite stable, but it can drift around and get a bit hard to manage indoors.
For more precision, the Neo also supports multiple DJI controllers, including the RC N3 model sold separately. However, you can also use it as an FPV drone by connecting it to DJI’s RC Motion 3 and DJI Goggles 3.
Controller mode offers the same features you’ll find on drones like the Mini 4 Pro, with cinema, normal and sport modes, manual and auto video, quick shot features and more. Using it with the FPV goggles and controller gives you the same experience as the Avata 2, including one-press acrobatics — albeit with a large drop in performance, of course.
Steve Dent for Engadget
And the Neo performs surprisingly well. Maximum horizontal speed in sport mode is 18 mph, or 36 mph in manual mode — pretty damn fast for such a tiny drone. However, manual mode is only available if you’re using the FPV Controller 3 and wasn’t enabled for my testing.
The Neo neo can resist winds up to 18 mph, compared to 24 mph for the Mini 4 Pro. Realistically, though, it’s only good for light winds under 10 mph.
It’s maneuverable and precise as well, particularly with the optional controller. That makes it ideal for events, as it’s very safe around people and small enough to fit in tight spaces. It is very noisy though, with a sound not unlike a hive of angry bees. “This propeller noise is a crime,” as my colleague Aaron Souppouris put it.
Steve Dent for Engadget
The Neo happens to be an awesome FPV drone as well, particularly since there’s less fear of crashing given its $200 price. It’s not nearly as fast as the Avata 2, of course, but it’s wildly fun when using the RC Motion 3 remote.
ActiveTrack, Spotlight and Point of Interest (POI) all work the same as on other DJI drones to track subjects tenaciously. Another mode, Direction Track, lets you vlog while walking and talking with the drone keeping your face in view. There’s no rear obstacle sensor, though, so you need to be careful when using it.
When the Neo is under smartphone Wi-Fi control, don’t let it get too far away as the maximum range is just 165 feet. With a controller and DJI’s O4 transmission, though, it has a 6.2 mile line-of-sight range in the US or about 3.7 miles in Europe. That’s impressive given the size, though you’d be braver than me if you let it get that far away.
Samuel Dejours for Engadget
The Neo supports up to 4K 30p video and 1080p at up to 60 fps, with no D-LogM like the Mini 4 Pro. You can also grab 12-megapixel photos for Instagram, Facebook, etc. Video isn’t up with even the DJI Mini 4 Pro, but it’s well above what you’d expect for something in this price range in terms of sharpness and color accuracy. With the small sensor, low-light capability isn’t great.
Stabilization is excellent thanks to DJI’s RockSteady and HorizonBalancing systems. Those offer action cam-like stability, while correcting tilt up to 45 degrees. Again, I was pretty amazed by the smoothness of footage even in a stiff breeze.
Finally, you can record audio via your smartphone’s microphone just by tapping on the DJI Fly app’s audio record button. And you can boost the quality considerably using the DJI Mic 2 by connecting it to your phone over Bluetooth. Though the drone is extremely noisy, DJI’s app manages to remove almost all of it, leaving your voice shockingly clear and legible with some distortion.
Steve Dent for Engadget
DJI’s Neo is an incredibly capable lightweight drone that will be attractive to a large number of potential users. For example, my drone pilot and photographer friend (a likely buyer) thought it would be ideal as a behind the scenes drone, because it can shoot good-quality video around people with no risk of injury.
It’s also a great drone for vloggers, content creators and recreational users on a budget. It executes cool shots automatically and the image quality is at the level of a smartphone, which is easily good enough for social media. The main problem is the noise, though all drones have that issue to some extent.
The most exciting part of the Neo is the price. For $200, or $289 in the combo kit with three batteries and a charger (in Europe you can get it with the RC-N3 controller for €349), it’s an incredible value considering the capabilities. It doesn’t really have any serious competition either, with the closest being the $350 HoverAir X1, which costs more and shoots lower resolution video. With all that, the Neo is DJI’s most exciting drone in years and is likely to be another hit. It's now on pre-order with shipping set to start soon.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/cameras/dji-neo-hands-on-a-powerful-and-lightweight-200-drone-130039169.html?src=rss
As great as they can be, folding phones can be a blight upon our pockets when wearing something tight. After all, these devices feel like you’ve got two phones in your pocket instead of the one you actually own. It’s not just the hardware, either, but the necessary hinges and joints that keep the components from breaking. So it was to my surprise that Honor’s new Magic V3 felt almost svelte in my jeans compared to its predecessor.
The company has spent the last year removing 0.7mm from the Magic V2, making the new model just 9.2mm thick. That doesn’t sound like a lot, but it’s enough to make the whole thing feel noticeably thinner. It’s emblematic of the work Honor has put in to refine its flagship foldable in the hope of making it easier to live with day to day. So while the list of eye-catching new features is non-existent, a lot of small tweaks add up to a lot.
Photo by Daniel Cooper / Engadget
For instance, the display isn’t much changed beyond boosting the brightness of its backlight which helps readability in strong sunlight. You’ll also notice the company making a big deal about its AI defocus technology to help reduce eyestrain. The battery, too, gets a meager bump from 5,000mAh in the V2 to 5,150mAh here, but you can now charge it wirelessly. Similarly, work has been made to keep the V3 running cooler for longer under heavy load.
On the imaging front, there’s a 50-megapixel, f/1.6 wide camera paired with a 50-megapixel f/3.0 periscope telephoto lens with optical image stabilization (OIS) and LIDAR and a 40-megapixel, f/2.2 ultra-wide camera that also comes with OIS. There are also two 20-megapixel cameras for selfies embedded in both the cover display and the internal display, should you need them.
Photo by Daniel Cooper / Engadget
Honor is also throwing a kitchen sink’s worth of AI features at this thing which I’ve not yet been able to test. That includes the Google-powered AI Eraser to paint out unwanted nasties in your photos and face-to-face translation services. Honor’s Magic Portal, too, will offer hooks into Google search and try to throw up recommendations as and when you need them.
Of course, we don’t yet know how much this thing will cost you or when it’ll be available, but we hope that it’s priced smartly enough that it keeps its rivals on their toes.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/mobile/smartphones/honor-solves-a-major-folding-phone-problem-with-the-magic-v3-130026967.html?src=rss
If you’re the sort who’d fling yourself on a fainting couch at the thought of an unsightly laptop bezel, there are kindred spirits working in Honor’s design department. The Chinese company has rocked up at IFA 2024 to show off the BookArt 14, with a uniform 2mm display bezel on the top three sides. Where then, you may ask, is the webcam? It’s hidden in a recess on the laptop deck, and when required will magnetically attach to the top of the lid with pogo pins.
The BookArt 14 is the latest in Honor’s attempts to produce a machine that it hopes will best a MacBook Air in a smaller body. That, as usual, means a smaller footprint and a far broader range of connectivity options including two USB-C, HDMI-out, 3.5mm jack and a USB-A port. Similarly, the 14.6-inch, 3.1K OLED display has a peak brightness of 700 nits and will come specced with Intel’s Core Ultra 7 when it drops at some point in the near future.
Photo by Daniel Cooper / Engadget
But more on that webcam, which looks like a single piece of flat chewing gum that sits in a push-in cavity on the right of the deck when not in use. When required, you can pop it out and it’ll nestle onto the magnetic pogo pins on the very top of the lid, only connecting when in place. (There’s no wireless connection, so you don’t have to worry about the webcam being used for anything dodgy when it’s not sitting on the pins.) You can connect it facing you or, if you so require, you can flip the view for conference calls in bigger rooms.
Of course, this isn't the first Honor laptop with a wacky webcam: Aping Huawei's MateBook X Pro, several of its machines, including the MagicBook Pro 16, had the camera mounted in a recess in the middle of the function row. That was great from a privacy perspective, but less than ideal when your video chats were looking up your nose.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/computing/laptops/honors-new-laptop-has-a-detachable-webcam-130006729.html?src=rss
Honor rocked up at IFA 2024 with a plethora of products to show off, including its latest crack at building an iPad Pro killer. The MagicPad 2 is a 12.3-inch slate with a 3K, 144Hz OLED display that, the company says, will work harder than most to reduce eye strain. It’s a far cry from the LCD version its predecessor, the Magic Pad 13, shipped out with at the same time last year.
Understandably, Honor emptied a truck full of specs into this thing in the hope of making it a compelling purchase. There’s a Snapdragon 8s Gen 3 paired with an Adreno 735 GPU and 12GB RAM, plus your storage option of choice. There’s a 13-megapixel, f/2.0 rear-facing camera and a 9-megapixel f/2.2 selfie unit which is on the “top” of the device in landscape mode. But Honor is more proud that, when laying on a table, it stands 5.8mm tall, a millimeter less than the iPad Pros it’s measuring itself up against.
Certainly, the hardware oozes austere charm, with a nicely-machined edge and rounded corners that you’d expect from a pro device. I’m not sure we can separate this from the products it apes but you have to give some small credit for making it look good. Especially given the usual risk of hewing too close to your inspiration and looking all the more inferior for it.
Photo by Daniel Cooper / Engadget
Whereas the keyboard on the MagicPad 13 connected to the tablet with pogo pins, this time out the Smart Bluetooth Keyboard is all wireless. I’m a fan of the keyboard folio, which uses chiclet switches with 1.6mm of key travel and is perfect for working on. Sadly, it does have that slightly agricultural feel that comes from a lot of third-party tablet case manufacturers, but that’s a small crime. Certainly, when flipped down in tablet-only mode, I was surprised at how few times I was able to trigger a mis-key, even when holding the slate in my arms.
It, like the Magic Pencil 3, attaches to its parent with magnets and draws power via close contact with the slate. If there’s one downside, it’s that the documentation is, as usual, woeful, and the magnets that run along the tablet's “top” bezel are strong enough that you can mount the Pencil in the wrong place. Which leads to the risk that you won’t sit it over the charging coil, leaving you in the lurch when you need to jot something down. As for the stylus, it’s very Apple Pencil v1, but the slate is responsive to inputs and palm rejection works perfectly.
Photo by Daniel Cooper / Engadget
Of course, much of what Honor is selling with this device isn't the hardware so much as the AI insights it promises to conjure up. Like being able to recognize handwritten mathematical formulas and writing, turning them into text with the promise of fewer "Eat Up Martha's." I was impressed by the speed at which I could scrawl "Hello, I am looking for a new housekeeper" in Honor Docs and it instantly translated it —- albeit to "Hello, I am looking for a new horsesleeper."
My brief sojourn with the Magic Pad 2 won’t offer generous insights into its longevity but that 10,050mAh battery seems fairly sturdy. I spent an hour or more browsing the w… — okay, obsessively scrolling through Reddit – and watching a 25-minute YouTube video. But even that activity only managed to knock the battery life figure down by three percent and I’d be surprised if it didn’t offer more than a whole day’s worth of life, depending on how aggressive you use it.
Of course, like many products in this pantheon, the big question is how compelling its price will be. If Honor is expecting to charge the same sort of price as an iPad Pro, then you can imagine only the most diehard of Android fans will opt for this. But if Honor can keep the price at a level that’ll ensure only positive comparisons, then it may be on to a winner.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/mobile/tablets/honors-high-end-magicpad-2-offers-elegance-and-style-130004154.html?src=rss
YouTube has introduced additional safeguards for teens on its website, which includes limiting the content they see that could lead them to form negative beliefs about themselves. As the Google-owned video sharing platform explains, teenagers are more likely to be critical of themselves if they see repeated messages about ideal social standards. In response, YouTube is now limiting repeated recommendations of videos featuring specific fitness levels or body weights, as well as those that display "social aggression in the form of non-contact fights and intimidation" for European users. As The Guardian notes, this rule is already being enforced in the US.
The website said it decided on those video categories after reviewing which ones "may be innocuous as a single video, but could be problematic for some teens if viewed repetitively." In addition, it has deployed crisis center panels across Europe that will give teens a quick way to connect with live support from recognized crisis service partners. A panel could show up on younger users' interface if they watch videos related to suicide, self-harm and eating disorders, among other sensitive topics. It could also pop up in their search results if they look for topics linked to specific health crises or emotional distress.
Aside from limiting potentially harmful recommendations, YouTube is adding a new parental control feature that would let parents link their accounts to their teens' for users in the US and other regions. Parents or guardians will see their child's channel activity, such as the number of comments, uploads and subscriptions, in the Family Center hub. YouTube will also send them an email if their teen uploads a video or a Short, and if they start a livestream, even if they're set to private.
The website told TechCrunch, though, that the alerts the parents receive will not include information on the content of comments and uploads. Parents will also not be able to change their kids' age on their accounts. This feature is a further expansion of the parental controls YouTube introduced in 2021. Back then, the website opened a public beta for supervised accounts that allowed guardians to control the kinds of videos their kids can see.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/youtube/youtube-will-limit-fitness-and-weight-video-recommendations-to-european-teens-123003587.html?src=rss
Are you tired of feeling safe and happy all the time? Is your daily life overrun by feelings of security, contentment and peace? Do you want an escape from all of the oppressive niceness around you? Well, look no further — these are the games for you.
Here, we’ve collected more than a dozen of the most evocative and disturbing horror games in recent memory. These selections cover a wide range of genres and styles, but each one comes with at least a tinge of unsettling terror. So take a peek, find your game, and prepare your skeleton for some fresh air because you’re about to jump out of your skin.
Astro Bot is not just for kids. Team Asobi clearly designed it for players of all skill levels, and that includes children and newbies, but at its core Astro Bot feels purpose-built for video game fans. It’s a skill-driven celebration of everything that makes the format so memorable and joyful, and at the same time, it’s an excellent introduction to the language of games. With precise and responsive controls, adorable characters, and an exciting variety of mechanics and environments, Astro Bot is easily one of the best games that Sony has ever produced.
Astro Bot is technically the fifth entry in the Astro universe, though it’s the series’ first fully fledged — and fully priced — installment. It follows The Playroom (a 2013 mini-game collection for PS4), The Playroom VR (a 2016 PlayStation VR jam), Astro Bot Rescue Mission (a 2018 PS VR platformer starring just the bots), and Astro’s Playroom (a 2020 DualSense demo that’s pre-loaded on every PS5). Astro Bot takes ideas from these earlier titles and compiles them into a focused 3D platformer with dozens of main worlds, a bevy of additional unlockable planets and a wide range of satisfying mechanics. On top of this, the robot protagonists are super cute in every situation. The fact that some of the characters and settings in Astro Bot are recognizable from popular video games only makes the whole thing sweeter.
Sony Interactive Entertainment
Players are on a mission to rescue all 300 of their robot friends after an alien intercepted their spaceship, a super-charged PS5, and scattered the crew across six dangerous galaxies. Perched atop a lone DualSense, Astro scours 50 total planets and collects other bots by punching or kicking them — you know, in a friendly way — and then storing them inside the touchpad of the on-screen controller before dumping everyone on a secure world. At the same time, Astro is searching for the missing parts of the PS5 spaceship, which are being guarded by bosses in each galaxy.
The hub world, where the ship and rescued bots live, has customization portals for the DualSense and Astro, a gatcha machine with items that bring your bots to life, and a safari zone where you can take pictures with animals you find. There are also small regions to fix up with extra puzzles for Astro and his friends. Outside of the hub planet, the game’s baseline loop involves collecting coins, puzzle pieces and bots by completing platforming challenges and surviving Koopa-like enemies, but new dangers and even-trickier environments appear at every turn.
Sony Interactive Entertainment
Many of the planets that Astro lands on introduce new mechanics, such as spring-loaded boxing gloves that look like frog faces, an octopus that blows Astro up like a balloon, a mouse backpack that shrinks him at will, a penguin-propelled swimming booster, and a stopwatch that freezes time for a short while. Stages are designed around these unique mechanics and the diversity on display is impressive, from a spooky castle filled with toxic-green ghosts and invisible platforms, to a deconstructed space station in a delectable cosmic setting, and an entire planet built out of giant, neon-lit casino props.
Even before picking up any cool new toys, Astro has a laser-propelled hover ability that lets him destroy enemies while jumping over them, plus a standard punch and a chargeable spin move. These three abilities, plus whatever tool he picks up, are the entirety of Astro’s arsenal. This mechanical focus allowed Team Asobi to perfect each move and then apply them all in a thousand different ways, and the result is a rewarding and robust platformer. All the cuteness is just an added bonus.
Sony Interactive Entertainment
Astro Bot is not punishing, but it’s not easy either. Plenty of stages require patience, awareness and a high degree of platforming skill, though resets are generous and failure doesn't cost anything other than your time. Completionists will have a great time with this one — there are so many secret passages and hidden bots to find, most of them cleverly tucked away and easily missed unless you’re actively looking for them. On the flipside, speedrunners should enjoy Astro Bot as well, since it offers planets of platforming challenges with incredibly responsive controls.
There are 300 bots to find, and many are pulled from the wider world of gaming. Plenty of the branded bots originate outside of Sony’s stable, with big hitters from Capcom, Konami and Sega represented well — a few of them definitely made my partner yell in excitement, which was adorable in its own right. Some of the more memorable levels stem from popular Sony franchises like God of War, with Astro wielding Kratos’ ax on one planet. Team Asobi really mined Sony’s vaults, far beyond simple Crash Bandicootcallbacks, and into weird and wonderful games like LocoRoco and Vib-Ribbon.
Sony Interactive Entertainment
And now, allow me to really gush. Astro Bot is beautiful, and not just in a cartoony kind of way. Its landscapes are sharp and alive with interactive details, and it seems like every pixel has been polished to perfection. But it’s the game’s physics that energize everything — when Astro lands on top of a giant inflatable daisy, the material buckles under his little feet, indenting with each step and sway, and making the entire scene look utterly squeezable.
When skating in the snowy levels, Astro picks up speed and pivots on a dime, and the DualSense responds with the sounds and vibrations of a sharp knife slicing through thick ice. (Side note: I could happily play an entire game of just ice skating… as long as it’s not called Astro Glide.) Piles of tactile objects like sprinkles, dice, skulls and glass stars are scattered around the levels, and running through them is not only gratifying in an ASMR sense, but it sometimes uncovers a new secret. When rain hits Astro’s transparent umbrella hat, the sound is mirrored perfectly on the DualSense, along with the feeling of raindrops on the grips. Each stage has background music to match, funky or big band or synth-y, and always with a catchy hook. Astro Bot’s sound effects, haptics, graphics and physics harmonize flawlessly, transforming every surface into a playground. It’s magical.
Sony Interactive Entertainment
On the cute side of things, Astro reacts to his environments with endearing animations like shivering in the cold, quivering in fear and tapping his tiny metal feet in excitement, and his bot friends are similarly expressive. When Astro boops his head on an impassable ceiling, he makes the sweetest little flinching motion. The bots turn around and shake their booties at Astro right before he punches them into the DualSense. On the pause screen, you can flick all of your collected bots out of the digital controller and they flail in mid-air before landing safely back inside the touchpad. Pretty much everything the bots do is charming.
Astro Bot highlights the importance of play. It’s Super Mario Bros. for a new generation of video game fanatics, at once an introduction to common mechanics and also a significant challenge for seasoned players. In both cases, Astro Bot radiates joy. If this, alongside new titles like Lego Horizon Adventures, signals a new and less stuffy direction for Sony, then I’m excited to see what the future holds. For now though, you’ll find me trying to 100-percent Astro Bot, cursing and laughing the whole way through.
Psst: Astro Bot has now joined the hallowed ranks of our favorite PS5 games guide. You can view all of our picks — 21 at the time of writing — at The best PS5 games for 2024.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/playstation/astro-bot-ps5-review-one-of-the-best-games-sony-has-ever-made-120014494.html?src=rss