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Doom Eternal review: "Screams at you to move faster and to fight harder, and you can do nothing but obey" - GamesRadar+ AU
Facebook, Twitter, Google and other tech giants join forces to fight coronavirus fake news - MarketWatch
How to turn your iPhone or Android phone into the ultimate work from home device - PCWorld

Doom Eternal review: "Screams at you to move faster and to fight harder, and you can do nothing but obey" - GamesRadar+ AU

Posted: 17 Mar 2020 08:49 AM PDT

Doom Eternal is at its best when it is screaming at you to move faster. As it thrusts the tools to single-handedly eviscerate the rampaging spawn of hell into your clenched, blood-drenched fists – an array of finely-tuned weapons designed to deliver mass-demon-destruction. When you're up to your ankles in viscera, blasting chunks of flesh from foe while the hum of the chainsaw warms your trigger fingers. As it sets its hyper-kinetic action to a cacophonic soundscape of blood, bullets, and heavy fucking metal.

Doom Eternal screams at you to move faster and to fight harder and you can do nothing but obey. Not because you have become subservient to the altar of id Software, but because the cadence of Doom's combat has demanded nothing less of you for more than three decades.

Fast Facts: Doom Eternal

(Image credit: Bethesda)

Release date: March 20, 2020
Platform: PC, PS4, Xbox One
Developer: id Software
Publisher: Bethesda

Much like its predecessors, Doom Eternal is a hammer-horror pantomime in which you are made an active participant. It is an elaborate and self-indulgent production, its violence so over the top that you can't help but smile as it spills out over the stage and under your feet. It's an utterly ridiculous and strangely endearing showing, warping your suspension of disbelief so extensively that you'll wonder whether you've crossed over to another dimension – to a world where the first-person shooter followed the archaic directions first outlined by Doom in 1993 without question instead of turning toward the teachings of Half-Life.

The problem with this stage show is that the screaming has to stop sometime. The director is hoarse and is begging you to enjoy an intermission from the action. The bullet casings need to be collected, they tell you; the buckets of blood need to be refilled, the gore mopped up, and the guitars tuned back down to D. The cast of cannon fodder needs to take a breather as the next hellish stage is reset somewhere out of sight. You were moving too fast, and there's still a little story left to shout into your face.

Doom Eternal is at its worst when it makes you slow down; it struggles to settle in silence.

Feeling a need for speed

I can count the number of first-person shooters that can function competently as platformers on one hand, and Doom Eternal is not among them. Developer id Software has found itself caught, by attempting to straddle the line between inducing nostalgia and embracing evolution it has disrupted the conditions in which Doom (2016) was able to so effortlessly thrive.

Doom Eternal routinely breaks the pace of its action by forcing you to stiffly navigate towering spaces at regular intervals. You'll do this by swinging imprecisely between monkey bars, scaling bland craggy walls, bouncing off of unstable platforms, dashing between spacious maws of death, and double-jumping to ledges with slippery collision detection. Doom's movement systems are tightly refined, designed to keep your crosshairs focused on fast-moving enemies amongst a backdrop of colourful chaos. These systems struggle when you're pushed to slowly and methodically scale the environment with little room for error to reach the next combat arena.

It's levels like Doom Hunter Base, Super Gore Nest, and Mars Core that make up the bulk of the mid-game that are hit hardest by this design decision. These spaces are larger and more ambitious than anything the studio has committed to before with Doom, and they struggle to maintain momentum.

"As a prerequisite to progression, platforming only serves to introduce points of friction in an otherwise frictionless experience."

First-person platforming just about works for Doom when it is an optional extravagance – when you're off exploring for the myriad of optional collectable scattered throughout each of the missions – but as a prerequisite to progression they only serve to introduce points of friction in an otherwise frictionless experience.

By the time underwater sections were introduced – slowing you down even further, with the added annoyance of mitigating radioactive damage thrown in for good measure – it starts to become difficult to resist the urge to put the controller down and walk away entirely. That all said, it's difficult to indulge in these tendencies when you're faced with the prospect of coming across another sensationally-realised vista or the opportunity to shove the Super Shotgun double-barrel deep into the throat of a Baron of Hell.

That's where Doom Eternal feels right, revelling in ultra-violence across some impossibly beautiful environments. The game has built on the core loop that helped propel its predecessor from mere revival-project to genuine revolution, its central gimmick always working to keep players moving and – critically – engaging with enemies.

Embracing aggression

Glory Kills are still the star of the combat experience. Pumping enemies with enough bullets to reach a damage threshold will make them glow, indicating that you can do some graphic combination of: decapitation / goring / smashing / bashing / slicing / knifing / ripping / tearing (delete as necessary). These melee executions aren't just for show, they serve as your primary method of retrieving health.

It encourages you to play Doom Eternal the way id wants you to play it. The studio wants you to be moving and shooting as quickly as you can, giving as much aggression back to the hulking monsters as they give to you. To succeed in Doom Eternal – especially once you begin to whip through the difficulty levels – you must get in the face of enemies and never back away from a tough encounter; there's no faster way to meet your maker than to engage in a half-hearted retreat, with victory earned by engaging with the relentless pace of the action on its own terms – backing off is never an option, carrying through with forward momentum towards piles of ammunition, red barrels, and, yes, fresh enemies to rip and tear through is the key to victory.

If you aren't in need of health, you'll find that your Chainsaw can be used to chew through foes and retrieve ammunition, which is always in short supply. Your flame belch, a shoulder-mounted flamethrower, can burn enemies and deliver armour plating when shot, while Glory Kills also charge up your ability to deliver a devastating Blood Punch which eviscerates just about anything within your immediate cone of vision. All in all, it's a killer cycle that only helps propel Doom Eternal's core combat to new heights.

Speaking of the core combat, it's been a long-standing rule that you judge an id shooter on the strength of its shotguns. Unsurprisingly, the studio has taken its penchant for building the best boomsticks in video games and outdone itself. The Super Shotgun is impossible to put away; it screams power with every shot, its weight and staggering punch as satisfying to use the opening hours of the game to the last.

Weapons have always been at the heart of Doom, and Eternal is no slouch in this regard. You'll also find that each of the firearms can once again be upgraded throughout the game with Weapon Points, earned by completing in-mission objectives and chaos thresholds. Most weapons have two available modifications, each of which can be switched up with a simple button press, and offer an array of utterly ridiculous additional ways to turn demons to pulp. Exploring the environments will also help you earn Sentinel Crystals and Praetor Suit points which can be used to upgrade your armour, improving its utility and resistance, or upgrading your health, armour, and ammo capacities.

A celebration of ultra-violence

You'll want to invest in these upgrades and improvements early on, because Doom Eternal isn't afraid to beat your head against the wall until it's a pulpy mess. By the late game, Doom Eternal gets brutal, really pushing you to utilise all of your available abilities and weapons to get through its combat arenas in one piece.

For the most part, Doom Eternal casts its action in locked-off combat arenas, pushing you to skirt through them at speed looking for the most violent lines of none-stop navigation. These spaces aren't as tightly designed as the ones featured in Doom (2016), which I believe is down to the increased verticality – id is desperate to get you utilising its first-person platforming systems, even in the middle of frantic fights – but they are still great to engage enemies in.

That said, Doom Eternal does suffer because of some of its enemy design. The game is structured around escalating encounters – it introduces you to an enemy type on its own, lets you figure out the hook to slaying it, and then continues to throw a litany of them at you once. It's a potent design that keeps Doom Eternal feeling frantic at all times, with the game's aggressive and persistent AI ensuring that some of these creatures combine tactics to overwhelm you in some truly terrifying ways.

Combat arenas are usually a mixture of Heavy Cannon fodder – foes that can be quickly chewed up or smashed down for an easy burst of ammo or health – and larger, more punishing enemies that'll take a few runs around the arena to drop. This structure maintains momentum, and the relentless pace that the core ethos that the game is built on. Until it makes you slow down.

Boss battles with health bars were a blight on Doom (2016), and while that isn't so much of a problem here, there are a handful of enemy types that bring play screeching to a halt. For Doom Eternal to work, it has to have you managing your time between multiple enemy types and constantly leaving you on the verge of being totally overwhelmed, constantly asking you to push your understanding of the movement and combat mechanics to the max. And in comes a Marauder (a brand new demon designed for Eternal) or a returning Archvile, Super Heavy enemies that are generally no fun to fight. The Marauder, in particular, only works to slow combat to a crawl. It's an enemy type designed inherently for one-versus-one encounters, and it doesn't work in the controlled chaos of the wider combat experience.

Still, that's a small annoyance in an otherwise blistering FPS. If you can bite your lip and endure some routinely frustrating levels built around platforming, then you're going to have one hell of a good time with Doom Eternal. It's a fast, smart, and frantic shooter that seems to find real delight in testing your endurance. It's an outrageous and ridiculous pantomime where you are bound by blood to the unrelenting cadence of the action.

Doom Eternal was reviewed on Xbox One X

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Facebook, Twitter, Google and other tech giants join forces to fight coronavirus fake news - MarketWatch

Posted: 17 Mar 2020 04:03 AM PDT

Technology giants including Facebook, Twitter, Google GOOG, +2.52% and YouTube have joined forces to fight fraud and misinformation over the coronavirus pandemic and push official guidance on their platforms.

In a rare joint statement — which also included Microsoft MSFT, +6.74%, LinkedIn and Reddit — the industry said it was working together in response to the outbreak and called on other companies to help.

Misinformation and fake news have been spreading across the world's most popular tech platforms as panic spreads regarding the virus, which has infected more than 182,000 and killed more than 7,150 globally.

Read:Facebook, Apple and Twitter ask staff to work from home due to coronavirus

The companies have taken their own steps to battle the spread of myths and falsehoods, as well as scams, but issued a joint rallying call late on Monday.

"We are working closely together on COVID-19 response efforts. We're helping millions of people stay connected while also jointly combating fraud and misinformation about the virus, elevating authoritative content on our platforms, and sharing critical updates in coordination with government health care agencies around the world," the group said.

"We invite other companies to join us as we work to keep our communities healthy and safe," they added.

Facebook FB, +3.58% has already banned advertisements and listings selling face masks, and product director Rob Leathern said more action would follow if they see "people trying to exploit this public health emergency." It has also banned ads intended to create panic or implying certain products can cure the virus.

In the U.K., the National Health Service (NHS) has teamed up with Google, Twitter TWTR, +4.03% and Facebook to tackle fake news. Google is providing easier access to NHS guidance and websites when someone searches for coronavirus, while Facebook and Twitter have verified more than 800 NHS accounts to promote official advice.

The NHS added it had worked with Twitter to suspend a fake account posing as a hospital as well as publicly condemning homeopaths promoting false treatments. Google has been removing videos from its YouTube platform and recently set up a 24-hour response team to fight misinformation.

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How to turn your iPhone or Android phone into the ultimate work from home device - PCWorld

Posted: 17 Mar 2020 03:30 AM PDT

If you're a worker in the U.S., Europe, or basically anywhere right now, there's a good chance that you're going to be working from home for a while. The coronavirus has affected businesses and workers all over the world, and many people are suddenly forced to transition from their offices to their bedrooms and still get work done.

We know, it's not easy. We already published a full guide to setting up your home workspace for optimum productivity, but there's still the pesky business of that ultimate time killer: your phone. While it can be tucked away in your bag or a pocket during work hours, your phone can become the most pivotal piece of your workflow—if you take the right steps.

Set up reminders

When you're in the office, you don't need to remind yourself to stand, take bathroom breaks, eat lunch, or end your shift. But at home, it's easy to completely lose track of time. That's where Siri and Google Assistant can help.

Make a list of the breaks you want to take and ask your phone's assistant to remind you every day, by saying "Hey Siri" (or "OK Google"), remind me to take lunch at noon," or a" bathroom break at 11 a.m.," or "standing at 3 p.m.," whatever you need. It might sound silly, but without an office of people around, your normal routine will be severely disrupted.

Keep your eyes bright

Not only are you going to be using your phone more often than you would at work, but without a set time to leave the office, you're probably going to be working longer hours too. And that means staring at your screen more. But your eyes don't have to suffer as a result.

During the day, you can turn on dark mode and auto-brightness to keep your screen at a comfortable level, and if you're working after hours, use your phone's night mode to filter out blue light and limit eye strain. You can find these options in your display settings.

iphone android display settings — The display settings for Galaxy phones (left), Pixel phones (center), and iPhones (right) have all sorts of toggles and sliders to keep your eyes from getting too strained.

Stop staring at a tiny screen

If you're getting tired of typing on such a tiny screen, you can always mirror your phone's screen to a TV or a monitor with the right cable. If you're using an iPhone, you can also mirror your screen to a TV using AirPlay. That said, mirroring admittedly isn't an ideal solution for anything other than video streaming, since all it does is project an image of your phone on the screen—virtual keyboard and all.

If you're using a Samsung Galaxy S8 or later, however, your options are far more robust. Samsung offers a desktop solution called DeX, which lets you plug in your phone to a monitor using a USB-C-to-HDMI cable to work as if you were using a PC. Once plugged in, you'll get a full desktop environment, with floating windows, keyboard and mouse support, and of course, everything will save back to your phone once you disconnect. You can even use your phone's screen as a trackpad if you'd like.

Get a wireless charging stand

Since nearly every phone released in the past two years has wireless charging built-in, you probably already have a wireless charging pad at your desk. But what your work-from-home setup really needs is a wireless charging stand. That way you'll be able to see incoming notifications, take calls, video conference, and anything else you need to see your screen to do. Wireless charging stands like our editor's choice, the Anker PowerWave 7.5, will keep your phone charged and let you use it.

anker powerwave 7.5 stand — A wireless charging stand will let you see your phone's screen while it's charging.

Keep your phone clean

You've read a lot of articles about how dirty your phone is, and well, it's true. Even if there wasn't a pandemic, it's a good idea to keep your phone clean, especially when smudgy fingerprints make it hard to read. It's very easy to do. All you need is to wipe it down with a Clorox or Lysol disinfecting wipe and then discard the used wipe. Just don't forget to wash your hands after you're done.

Use a stylus

After your phone is nice and clean, the best way to keep it that way is to not touch it, naturally. So invest in a stylus. Of course, if you're using a Samsung Galaxy Note you have one built in, but you can use any number of "dumb" styli on any touch-screen phone that will mimic your taps and swipes. You probably won't be able to work as quickly as you would with your fingers, but it'll be great for answering calls and swiping away notifications.

Block time-sucking apps

Your phone is a fantastic tool for productivity at home, but it can also be a serious time suck. So if you need a little help staying away from Twitter, Facebook, and Candy Crush, your phone can give you an assist.

On iPhones with iOS 12 and Android phones running version 9 or later, you'll find Screen Time and Digital Wellbeing, respectively, in the settings. In each you'll find an array of toggles and dials that let you set usage timers or shut down access to apps that are zapping your focus. So when you try to sneak a quick game during your next teleconference, your phone won't let you.

digital wellbeing screen time app limits — Android's Digital Wellbeing (left) and iOS' Screen Time (right) can help keep your focus from shifting to apps that aren't work-related.

Get a Bluetooth headset

Even if you'll be using a PC for most of your work, you'll still need to use your phone for the thing it was made for: taking calls. And since you probably don't want to hold a slab of glass up to your face during a lengthy conference call, you should invest in a Bluetooth headset or a pair of wireless headphones. Basically any pair to our buy will work with either an iPhone or Android phone (even AirPods), though some features might get dropped depending on your phone.

Keep an eye on your data

Since you're going to be home a lot more, you're going to be using a lot more of your personal data. Thankfully, some of the major broadband suppliers and wireless carriers have already agreed to lift data caps while the U.S. figures out the next steps in its fight against the coronavirus pandemic, but those measures are temporary. For example, AT&T, T-Mobile, and Comcast have suspended data caps for 60 days, so you won't see extra charges or slower speeds if you go over your allotted data. (Verizon has made no such promise, though it is waiving late fees for unpaid bills.)

But those unlimited limits won't be forever, so if your work-from-home stint lasts longer than a couple of months, you'll need to keep a close watch on how much data you use in your account. Video streaming and file downloads can eat up a ton of your allotted data and overage fees can get pricey (for example, Comcast charges $10 for every 50GB), so you may need to up your plan accordingly.

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