Today’s young shooter fans may not realize the influence Tribes has had on games like Halo. The high-flying, vehicle driving, team-based antics of Tribe’s original outings have a lot to do with the Halo we’re familiar with today. The Tribes series has been on hiatus since the last game released in 2004, but with Tribes: Ascend, it’s back to reclaim its throne – or at least sit alongside other competing first-person online shooters.

Tribes: Ascend is a free-to-play game, which is surprising considering how rich an experience it is. I never found myself apologizing for the game or saying, “Oh well. It’s free, so I can’t complain,” because the game feels like a full retail release minus a single-player campaign. You can spend real money to speed up the process of gaining experience, unlock new loadouts and character classes, or customize your character with skins, but patient players never need to break out their wallets. You can unlock the same content as the paying customers with experience earned by playing. The process just takes considerably longer.

The unlocks to keep you going are worthwhile incentives, offering bigger and better weapons, and an assortment of additional classes and modes. There are nine classes in total, with many familiar ones if you ever spent time with a game like Team Fortress. The standard, well-rounded soldier (the one I ended up having the most fun with) is an option, as well as classes that can build turrets, employ stealth, snipe, move faster than everyone else, and heavy hitters who are slower, but have powerful weapons. The classes all appeal to your personal preference, so one is not necessarily better than the other, but each offers a different experience. Once you find your class groove, you can continually upgrade your character, and it’s easy to jump class to class if you’re getting bored.

The main draw of Tribes: Ascend is the mobility. Holding the spacebar deactivates friction, allowing you to slide down hills at impressive speeds. Using the hills as your own personal rollercoaster is an art, gliding down the surfaces and jetpacking your way up. You need precise timing to gain full speed, and when you get the hang of it, it can be an exhilarating experience.

The stages are built to facilitate this unique movement, which means the large maps don’t feel like they have been designed to foster interesting warzones. You don’t feel like you are partaking in individual battles; everybody is trying to snipe one another while they move around the map at full speed. It has a decidedly old-school feel to it, which may turn some players off. I would have liked to see more maps encouraging closer combat, since it’s harder to build rivalries from game to game when you are fighting speeding blurs.

All of the modes are of the team versus team variety. You’ll never be skiing around worrying exclusively about your own skin. You will be grabbing flags, holding down forts, and adding to your team’s total kill count. Not all the modes are available at the beginning, further encouraging continued play. These unlockable modes are where you find the motivated players who have put extra time into the game and are more interested winning than seeing if they can be at the top of the kill count on their team.

Getting a kill in Tribes: Ascend is hard. It takes many shots, and a lot of determination. You will rarely get the jump on somebody because of how fast everything is moving. You need to either chase down your foe and fire into their moving bodies, or aim for their feet with explosive weapons. The nature of the movement and the distance in the gunplay gives the shooting a floaty feel. None of your weapons or bullets feel like they have a lot of weight or power behind them. As such, getting a kill is a time-consuming, yet rewarding experience that is a welcome change from the “pull left trigger, pull right trigger, move on” twitch shooting of a game like Call of Duty. You also have grenades and a melee attack, but using either effectively is difficult.

One of the strange outcomes of being a quality free-to-play title that both helps and hinders the game is the large number of people playing. There are always be people to shoot at in Tribes: Ascension because of its low entry barrier, but it also means everyone is running and gunning on their own, despite the fact that all the available modes are team based. I never felt any allegiance to my team outside of not shooting at them when they crossed my path. Over time the casual players may abandon the game leaving more room for a more committed crowd, but until then you’ll want to bring a friend along to help build some camaraderie on your team.

Ascension feels like an old-school shooter but is able to be nostalgic and innovative at the same time. Speed and scale are what set Tribes: Ascend apart from comparable shooters. There’s a barrier to entry gaining access to all the classes, learning how to “ski” properly, and generally fending for yourself in the beginning, but it’s worth the time investment.

It’s been a long time since we saw a new Mario Tennis game. The series’ last release was Mario Power Tennis: New Play Control in 2009, a Wii re-release of the GameCube game featuring enhanced graphics and new motion controls. I enjoyed Power Tennis (both times), but the balance-breaking power shots were far too vital to winning. In response, Camelot has scaled back the wackiness with Open, which translates to a casual tennis game that plays it fairly straight.

While the courts are still themed after past Mario games, they are free of any gimmicks or moving parts, so winning or losing is based on skill alone. Though the gonzo power shots of Power Tennis are gone, special shots are implemented by placing colored markers on court when your opponent hits a weak return shot. Each color corresponds to a different shot, which varies from wildly arcing returns to drop shots that die upon bouncing. While they are certainly important to master, they don’t overtake the flow of the game. First, they are positional, so you have to be able to get to the spot to use them. Second, you’re definitely able to return them if you play them correctly – much more so than the power shots in Power Tennis.

This 3DS game doesn’t make too much of the system’s capabilities. It supports StreetPass (is anyone still using that?) and Miis (which you can customize with a variety of unlockable gear that adds to your stats). However, Camelot mishandled the 3D effects. You can access a zoomed in, behind the player view by holding the unit upright, which automatically disables the 3D. If you hold it flat, you get a traditional isometric view that technically displays in 3D, but adds little depth or impact. After experimenting with the options, I played with the 3D slider turned off.

The expected minigames return, though there are not as many as in Power Tennis. Galaxy Rally (where you must rally with your opponent to hit a certain number of returns), Ink Showdown (where the giant squid ball machines will obscure your view with ink blobs), and Ring Shot are fairly standard stuff. However, the Super Mario Tennis mode is ingenious. The original Super Mario Bros. is displayed on the backboard, and it scrolls as you hit coins, blocks, and enemies with the ball. You can even hit warp pipes to travel up and down to hidden areas and aim at the flagpole to end the level. It’s just another example of Nintendo’s endlessly inventive method of recycling its past.

For the first time in series history, Mario Tennis Open offers full online multiplayer – both singles and (impressively) doubles. It also has local wireless multiplayer. Based on my experience, both modes work smoothly. This isn’t the tennis revolution that some might have hoped for, but it’s a solid new feature in a franchise that’s built its popularity on slow, incremental improvement.

A logo is a graphic symbol or a shape which is designed to give an idea or concept in an effective and eye catching way.  It’s about making something unique and exceptional.  The logo shapes, colors, fonts and images are usually different from other in a similar market. Some are very creative and exceptional.  When coming up with a logo design, a good logo designer will focus on the the key aspects of the company to ensure that the logo provides a deeper meaning.

In this post, we’ll showcase some of the most inspiring logo designs on the web. Check them!

1. Google

2. Animal Planet

3. Paramount Pictures

4. Xerox

5. Kodak

6. KFC

7. Star Bucks

8. EA Sports

9. CNN

10. PepsiCo

11. Johnson and Johnson

12. Coca cola

13. Universal Studios

14. NBC

15. Dream works

16. Puma

17. Adidas

18. Mac Os

19. Baskin Robbins

20. MC Donald’s

21. Harley Davidson

22. Red Bull

23. MSN

24. Rolls Royce

25. Walt Disney

I hope this collection inspires you to put more thought into your next logo design.

25 Popular Logos Around the Web is a post from: Technshare

The setting for A Song of Ice and Fire by George R.R. Martin (and its accompanying HBO series, Game of Thrones) is bleak. Betrayal, murder, and underhanded scheming are major components of the franchise’s winning formula. These themes make Westeros an intriguing and dangerous place, a fact that is accurately reflected in this RPG from Cyanide Studios. Unfortunately, the rest of the experience is littered with technical and design issues so frustrating that they must have come from the unhinged mind of Mad King Aerys II. Like the Mad King’s reign, this spin on Martin’s fiction is ruinous for Westeros.

Similar to the point-of-view characters in the novels, the narrative in Game of Thrones is split into chapters, and control alternates between two protagonists. Alester is a red priest returned from a 15-year exile in the east, and Mors is a skinchanger in the Night’s Watch. Though the two plotlines are initially unconnected, each story arc is full of interesting developments and surprising twists, making their eventual convergence satisfying. The structure mimics the books’ appeal well, switching characters at moments of high tension and leaving you excited to pick up the thread later. Since the overall plot is the only thing the game has going for it, I won’t reveal specifics except to say that the tale is exceedingly grim – even more hopeless than the novels. The events take place parallel to the first book and the show’s first season, so you don’t need to worry about any series spoilers if you’ve gotten that far in ­either ­form.

Martin himself collaborated with Cyanide to create the story, but given the poor quality of the individual scenes, I’m guessing the author’s involvement stopped at a high-level conceptual phase. The dialogue is standard fantasy fare, devoid of personality and made worse by stilted voice performances. As if that weren’t enough to drain away the drama, bad animation and serious technical problems distract from scenes that are supposed to be climactic. Seeing characters phase through walls, appear out of thin air, or wordlessly open and close their mouths  transmutes any potential emotional impact into unintentional humor – an unforgiveable problem when you’re trying to tell a grim, dark ­fantasy ­tale.

The situation doesn’t improve on the battlefield. Combat plays similarly to the console version of Dragon Age: Origins, but with less polish (and remember Origins on consoles was already sloppy). You set up actions in a three-slot queue, then watch your commands get carried out in sequence. Apart from your basic attack, no abilities are mapped to any face buttons, so you frequently need to pause (though the action doesn’t stop entirely) and pull up an ability wheel to issue new orders. Your powers are cool, especially those involving Mors’ dog and Alester’s affinity for fire, but the stop-and-go feeling keeps fights from gaining momentum.

Even when you win, you won’t get any tactical satisfaction. Every enemy in the game is just a dude in some armor (with a single late-game exception), and they aren’t military geniuses. Archers often attack at point-blank range, stupidly trying to fire arrows while flanked by swordsmen. Guards stand oblivious while their comrades are slaughtered in huge battles only feet away. You can usually cruise through fights against these idiots without a problem, but the difficulty can spike unexpectedly, overwhelming you and leaving you with no way to grind out a few extra levels. In these instances, it helps to adjust the difficulty on the fly to survive the poorly balanced fights.

In many RPGs, good rewards can soothe the sting of an uneven battle system. That doesn’t happen in Game of Thrones. Nearly all of the good items from shops are unattainably expensive until the game is practically over, leaving you to scavenge for gear suited to your particular armor and weapon specialties. Leveling your characters isn’t much fun, either. The attribute and skill system only bestow imperceptible bonuses (like raising your hit chance from 84.7 percent to 86.1 percent), meaning that you rarely have a sense of your characters’ growing power.

At its worst, Game of Thrones is difficult to tolerate, but the burden of its many problems isn’t enough to render the experience worthless. For those already familiar with the franchise, the story of Mors and Alester is consistent with the world and provides insight into events beyond the reach of the regular series cast. However, you must be a forgiving and devoted fan to enjoy the best that this game can offer. Otherwise, you’re better off following the words of Genna Lannister: “Better to mock the game than to play and lose."

While all of these content-types provide a great deal of tangible value to a web-page in the way that they increase its complexity and ability to engage incoming traffic, it is important to remember that search engines still do not have sophisticated mechanisms in place for breaking down media-based content into keyword indexes. Because of this caveat, we must be careful to differentiate between the tangible value of media content, and the intangible benefits that come with it.

The first step to valuing images or videos as content is to determine whether it is value-adding or value enhancing. This can be determined by asking ourselves if the media serves as the focal point of the given page, or if it is secondary to a greater article. For example, an article with an embedded within it is still an article. It simply has an image embedded to support the quality of the article. This would be as opposed to a page that consists of one large image (such as an info-graphic) that acts as the main focal-point of the page, and draws a majority of the user’s attention.

In this latter situation, the image would be of much greater worth than the embedded image, simply because of the way in which it serves as a much more valuable contributing factor to the worth of the overall asset. However, because the larger image itself will only be indexed on the basis of its title, alternative text, and caption tags, it is important to remember that the value of this media will be restricted by its contextual relevance. Essentially, the search engines will barely notice it for what it’s worth unless we can make sure that there is some sort of text on the page that is referencing the kind of information it is communicating.

Similarly to the issue of the image not being properly recognized by search engines for its true informational worth, videos are arguably undervalued by search engines. While videos are certainly recognized as improving the quality of the content being provided, they are not necessarily weighted for the kind of information that is being communicated within them, because there is no way to as of yet break down and analyze what is going on within the media itself.

As such, it is important for us to have structured in some sort of contextually relevant text to explain what is going on in the video. Ever notice how it is that music videos on video sites include the full lyrics of the song in the description box? This is exactly what they are trying to accomplish. With that in mind, the next article will describe how it is that we can measure the worth of a piece of rich-media in accordance to its contexts on the page itself.

Max Payne 3’s opening shots bear no resemblance to the series’ iconic imagery of a black trench coat flapping in the wind as a hail of bullets whiz by in slow motion. Instead, the game begins with three snapshots of a much different Max – sitting alone in an apartment with a bottle of whiskey at his side; standing bald, bearded, and bloodied over a horribly mangled body; and the most shocking portrait of all, dressed for show in an expensive suit as he mingles with the rich.

Despite his radically different appearances, Max’s state-of-mind is always the same: He’s a cynical jerk with a biting sense of humor. He’s older, wiser, and at times, appears to be someone who has found peace. As much as I laughed at his quick wit and hilarious inner monologue, the game continually reminded me that he wasn’t okay. He still carries his demons with him, and he’s doing his damnedest to suppress them. Most of the game’s transitional moments are bridged with montages of Max drinking extensively and popping pills. The entire game is riddled with graphical distortion meant to illustrate Max’s struggle with addiction. I can see these effects becoming problematic for some players, as they are jarring, but I think they do a fantastic job of reminding us who Max is, and plant the seed that if he wasn’t intoxicated, situations may play out differently.

As much as Max Payne 3 is a fascinating portrait of a man, it tells a great, action-packed story that runs in-stride with Max’s inner turmoil. Thanks to an invitation from an old friend, Max finds himself working in the shady world of private security in Sao Paulo, Brazil for real estate tycoon, Rodrigo Branco. Max is tasked to keep a protective eye on Branco’s wife, Fabiana, an out-of-control party girl with an entourage in tow. Fabiana’s lifestyle often takes Max to places where he can sit back and enjoy a drink. In fact, the game’s first gameplay sequence is set in a swank bar that overlooks one of San Paulo’s poverty-stricken neighborhoods. As Max relaxes, Comando Sombra, a gang tied to Brazilian drug trade, infiltrates the party and opens fire on the guests. Fabiana is kidnapped. Max gives chase, but despite leaving the bar littered with Comando Sombra corpses, is unable to reclaim her. What unfolds next is a thrilling pursuit loaded with twists and turns, excitement and tension, and smoking hot gunplay every step of the way.

We see a different side of Max in this game, but when his gun is drawn, he instantly morphs back to the Max of old, a bullish gunslinger who can run into the middle of a lobby and down a handful of foes without seeking the aid of cover or taking a hit. This is all thanks to Max’s greatest ally, Bullet Time, an ability that allows him to slow down the world and move a hair faster than his foes. Although many games have adopted similar slow-motion gunplay throughout the years, this is the most fun I’ve had with this ability. The gunplay is smooth and polished, and almost every combat scenario becomes a game of “how many enemies can I drop at once.” Rockstar Studios also forces Max into Bullet Time for over-the-top scripted sequences that you’d think were designed for a new Jason Statham Crank movie. All of the targeting mechanics (hard lock, soft lock, and free aim) are beautifully implemented.

Animation plays a large role in intensifying the firefights. If Max dives too close to a wall, he’ll smash into it, leaving him vulnerable for a few seconds before he rights his aim from the floor or rises. Little touches like Max trying to cover his face as he lunges toward a wall or tuck his arms under his body as he rolls are impressive.

Most environment surfaces hit by bullets crack or shatter in different ways. The explosion of glass on a framed picture looks fantastic, and most of the cover Max can seek refuge behind can be chipped away or outright destroyed. The cover mechanic works without a hitch most of the time, however, I did run into five or six instances of Max’s gun running into collision problems with cover, causing his firearm to point toward the ceiling and fire shots upward.

The campaign is a fun ride that rarely slows. The script, an area Rockstar always seems to knock out of the park, takes Max to interesting places, and doesn’t follow a predictable path. Once the bullets start flying, the game doesn’t load. Much like the Uncharted games, story sequences bleed directly into gameplay. On several occasions I had to scramble to fire shots.

Max Payne may not seem like a franchise that lends itself well to multiplayer, but Rockstar has found a way to keep Bullet Time alive and well for deathmatching purposes, and uses it to anchor a robust offering of competitive modes.

Deathmatch and team deathmatch prove to be fun, grinder-like experiences with average lives lasting for 20 to 30 seconds. Becoming Max or Raul Passos (an old colleague of Max’s) in Payne Killer mode delivers that “how many foes can I down before I fall” thrill. This mode starts with a standoff between all of the players in the match. The first player to land a kill becomes Max. The player that was killed becomes Raul. These two characters are more powerful than the others and must work together to earn as many points as they can before they are taken out. The player that takes out one of these characters takes ­their ­role.

The coolest multiplayer mode offered is Gang Wars. This mode pits two teams against each other and incorporates story threads from the campaign to shape the five rounds. How a round ends dictates what the next objective will be, a design that keeps the battles fresh.

The same great gunplay from the campaign is replicated in the multiplayer modes, and immense depth is tied to the ranking system (with a level cap of 50) and slew of unlockable guns, skins, and items. Rockstar also provides a crew system that tracks world ranks, kill-to-death ratios, and first place finishes for ­each ­crew.

No matter what gameplay mode I chose, I had a great time playing Max Payne 3. The gameplay doesn’t explore new territory, but delivers a retro charm that fans of the series should appreciate. It’s a new day for Max Payne, and at the same time, a return to his glorious past.

Dropbox is the rapidly growing online website that facilitates you to take backup of all your important data. The most admirable features about Dropbox is that you don’t have headache to take backup data all the time, as it will automatically take backup of all your important data to your online account and in your dropbox system folder. Below are some features about Dropbox, that you would surely going to love about:

• 2 GB of Free Space and 100 GB of space for paid customers
• Automatically synchronize files and folders from your hard drive.
• Share photos, songs, videos etc. with any group or person.
• Take online backup frequently
• Recover deleted files and folders from dropbox account
• High security
• Anyone can access using his/her mobile device.

In my opinion, All these features probably gives you the satisfactory reason to chose Dropbox services. However, It could be difficult to use dropbox for new user and they had to give some time to use it properly. The most worst situation is created when you delete the files that you don’t want and at later, you realized that the files you deleted are of great important and want to get it back and perhaps , everyone is here to know about how to recover files that were deleted either mistakenly or unintentionally.

So, don’t get frustrated as I will show you some easy steps that brings your deleted files back. Here they are:

• Login or create an account on dropbox.com
• Under the Files tab, You will find a sub menu named ‘Show deleted files’, as shows in the image:

After clicking on it, a popup list will shows up containing deleted folders highlighted in grey color.

Note: These files are deleted in past 30 days. So, It’s clear that more than 30 days older files couldn’t be recovered.

• Right click on the desired deleted file, and chose ‘restore’. Likelywise, you can see the previous versions of deleted files and folders.

• At last, by confirming the steps, you will get those files back in your Dropbox online account.

How to Recover files From offline account on Windows:

This will works only if the deleted files were uploaded on the Dropbox server. That means, if you forget to upload the offline files and somehow deleted it, then it becomes permanent non recoverable.
The steps to recover Dropbox synchronized files are mentioned below:

• The default location for Dropbox home folder will be C:\Users\home\Dropbox or see if it’s different.
•  Right click on the desired deleted files and then click on ‘View previous versions’:

• You will be redirected to Dropbox official website, from where you can easily restore the trashed files.

That’s all about how we can recover deleted files either from Dropbox online account or from Windows . Dropbox is the powerful way to easily manage and take backup of all your precious data without any hassle, so as if you forget to take backup Dropbox will do it automatically.

How to Recover Deleted Files and Folders From Dropbox is a post from: Technshare

The first two aspects of social media that create value for an asset as a form of content are similar in the way that they are short strings of text that are relevant to contexts of the page itself. While comments and tweets both differ in application, it is important to recognize their similarities. Essentially, a tweet is a short comment that appears off-page and links in, and a comment is tweet that occurs on page. By simplifying these two forms of content, we can price them at the same general point, with perhaps a slight premium placed on the external tweet to accommodate the potential for viral value.

While the general cost of a tweet can be literally thousands of dollars, the tangible value of such a tweet is anchored in its viral worth (something we will cover later on). As a raw piece of content, the value of a tweet is usually around $ 0.18-0.25. From there, we can then extrapolate the value to understand how it is that a much more complex Facebook comment could be worth as much as $ 3-6, and then a full blow shared link on a social media platform, including a comment, would be anywhere from $ 5-12, depending on the contextual quality of the comment and page surrounding it.

The last thing to take into consideration when valuing Social Media as a content source is its ability to perpetuate its value. Because of the way in which a piece of social content allows other users to comment and share from within the thread itself, a single tweet has the capability of becoming an entire discussion, and a comment has the potential to lead to additional sharing.

This means that each individual piece of social content that is created by a website should therefore be valued as a fixed asset, with the ability to scale independently from the asset itself. We can then determine the ability of this content to scale by measuring its potential for gaining attention, and pricing accordingly within an acceptable price range. Remember, even though every single piece of social content that we acquire has the potential to become a major driver of traffic to our page on its own, we need to remember that we are building a portfolio through these acquisitions, and that the majority of them will simply exist by themselves.

As always, contextual relevance is the major differentiator for these sorts of situations. A contextually relevant social media platform has the potential to have a greater impact than one that is not, and is therefore worth more on its own.

With the cost of just about everything going up these days and wage rises a thing of the past for most people it pays to know a few ways that you can use to boost your income.  Even earning an extra £50 or a £100 each month can make a big difference to most people’s household budget.  While working online can be a great way to make money online it can be hard to find the time to create a website or set up and maintain a blog.  Fortunately there are a number of things you can do online in your spare time that can bring in a little extra cash.  These opportunities are open to everyone and there are no special skills or knowledge required.  You won’t have to pay any money to get started and all you will need is your laptop and an internet connection.  To see how you can make your spare time a little more profitable read on.

Amazon Mechanical Turk

The Mechanical Turk or Mturk program is operated by Amazon so you can be sure that it is a genuine opportunity.  When you visit the site and sign up for the program you will see thousands of HIT’s (human intelligence tasks) that you can do and earn money from.  These are tasks that computers are unable to do and need a human to complete properly.  Most of the tasks are very simple in nature and some of them can be completed in just a few seconds.  Some HIT’s are only available to people with appropriate qualifications although the majority of them are open to everyone.  Examples of common HIT tasks include selecting correct spellings for search terms, choosing appropriate categories for products, translating a webpage etc.

The Mturk program is ideal for earning money with in your spare time.  You can work at any time of the day and do as much or as little as you want.  While the pay for doing some of the tasks can be a little low they don’t take much time to complete.  Short Task is another great website offering this type of work.

User Testing

If you know what it takes to make a great website you can make your knowledge pay at User Testing.  It offers website reviews to companies of all sizes about how user friendly their websites are and how they can be improved.  They are currently looking for reviewers to visit sites and they pay $ 10 for each site that you visit.  When you visit a site you simply record your thoughts and impressions on the software provided and the video is sent to the company for review.  When you sign up you will be asked to do a sample website visit to make sure that you meet the criteria for reviewers.

Paid Surveys

Taking paid surveys is probably one of the easiest ways to make some money in your spare time.  Even if you only have 20 minutes free each day you can make it pay by doing a survey or two.  There are a number of legitimate sites that you can join and start earning money and other rewards.  While you aren’t going to earn a fortune the work is easy and you can do it in front of the TV.  Among the best paid survey sites are Toluna, Survey Club and Valued Opinions.  While there are a number of scams associated with paid surveys they are easy to avoid with a little care.  You should never have to pay to find paid survey work and if anyone asks you for money or your credit card details don’t give it to them.  There is no reason why you should have to pay and if you are being asked for money before you take a survey it is definitely a scam.

Fiverr

Fiverr is possibly the ultimate way to make money in your spare time.  You can post a gig on the site that will only take you a few minutes to do and will earn you $ 5 each time you get a taker.  The more outrageous and bizarre your gig is the better although you can offer serious services as well.  However if the job you are offering is going to take more than a few minutes to do it will probably take up too much of your time.  Have a browse around the site to see what other people are doing and for ideas for your own gig.  You’ll be amazed at what people are offering and the number of takers they have for even relatively simple gigs.

Writing

There are all kinds of writing jobs available on the net.  Websites always need new content writing for them or you can write reviews or be a blogger.  If you have decent English and can string a few sentences together you have all the qualifications you need to write online.  You can write whenever you get the time and can of course do it from the comfort of your own home.  Writing can be a

Free ways to make money online