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Forza Horizon 2 being pulled from Xbox store following Games With Gold deal
Rainbow Six Siege: Operation Grim Sky hands-on –Pitting Maverick against Clash
The first 6 things to do when you get an Amazon Echo

Forza Horizon 2 being pulled from Xbox store following Games With Gold deal

Posted: 19 Aug 2018 07:15 AM PDT

Fans of Microsoft’s Forza racing series, listen up: if you never got around to checking out Forza Horizon 2, your time is running out. Developer Turn 10 revealed this week that the game, first released in 2014, is reaching its “end of life” and will be delisted from the Xbox store at the end of next month. With Forza Horizon 4 releasing in October, and Horizon 2 no longer being supported, both the older game and its DLC will no longer be for sale after September 30th.

If you already have the game and any of its add-ons, don’t worry, it will still be playable after its pulled from the store. The developer broke the news in a Forza series-related blog post, however they didn’t specify why the game was being retired.

“After September 30, players who own Forza Horizon 2 will still be able to download and play the game and its associated content as normal. However, Forza Horizon 2 and its DLC will no longer be for sale.”

The good news is that there’s still a brief window to pick up Forza Horizon 2 for free. Microsoft has kindly included the base game in August’s Games With Gold deal, so anyone with an Xbox Live Gold subscription can download it at no cost, but only until August 31st.

Forza Horizon 2 was highly praised by both critics and players when it was first released, and was supported with plenty of DLC afterwards. If you’re new to the series, or more interested in the newer Horizon 4 but never played the older entry, grabbing Horizon 2 for free is a great way to see what it’s all about.

SOURCE Forza Motorsport

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Rainbow Six Siege: Operation Grim Sky hands-on –Pitting Maverick against Clash

Posted: 19 Aug 2018 07:31 AM PDT

Ubisoft is revealing the gameplay for Maverick and Clash, the new operators for Rainbow Six Siege today at the Six Major esports event in Paris today.

The operators are part of the new expansion, Operation Grim Sky, for the five-year-old Rainbow Six Siege, which has more than 30 million players. I played a couple of rounds with the operators and captured some video of the gameplay. You can see the videos embedded in this post.

The expansion has new characters like Maverick, an attacker with a blow torch that can melt walls. Maverick is a hard breacher who can poke a hole in any wall with his blowtorch. He can peek inside and see where the enemies are hidden. If he makes the hole big enough, using some of his limited fuel, he can even shoot inside at the hiding enemies. The torch is silent, so he can surprise enemies who are just looking for enemies to come in the normal way.

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It’s such a powerful way to breach that the designers had to limit Maverick’s power, so he can’t actually poke a hole in a wall that the whole team can go through, said Alex Karpazis, presentation director for the game at Ubisoft, in an interview with GamesBeat.

On top of that, Clash, the new defender with the police shield, is a counter to Maverick. She can walk up to any breach that Maverick makes and just stand in front of it, restoring a barrier that prevents Maverick from seeing or shooting through a hole.

“It was a fine balance of tuning him so he’s more about peeking and creating interesting access for drones, instead of making large holes to move in between spaces,” Karpazis said. “That’s where the balance of his fuel came into play.”

Above: Maverick is a new operator in Rainbow Six Siege: Grim Sky. He carries a powerful torch.

Image Credit: Ubisoft

Clash is also able to walk through corridors and effectively block others from getting past her. She can frustrate the enemy so much that they can get obsessed with trying to take her down and lose track of the real objectives and time limit in the match. I played in a funny match where Maverick tried to melt her shield with a blow torch, to no effect. I was trying to melee her and get a shot in, but she recovered from the blows too quickly for me to get that shot off. It seems like the best way to deal with her is to come at her from different directions, or precisely coordinate a melee and shooting.

But Clash has some limits too. She has no primary weapon and can’t shoot while she is holding her shield. She has a pistol or handheld machine gun, but she can only use her weapon if she puts away her shiled. That allows her to be a threat if she comes in behind other players.

“You see someone and you just think, ‘I’m going for you!’ But sometimes it’s best to just leave her alone in her corner and flank somewhere else,” Karpazis said. “But if your back is exposed—you can’t assume that if she disappears behind a corner, she’s not coming back with a gun instead of the shield.”

With Grim Sky, Ubisoft has also reworked its Hereford map, which was the first map in the game. But now it’s been rebalanced, with more distinct areas that be easily called out and identified in communication with other players. There are two sets of stairs, so there isn’t a single choke point where everyone gets bottled up. And the graphics for the map look much better than the original.

I played Grim Sky with Ubisoft’s team and some journalists in San Francisco ahead of the launch in Paris. A couple of the Ubisoft people were good, and so it’s fun to listen to them chatter during the matches. Rainbow Six Siege clearly isn’t my game, as you’ll see from the videos. But I had a great time playing with some players who were good. And in my final match, I even got in two kills.

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The first 6 things to do when you get an Amazon Echo

Posted: 18 Aug 2018 06:00 AM PDT

Congrats, you just got an Amazon Echo ($85 at Amazon.com). Now what?

It's time to unbox it and set it up. Amazon will walk you through the setup process, but it won't clue you in to all of the settings that you should deal with first.

That's where we come in. Here we'll show you those crucial first settings you need to adjust so you can get the best experience out of your Alexa-enabled speaker.

Download the Alexa app

The first thing you need to do, before even plugging in the Echo, is to download the Alexa app (available on Android, iOS, and Amazon Fire).

You can't set up your Echo speaker or proceed with these tips without it. Beyond that, you'll need it to adjust your Echo's settings down the road.

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Set your location

It seems obvious, but you need to set your speaker's location to get relevant weather and traffic reports from Alexa. What's not obvious, however, is how to do that.

In Settings, go to Devices and then select the name of your speaker -- such as "Sarah's Echo Dot ($40 at Amazon.com)." Scroll to Device Location and tap to set it. You don't have to given an exact address if you don't want to -- a ZIP code will suffice.

Here's what's tricky; you can set your location in Settings > Devices > [Your name]'s Alexa Apps and in Devices > This Device, but doing that won't mean your Echo speaker will have the correct location.

file-aug-12-8-19-34-pm — Connect your calendar to Alexa to allow it to schedule events.
Sarah Mitroff/CNET

Link your calendar

If you want Alexa to remind you of upcoming events or help you manage your schedule, you'll need to log in to whatever account you use for your calendar. You can choose from Google, Microsoft Outlook, Apple and Microsoft Exchange.

Once logged in, Alexa can create and modify events, and tell you about your upcoming ones.

Enable Follow-up Mode

Currently, you can't ask Alexa multiple things at once, like, "What time is it and what's the weather?" However, with Follow-up Mode, you can ask multiple questions back to back without having to say the wake word (Alexa, Computer, Echo or Amazon) each time.

So long as the blue ring light is visible on your speaker, you can keep asking questions. To enable this, go to Settings, tap your speaker's name and scroll to Follow-up Mode.

Decide if you want to use Voice Purchasing

"Alexa, order paper towels." With a voice command, you can tell Alexa to purchase anything on Amazon. However, you need to enable the feature first by going to Settings and scrolling down to Voice Purchasing.

This feature works like Amazon's 1-Click purchasing, and you need to have 1-Click set up in your Amazon account to use Voice Purchasing.

For an extra layer of security, set up a Voice Code to prevent your kids or mischievous house guests from ordering stuff without your consent. A Voice Code is a 4-digit PIN you speak to Alexa to confirm your voice purchases.

If Voice Purchasing is turned off, you can still shop on products on Amazon, but they will be added to your cart and you'll need to check out through the app or website.

Add a household member

Have multiple adults in your home with Amazon accounts? You can add household members to a single Echo device so they can all use it. Just go to Settings > Household Profile to get started.

This allows you and the other people to have a personalized experience, where each one of you has access to your own music, shopping lists, news settings and commute information.

Warning: When you add another adult to your household, that person will be able to use your credit card to make purchases. To prevent unauthorized purchases, set up a Voice Code PIN.

Now, explore what Alexa can do

Once the basic setup is done, you can start exploring all that Alexa can do. Open the Alexa App, open the menu and select Skills.

Here you can browse and search the thousands of Alexa Skills available, which range from games and trivia to educational and business apps.

Feeling a bit overwhelmed by the choices? Check out the first seven Alexa Skills you should enable. When you're ready to dive in, consult our list of the 50 most useful Alexa Skills, or the complete list of all Alexa Skills. You can even make your own Alexa Skills using Alexa Skill Blueprints.

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