‘Metro: Exodus’ treads a fine line between strategy and busy work

This year's E3 has already given us a glimpse of a wide spectrum of games, from upcoming installments in classic multiplayer franchises to new and interesting, story-driven titles. Metro: Exodus, the third game in the post-apocalyptic Metro saga, fal...

Cards that can unlock your freedom

readyman_1

I quite like MasterCard’s slogan. It goes “There are some things money can’t buy, for everything else, there’s MasterCard”. It’s really nice, but allow me to make a tiny change, because there’s a new type of card that can buy you freedom to a decent degree. If MasterCard’s cards are for finance, Readyman’s cards are for survival. Readyman’s survival kit comprises 3-4 cards that can literally fit into your wallet. When you need them, the cards can transform into life-saving tools, handy in situations ranging from being lost in the wild, to being taken hostage, to even medical emergencies.

Readyman’s cards are made in 301 Stainless Steel and come broadly in four kinds. A medical card comes with all first-aid tools, ranging from tweezers to bandage clips. The hostage card comes with a set of lock-picks that allows you to get out of a hostage situation. The wilderness card comes with basic hunting tools like fish-hooks and arrow-heads, and lastly, the AR-15 cleaning card allows you to clean and maintain your firearms.

Designer: Readyman

BUY NOW

readyman_2

readyman_3

readyman_4

readyman_5

readyman_6

BUY NOW

Apps and gadgets for the ‘Blade Runner’ future we didn’t ask for

Punks, monks and Harrison Ford running scared through a poisonous cityscape were just a few of the details that made the original Blade Runner feel like its environment was a standalone character in the film. It felt as alien and familiar as the way...

Fight zombies on your street with ‘Walking Dead’ AR mobile game

How long would you last during a zombie apocalypse? Because let's be honest, the chances are you'd be shuffling among the living dead in next to no time, no matter how good your baseball swing. But instead of waiting for the end of all humanity to pr...

Off Grid Survival Axe Review: A Practical Tool and Zombie Fighter

If you’re looking for a single tool to keep in your bugout bag, the Off Grid Survival Axe is an excellent choice. It combines a number of useful tools for both the real world and whatever post-apocalyptic world you can image, be it zombies, robots, or even killer cars.

Also known as the “Lil Trucker,” this rugged multi-tool packs 13 types of tool in one. It’s made from a single piece of hardened 1055 carbon tool steel that runs the length of the blade all the way down the tang, which is sandwiched between a pair of glass-filled nylon handles. The finger cutouts in the handle provides an excellent grip – something you want on any sort of hand tool.

First and foremost, this thing is a compact hatchet, and does a great job hacking through logs, for gathering quick and easy firewood. It didn’t take long for me to split a 4″ thick piece of wood, and it certainly could handle thicker logs with additional time and effort. It’s not razor-sharp, but it does the trick. The axe blade is also designed to be resharpened if it ever gets dull, or if you desire a sharper blade.

The head also contains a variety of box wrenches. There are 3/8″(10mm), 7/16″(11mm), 1/2″(13mm), and 9/16″(15mm) hex wrenches. The wrenches offer excellent grip, but with one caveat. Their location on the axe head does limit their utility to locations which are pretty wide open, and they won’t work well turning nuts or bolts in cramped quarters. A 1/4″ hex socket is designed to hold screwdriver bits, but I couldn’t get it to securely hold any of the ones in my toolbox – they just kind of wobbled around. They’d do well to place it in a thicker section of steel, and magnetize it next time around.

On the backside of the head are a couple of other useful tools, including a nail puller, a flat pry bar, a box-cutting edge which doubles as a can opener, a wrench for tightening hose couplings, and a claw hammer. The hammer works quite well, and has plenty of heft for quickly driving nails. Prying stubborn nails is a breeze too. That said, the hammer end started showing scratches quite quickly, which is the one downside I can see to having a black finish. It looks awesome, but isn’t always the most practical for tools. One tool I couldn’t figure out how to effectively use was the can opener. It seems like it could smash holes in the top of a can in a pinch, but it’s not a precise tool like a standalone can opener.

The handle packs several handy emergency tools, including an emergency glass-breaker and a seatbelt cutter. While I didn’t have any glass windows I wanted to break, I did test out the belt cutter on a spare length of seatbelt webbing from a backpack I have, and it sliced right through it.

There’s also a locking, flip-out sawblade in the handle, which is great for cutting branches or wood boards. The 6″ Milwaukee sawzall blade also works great on plastic, metal, and other materials, and is replaceable with a store-bought blade, should you ever wear it out.

Of course, you can’t have a multi-tool without a bottle opener. After all, you need to pop open a cold drink to celebrate all that hard work you did getting to your campsite and setting up your tent, right? This bottle opener is located in the back edge of the axe head, and works perfectly. It also doubles as a gas shut-off wrench, though again, I had no gas lines I needed to shut off, so I didn’t test this.

While you’re unlikely to encounter the undead, the Off Grid Survival Axe would surely help dispense of a zombie or three, should you find yourself in such a dangerous predicament. But even if the zombiepocalypse never arrives, you can rest easy that you’ll get lots of use out of this versatile hand tool. It’s available now over on Amazon for about $80(USD).

‘Rain World’ is a strange, ever-evolving take on survival games

In many survival-themed games, the ecosystem doesn't change much. Predators are always out to kill you, while prey just wants to mind its own business. However, you'll have to be much more thoughtful with the just-released Rain World. Videocult's...

‘Outlast 2’ will seriously creep you out this April

The follow-up to hit survival-horror game Outlast is coming to PC, Xbox One and Playstation 4 on April 25. Outlast 2 will attempt to raise the creep factor with more genre-defining "WTF" moments than were possible in the first game, due to budgetary...