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Blizzard has finally shared how hero bans will work in competitive Overwatch 2. The new step will let teams ban heroes they think are overpowered or annoying to play against, without letting them game out who their opposing team might want to play. The feature is a common part of other competitive games like League of Legends, and is a meta-game in its own right. For Overwatch 2, Blizzard hopes to use the "Ban Phase" mostly to let players remove heroes they find frustrating, and gather data to use when the game is rebalanced. When you first launch into a competitive match, you'll get the option to select your "Preferred Hero," which signals to your team who you don't want to ban. Then you'll rank three heroes you want to remove from the match, with your first choice given the most weight, and your last choice, the least. Blizzard says all teams and players vote simultaneously, but chat will be blocked off between opposing teams until voting ends. Blizzard Once all the votes are in, they get tallied using the following guidelines: The team with the most votes for a specific hero will be considered the first team, and will guarantee that their chosen hero is banned. In the case of a tie, the first team is decided randomly. Then, the other team becomes the second" team. If the heroes they voted to ban were not the first team's banned hero, then their most and second most voted heroes are banned. If the second team's most or second most voted pick was also the first team's, then the second team's third most voted hero is removed instead. And finally, the second most voted hero on the first team is banned, with the same caveat the second team had. When the number of votes for a hero is tied, the game picks the hero voted by the most players in the lobby (and not the total amount of votes). Ties beyond that are broken randomly, and regardless of how the votes shake out, there's a limit of two bans per role. If you don't want to ban any heroes or don't know who to ban, you can also skip voting and let your teammates decide for you. Blizzard first announced it would add hero bans to Overwatch 2 with its Season 15 announcement, which introduced a perks system to the game. Hero bans are set to arrive with Season 16 on April 22, which will also include the new Stadium mode, five-on-five matches where players earn currency to spend on upgrades between rounds, and have the option to play in third-person. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/blizzard-explains-hero-bans-ahead-of-their-introduction-in-competitive-overwatch-210319297.html?src=rss
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Under no circumstances should you let AI do your schoolwork for you, but Google has decided to make that option a little bit easier for the next year. The company is offering a free year of it's Google One AI Premium plan, which includes Gemini Advanced, access to the AI assistant in the Google Workspace and things like Gemini Live, to any college student willing to sign up. The offer gives you a sample platter of Google's latest AI features, which normally costs $20 per month, and is primarily focused on things you can do with Gemini. That includes experimental products like NotebookLM for analyzing documents, and Whisk for remixing images and videos. Because this is a Google One plan, you'll also get 2TB of Google Drive storage for the parade of PDFs that make up college life. You can sign-up for the free offer on Google's website. You need to be 18 years or older, have a ".edu" email address and join before June 30, 2025, but once you do, you'll have the Google One AI Premium plan through July 2026. Google says you'll need to verify you're still a student in 2026, but otherwise, the whole thing is a light lift. Even if you don't care about AI, signing up is worth it for the free extra storage. Google's intentions here obviously aren't pure. Free storage is nice, but If the company can normalize using AI for a generation of young minds, it can change what's an occasionally useful novelty into an essential. That's not likely to be good for critical thinking or test scores, even if it justifies the money the company is spending on AI research and development.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/google-is-trying-to-get-college-students-hooked-on-ai-with-a-free-year-of-gemini-advanced-195706467.html?src=rss
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In the latest evidence that indie games are often where you find the boldest creative choices, look no further than Unbeatable. The handdrawn rhythm adventure title announced in 2020 and crowdfunded the following year oozes style and attitude. For example, look no further than its tagline: "a game where music is illegal and you do crimes." (Nice.) Developer DCell Games launched a new trailer and a much more robust demo on Thursday, letting you sample a slice of the full game. One part of the "animejuiced" Unbeatable follows the protagonist, Beat, and her "band on the run." (Nice to see that a Wings reference can still fly in 2025.) The game's narrativedriven segment includes dialogue around town with various people, baseball (played "the wrong way" with sledgehammers and katanas), graffiti tagging and bareknuckle brawls with the cops who enforce the draconian antimusic laws. (Dicks!) And don't forget some alone time to "think and write new songs." D-Cell Another part of Unbeatable's gameplay involves rhythm minigames that only require two buttons: up and down. Although that mode is woven into the story, oldschool rhythm game fans can enjoy a separate arcade mode that stands as a "complete game experience," including challenges and modifiers. (PaRappa the Rapper fans, rejoice.) There's no release date yet, but the trailer below shows that DCell has put those five years of development time to good use. If it looks like your jam, you can take the demo for a spin on Steam and PS5. (The final version will also be available on Xbox.) This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/the-rhythm-infused-adventure-unbeatable-has-a-new-demo-for-pc-and-ps5-185618354.html?src=rss
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As part of their ongoing celebration of the Hubble Space Telescope's 35th anniversary, NASA and ESA have shared a new image of the Eagle Nebula, specifically a "spire of cosmic gas and dust" that's in a region last captured by the telescope two decades ago. The tower in the image is 9.5 light years tall, according to NASA and ESA, and only a portion of the larger Eagle Nebula, which is considered a "nursery" for young stars. The tower's unique mix of oranges and dark blues is thanks to a combination of swirling hydrogen gas and space dust. The nebula's "Eagle" name comes from how it looks when you pan across it, where edge clouds like the one in the image look like the wings of a giant bird of prey. ESA/Hubble & NASA, K. Noll As of late, the James Webb Space Telescope has become the designated source for spectacular images of space, but clearly Hubble still has some juice in it, too. Some of that is thanks to "new data processing techniques" that are being applied to the images captured by the telescope. The Eagle Nebula is just one of several celestial targets Hubble is revisiting for its 35th anniversary. By capturing different angles and using data differently, the telescope is able to produce more spectacularly colored images. There's no major discoveries made with these "reruns," but they are, without a doubt, even cooler than before. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/science/space/celebrate-the-35th-anniversary-of-the-hubble-space-telescope-with-a-gigantic-tower-of-gas-and-dust-184340147.html?src=rss
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The Apple Sports app just introduced a new feature called Game Card Sharing. This lets users generate digital game cards that carry information about a specific match. The cards can be generated for upcoming, live and completed games. In the latter two cases, the score will be displayed. The cool part about these cards is that they are shareable across iMessage or via social media platforms. I could see this being useful in a group chat with friends, as a handy way to keep track of an ongoing match. Just look for the share button on the upper-right side of each card. There is one caveat. It requires the latest version of iOS, so it might be time to finally strap in for an update. These cards work with a whole bunch of sports leagues, including the NBA, MLB, NHL and even stuff like the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix. For the uninitiated, Apple Sports is a free iPhone app that delivers real-time scores and various stats. It also displays useful stuff like broadcast information. It even lets users pin real-time scores to the lock screen.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/apps/the-apple-sports-app-now-lets-users-create-and-share-game-cards-184235076.html?src=rss
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