In KILLING FLOOR 2, players descend into continental Europe after it has been overrun by horrific, murderous clones called Zeds that were created by rogue elements of the Horzine Corporation. 6-player Co-Op & 12-player VS Zed-slaughtering mayhem.

Hunt: Showdown is a high-stakes, tactical PvPvE first-person shooter. Hunt for bounties in the infested Bayou, kill nightmarish monsters and outwit competing hunters – alone or in a group – with your glory, gear, and gold on the line.

The Epic Games Store has been around for a while, the lesser-known alternative to Steam, the nearly-ubiquitous platform for game purchases since it launched in 2003. But, where Steam originally existed and launched to promote Valve games, Epic Games Store launched in 2018 and quickly rose to success on the Fortnite franchise. At the time of Epic’s launch, Steam took a dramatic 30% cut from the sales of video games through their platform! This hurt both game designers and users, and just wasn’t very nice. But the folks behind Epic realized something excellent: they could take a much lower cut and still have a profitable business. This led them to fast domination of the indie market, as small publishers flocked to the far better terms offered by Epic.

Mega Discounts

Epic Games Store offers some seriously incredible discounts on a regular basis, in addition to all the normal discounts one would expect on Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and the usual holidays. But the most exciting is their weekly free game or add-on, which simply harpoons all competitors.

When I first heard about this free game, I thought that can’t be real. They must only offer tiny indie games. Not at all, dear reader. Not. At. All. Epic frequently lists unbelievable A-lister games on their weekly deal, as well as sometimes offer two free games instead of one. In addition, just because a studio is smaller doesn’t mean the games it makes aren’t impressive. I’ve picked up some of my favorite new games, for free, from this platform, and most of them have been made by smaller studios (or as side-projects for teams from big studios).

You’ll first need to ensure the image you’re working with is a vector. If it’s a picture, you can turn it into a vector by going to the top menu and choosing Window > File Trace.

Next, we need to enable transparency in order to delete the background, otherwise it defaults to a plain white background. To do this, go to the top menu and navigate to View > Show Transparency Grid. The Shift + Ctrl/Command + D keyboard shortcut will also enable transparency.

Select the image and go to Object > Expand from the top menu to show all of the points in your vector image. Select only the points that pertain to the background you want to remove.

Once you’ve selected the background, press Delete on your keyboard. This will remove anything that was selected and replace it with transparency.

Now that your background is removed, you can save and export the image or continue your work in Illustrator.

Alternatively, you can use a clipping mask to remove the background. You will need to enable transparency from step one and then follow our guide on how to use a Clipping Mask in Illustrator to make the background transparent.

There’s a reason the display brightness is in the “Battery” section of your Mac’s System Preferences. It only takes a minute to reduce your Mac display brightness, so that you can get a little more battery life.

If you aren’t familiar with this System Preference, every time you stop using your Mac for the timeframe chosen, your display will sleep so that you can save some of your battery.

While having your display brightness set to 1 minute is a bit much, often causing too much of a disruption in your workday, I wouldn’t go over 3 to 5 minutes. The longer your display brightness is set, the more battery life it uses.

How to reduce your Mac’s display brightness

1. Click the Apple Logo in the upper left-hand corner
2. Select “System Preferences”
3. Click “Battery”
4. Make sure “Battery” is selected on the left-hand side
5. Move the toggle to 3 or 5 minutes maximum

Hard disks running unnecessarily will drain battery life significantly. By allowing your Mac’s hard disks to sleep when you aren’t using it, you can save and use your battery when you need it the most.

How to put hard disks to sleep when possible

1. Click the Apple logo in the upper left-hand corner
2. Open “System Preferences”
3. Select “Battery”
4. Click “Power Adapter”
5. Click the box next to “put hard disks to sleep when possible”

Like with Mac display brightness, reducing your Mac’s keyboard brightness can make sure that your Mac’s battery is used for the most important things.

Small changes like this one can make a big impact, specially when used in combination with one another. So, consider reducing your Mac’s keyboard brightness.

How to reduce your Mac’s keyboard brightness

1. Unlock your Mac
2. Click the Control Center in the upper right-hand corner of the task bar
3. Click “Keyboard Brightness”
4. Reduce the brightness using the toggle

Many new Mac users close the open windows on their Mac without quitting the app. Often, they even keep multiple apps open or have several tabs open in Safari. Sometimes, it’s just a bad habit of forgetting to close windows and quit apps. Whatever the case, this common mistake quickly drains your Mac’s battery.

Once you are done using an app, or no longer want to use that app, quit it properly so that it isn’t using up all your battery for the day.

How to quit apps you aren’t using

1. Check out your dock and see if there is a dot below the app in the dock. If there is, continue with these steps.
2. Right-click the app in your dock (for a MacBook, a right-click is a two-finger click)
3. Select “Quit”

If an app won’t close, consider force quitting the app.

When you aren’t using Bluetooth, or if you are someone who never does, consider turning off Bluetooth. Bluetooth will use up your Mac battery when searching and connecting to nearby devices.

By turning off Bluetooth, you can make your Mac battery work for you, saving it for all the things you need to do.

How to turn off Bluetooth

1. Click the Apple logo in the upper left-hand corner
2. Open “System Preferences”
3. Select “Bluetooth”
4. Click “Turn Bluetooth Off”

Usually, I would have lumped my review of classes in with character customization. However, I think it’s important to talk directly about the different classes provided in Diablo Immortal, since I found some to be more enjoyable and well-executed than others.

Players can decide to assume the role of Barbarian, Wizard, Demon Hunter, Monk, Crusader, or Necromancer. Of course, many of these roles are designed to later provide a well-rounded party for dungeon-raiding and battles, but since the game is also marketed as “peerless” and designed to accommodate single-player or multiplayer gaming, each role should be sustainable for solo-players. While each role can certainly sustain solo-play, some do better than others.

Pros

• Various classes and styles of gameplay provided for every kind of gamer.
• Most classes hold up well for solo-play.

Cons

• Wizard (otherwise referred to as sorcerer/sorceress) is not as powerful as in previous Diablo games and not well adapted for solo-play.
• Skills “cool” level varies with each class, some skills being more fun and more graphically gripping than others. Though this is subjective and often part of the RPG experience, there is a clear divide between solo-playability and skills from class-to-class.

As it says in the App Store, Diablo Immortal “gives you unprecedented flexibility to be who you want to be in the vast world of Sanctuary.” Developers certainly intended to provide PC or console level character customization to mobile, but were they successful? At first glance, I thought they were. However, after three separate character creations and hours of game play, I can tell you that goal was not fully realized.

While players can change their character’s hair and eye color, skin tone, hairstyle, and facial structure, changes are minimal and almost inconsequential. Maybe I grew up playing too much Sims during the age of MySpace and dial-up internet, but character creation is a vital part of an RPG, and it is simply ineffective in Diablo Immortal.

While some customization features like eye makeup and markings are impactful and help customize characters, others flop. No matter how much players adjust forehead, cheekbone, cheek, jaw, or chin tip position, they will end up with a character that looks more or less exactly like the character they started with.

Pros

• There are in-depth character customization options.
• Custom hair and eye colors can be created.
• Eye makeup, markings, and pupil colors are pretty striking, varied, and effective.
• Most characters look pretty cool already, without customization, that is.

Cons

• Facial restructuring adjustments change very little and aren’t effective or impactful.
• Hair color changes are often muted, even when choosing neon colors.
• Minimal hairstyles options are provided.

Gameplay is great. There is very little I could decide to nitpick or complain about. It’s stayed true to the Diablo series. It’s absolutely fun and immersive and addicting. Diablo Immortal is just plain fun.

Players get to experience a PC game, a game both originally known and loved by PC gamers, on mobile or PC. They get to experience in-depth gameplay that most mobile games don’t have. All in all, it’s probably the best mobile game I’ve played in years. So, for players who like RPGs or love the Diablo series, the gameplay is certainly not disappointing.

Pros

• Great graphics (especially on a mobile game).
• Great feel and controls.
• True to the Diablo series in gameplay, storyline, and included NPCs (Deckard Cain, for example).
• When considering mobile games as a whole, this game doesn’t sacrifice much to make itself available to mobile players.
• Seamless navigation.

Cons

• Sometimes the MMO gameplay gets in the way for solo-players. I have experienced glitches when multiple players are trying to complete the same quest in the same area. Players may have to wait until another player is done with their quest to move forward (though this is not frequent).

The skills in Diablo Immortal are a bit of a mixed bag. Some are amazing, making gameplay more fun and addictive. Others seem pointless and anti-climactic, making them useless to equip over other skills.

Likewise, when it comes to skills across classes, some classes simply have better, “cooler” skills than others. I found that the Demon Hunter, Necromancer, and Crusader has better skills to equip, and were more effective in solo-play as a result.

Of course, different gamers find different skills an asset, so subjectivity plays a role in how each player perceives the skills from class-to-class.

Pros

• Skills are varied and work well in combination (i.e. well-thought-out when thinking about effective combos).
• Skills slots are easily customized and switched out to the player’s preference.
• Most skills look pretty darn cool and help create fun gameplay.

Cons

• Most Rank 1 skills seem unnecessary since they do very little and there are limited slots, meaning most players won’t use or equip them.
• Some skills for some classes are just better than others. Again, this is really up for debate and based somewhat on personal preference, but I found the Wizard skills particularly lacking.

When I first started playing Diablo Immortal, I didn’t see how detrimental the monetization strategy was. However, I think that’s kind of the point. As players get further into gameplay, they start to realize that their ability to play the game is inhibited by the pay-to-play scheme occurring.

Early game play isn’t impacted (particularly prior to around level 22), so players get addicted to the good graphics, great gameplay, and portability, only to find out: yes, they can keep playing, but the gameplay isn’t exactly equally distributed from player to player. So, young players, players on budgets, players without the means to shell out hundreds and thousands of dollars, aren’t playing the same game as those that can.

And while players can certainly keep playing, they don’t necessarily have “free” full-access to the game. They will be limited and have to be strategic as to where they allocate money and resources. They won’t be able to upgrade gear and add gems, etc., the way that those who pay-to-play will. In fact, that aspect of the game is incredibly limited, and the higher players level-up, the more limited it is.

So, in full, instead of paying $30 for a game, and getting full-access to all that game is capable of offering, they get a “free” game they can’t go full-force on unless they are willing to pay the price.

Pros

• There are daily free rewards and first kill of the day rewards.
• Players can still technically play the game without paying.

Cons

• Daily free rewards are not enough to get the best gear, providing incentive to pay-to-play.
• Though players can play without paying in a technical sense, they miss out on the best gear, and as they level-up may find some battles more difficult.
• Though the game is “free,” I think most players would rather pay for the game and have full-access than be forces to spend hundreds and thousands of dollars for full-access, meaning the ability to upgrade their gear and get the best gear possible.

In summary, I really enjoy Diablo Immortal. There are a lot of mobile games, and only a few of them deliver the way that this MMORPG does. It’s an immersive, fun, in-depth mobile game that RPG and MMO lovers can easily get addicted to, whether they previously loved the Diablo series or not.

Regardless of the problematic monetization strategy, there are few mobile games this fun to play, this graphically detailed, and this true to the original. While I do think the monetization strategy puts a damper on gameplay and is hugely disappointing, I can’t say I won’t continue to play Diablo Immortal.

Yes, this game should be priced reasonably to gain full-access right off the bat. Yes, players would much rather pay for the game than deal with misleading monetization strategies. Yes, it is disappointing and manipulative, especially when so many gamers have loved the Diablo series since the ’90s. But, does it make me want to stop playing it? No.

So, monetization problem aside, this is a great game. Let’s hope that Blizzard and NetEase Games hears the consistent complaint from players: This game is not free, and costs much more than any game should to actually gain full-access. Charge players upfront, so we can keep playing this otherwise rad game!

Pros

• True to the original Diablo series that gamers love. VGM (video game music) and voice acting is all true to the Diablo series.
• Gameplay is awesome.
• Graphics are great, especially for a mobile game.
• Not much, other than character customization, is sacrificed in this mobile RPG. In fact, Diablo Immortal rarely feels like a mobile game.
• Immersive and addicting. Once you start playing, it’s hard to put it down!

Cons

• Monetization strategy impacts gameplay as players level-up and realize they have to pay-to-upgrade. Gems and all the fancy upgrading that make players so powerful in gameplay simply isn’t fully accessible unless players are literally willing to pay the price.
• Character customization is limited and ineffective.
• Some MMO messiness occurs when multiple players are on the same quest in the same area (i.e. hard to see, may have lag, may have to wait for the other player to complete, and/or all components of that quest may not be available at first).

Obviously, the recovery compass will require a compass. You’ll need 4 iron ingots and 1 redstone dust, copy the recipe shown above.

This is the trickier item in the recipe, and you’ll need eight. Echo shards are found only in ancient cities, which spawn in the deep dark biome. You’ll have to travel down to deepslate level to find one.

Once you do find an ancient city, check all chests within it. There’s a 29.8% chance that 1-3 echo shards will be within a chest, in both Bedrock and Java editions.

Once you have the compass and eight echo shards, follow the recipe above!

For more information on what else was added to the Wild Update, check out our complete overview!

First, unlock your Mac using your password or Touch ID.

Then, find the content you want your smart TV to mirror.

Next, open the Control Center. The Control Center icon should be in your Task Bar in the upper right-hand corner.

Now, click “Screen Mirroring.”

Lastly, select the device you want to connect to with AirPlay and enjoy the content on a larger display.