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Weekly Time Waster - ‘Chessplode’
I love chess. Always have. Two people taking each other on, in the ultimate game of wits and strategy. Some might call it hardcore checkers, as checkers has fewer moves and board combinations. Others might even call chess plain old boring. One might even argue that chess has always needed something to make it more, exciting. Well, “Chessplode” aims to change the game of chess for us all.
In “Chessplode,” the basic rules of chess remain the same. The difference in “Chessplode” is simply this: there are explosions. You heard me – a chess game with explosions! Explosions in video games make everything more fun, am I right?
In “Chessplode,” if you take an opposing piece on the board, you better pay close attention, as the piece will explode and take out ALL pieces, including your own, in certain vertical and horizontal rows. The only exception is if there is a king in the explosive path. If there is a king in the row, all pieces will survive and the piece that you took is the only one removed from the board. The king, essentially becomes the most powerful piece on the board. It has the power to save life!
It's actually very simple; after a few rounds you will have the hang of it. It makes a regular game of chess become something somewhat new, but for skilled chess players, these new rules definitely are a gamechanger in terms of planning your future moves. In “Chessplode,” you can change the difficulty of the computer player from rookie to pro, but I suggest you start with rookie to get a handle on the new rules of the game.
“Chessplode” is a wonderful take on the classic game, and for newcomers and masters alike, it is well worth wasting a bit of your time. “Chessplode” is free to download on the Android and IOS stores!
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Weekly Time Waster - ‘Madden NFL 22 Mobile’
It’s another year, which means another NFL Football season is here. Along with another NFL season, we get a new season and new features in “Madden Mobile.”
What’s even cooler about his new season of “Madden Mobile” is that two fantastic quarterbacks are on the cover: Tom Brady and Patrick Mahomes. This is each quarterback’s second appearance on the cover of a “Madden” game; it’s also the second time in “Madden” cover history that two players have been featured, the first was Larry Fitzgerald and Troy Polamalu in 2009.
“Madden Mobile” returns this year with some new gadgets and gizmos, but for those who haven’t played it, we’ll do a quick refresh. In “Madden Mobile 22,” you take on the role of a general manager, and your goal is to build the best team possible, to win the Super Bowl. You build essentially a fantasy football team using players you either earn or buy with in game currency. You start off with low-ranking players in the beginning and build your team over time. The players on your team can be anyone in the current NFL, as well as assorted legends from the past. Most of the modes from years past have returned, such as GM mode which takes you through the current NFL season’s schedule, to playing online with others.
This year, there is a new feature called “Journeys.” You’re given a series of themed challenges that get harder as you progress. The further you progress, the better the rewards. You also get to relive the Super Bowl LV run of the Buccaneers and completing it can give you a Tom Brady card to put on your team. Patrick Mahomes is also an earnable player. A new “Training Center” feature also hits the gridiron that lets you take on daily challenges to level up current players on your team.
The last new feature is “The Tour.” The Tour lets you play real-world live NFL games during the NFL season. As you play these games, you earn “fans,” and the more fans you have when your team wins, the higher the rewards you get from those games. As you play “Madden Mobile’ this year, every day that you login consecutively, you earn free daily and even monthly rewards, all the way from Madden cash to free players.
“Madden Mobile” never really seems to break through into crazy new territory each year, but it’s always a fun supplement to add to the NFL season, giving you a chance to waste some time when there isn’t a game on TV.
“Madden NFL 22 Mobile” is free to download on the Android and IOS stores.
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Colby’s Institute for Artificial Intelligence names director
WATERVILLE (AP) — The nation’s first small liberal arts college to create an institute devoted to artificial intelligence now has a director.
Amanda Stent will lead the newly formed Davis Institute for Artificial Intelligence at Colby College, officials said.
Stent has authored or co-authored more than 100 papers and is a regular speaker on the subject of natural language, which gives computers the ability to understand human text and spoken words.
She most recently served as the natural language processing architect at Bloomberg L.P., where she led the People and Language AI Team.
The institute was created through a $30 million gift from the Davis family and charitable foundation trustee Andrew Davis.
Davis said previously that complex questions surrounding AI “requires a holistic analysis and response that can only come from a broad liberal arts perspective.”
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Weekly Time Waster - ‘Hawken’
Once upon a time, there was a popular game series called “Mechwarrior” – and I played it a ton. There was nothing better than being strapped into a robotic mech and blowing everything up while fighting other mechs along the way. Those games still exist, but I found a similar game that has scratched the same itch that those games satisfied.
“Hawken” straps you into different war machines in a multiplayer area, where you are tasked – either by yourself or as a team – with destroying other mechs. The game is a fast-paced first-person shooter; think “Call of Duty,” only with mechanical war machines.
There are three types of mechs that you can use: light mechs, medium mechs and heavy mechs. Each mech serves a different playstyle; there are many to unlock in each category to keep things fresh. A light mech, for instance, has low armor but high mobility so they can rely on speed to get in and out of combat. Whereas a heavy mech is 100% armor and weaponry; they can dish out a lot of damage, but they soak up a lot of damage as well due to how slow they are. Each mech has various power-ups, utilities and weapons that can be unlocked, so there is a lot to grind through.
“Hawken” features five game modes in which to wreak havoc, including classics like Deathmatch and Team Deathmatch. “Hawken” might not be the best mech game I’ve ever played, but it’s one of the most accessible and interesting ones I have found in a while.
With lots of things to blow up and unlock and plenty of places to engage in combat, “Hawken” is a great free-to-play time waster on any gaming console.
“Hawken” is free to download on the Playstation and Xbox stores.
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Weekly Time Waster - ‘Pocket City’
If you’ve ever played city-building games like “Sim City,” you know how addicting it can be to start with a blank slate and construct a city to your specifications, making it a functional, living place. While there are lots of city-building games that flood the app store, “Pocket City” is one of the most fun versions I have found in a long time – it actually reminds me a lot of the “Sim City” games.
In “Pocket City”, the premise is typical of a city-building game. I should note that the version I am reviewing is the limited free version, but there is a paid version that unlocks a massive amount of more content for three dollars.
As you start out, you must build roads, residential zones, commercial zones and important buildings that play a role in the function and development of your city. Like the old “Sim City” games, there are disasters that pop up from time to time that will throw a wrench in what you are doing; sometimes you also have to deal with economic problems too, not to mention crime. As you build all the different zones, you must supply water and power to them; to make your citizens happy, you must build recreational areas and more.
The game goes deeper as you eventually start to deal with taxing your city and even managing trade. The game’s art style is quirky and fun; it doesn’t look realistic, but has a nice simple graphic and color scheme that works well on the eyes. If you like to build cities in your spare time and you want a game that isn’t loaded with bloat and asks more than you can give, “Pocket City” is a phenomenal choice.
“Pocket City” is free to download on the Android and IOS stores. If you like the game a lot, feel free to support the developers by buying the full version of the game for $2.99 that unlocks a load of extra features!
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