gaming – Pain In The Bud

Game View: The Future London Of Watch Dogs: Legion

It took a team of thousands to recreate London in stunning detail. Here’s what it looks like.

Over the years I’ve developed kind of an obsession with virtual recreations of real places, and since I’ve mentioned it in the past on PITB, I figured virtual London would be a good place to start.

The gates of Buckingham Palace at night. Although Legion depicts a future London, Queen Elizabeth II was still going strong in 2020 when the game was released, and her reign felt like it could go on forever. There’s a hologram portrait of her somewhere in the city, but I cannot remember where I saw it. (Near the British Museum perhaps?)

So the next best thing is an illustrative image of the gates of Buckingham Palace in this future dystopian London, where a private security megacontractor has essentially taken over the city, leaving people pining for a sight of the queen:

In Legion you’re part of an activist/hacker collective called DedSec, fighting back against a police state. As a result, any Londoner is a potential ally. You can recruit police officers, judges, barristers, construction workers, street cleaners, assassins, spies, office workers, store clerks, disc jockeys, the homeless, and people from any background you can think of.

Each has its advantages: judges and cops allow you to get access to restricted spaces and manipulate the legal system from within. Construction workers have access to equipment no one else can touch, and security won’t think twice about them walking into a construction site. Street sweepers are largely invisible to a public that ignores them, allowing them to listen in on conversations.

Every person has a different attitude toward authority, challenging it, and the direction the UK has been heading. Recruiting them involves winning them over to your side by proving you can be trusted, sometimes by helping them out personally, sometimes by keeping secrets, and sometimes by striking back at the authorities.

One of the most fun parts is that DedSec’s secret headquarters is tucked into the back of this pub, The Earl’s Fortune, accessible via a secret door in a back room:

Early morning in Piccadilly Circus, before the crowds:

The Sky Garden at the top of the “walkie talkie building” affords incredible views of the city:

The Eye. Yes, you can ride it. Yes, you can take photos from it.

This is called Waterloo Plaza in the game. I’m not sure if it’s a real place or if it’s been renamed due to rights issues:

A tube station with an advertisement that reads “Illegals hurt homegrown Brits.” The game clearly took inspiration from real life political events and grievances:

The “gherkin” from the Sky Garden. Again because of rights issues, the logo is from a company that does not exist in the real world:

Beefeaters standing guard:

“Larry?! Larry, where have you run off to?”

The authorities do not like you getting anywhere near No. 10 Downing St. It took a lot of sneaking around for me to get this close and get these screenshots. Sadly, I did not see Larry.

I’m not sure exactly where this is, but the game recreates streets and neighborhoods in astonishing detail. Note the puddle on the pavement. Modern gaming technology actually recreates the way light bounces off of water, stone, windows, plants, etc. In the past, if you saw a reflection in a game, it was a static texture. Thanks to ray tracing technology, all reflections are dynamic, meaning if you’re looking in a store window and a bus passes behind you, you see the bus pass in the reflection. It’s awesome.

A street adjacent to Piccadilly Circus:

The view from an Eye capsule. The Thames is dirty AF!

Big Ben:

In reference to the ray tracing effects mentioned above, note the way the windows reflect the surrounding area. You can see the light behaves differently based on whether it’s in shadow or sunlight, and the surrounding structures are reflected in the windows. At night the windows behave dynamically so they are turned on and off randomly. Using shaders, you can see the interior rooms from street level.

Regretfully I did not take enough photos of random neighborhoods. In Southwark, for example, there are run-down areas, public housing and you don’t see the grand structures of historic neighborhoods.

There are parks with people kicking footballs around and laying in the grass, bicyclists, buskers, people talking on their phones, mimes, cops on the beat.

Another view through a Sky Garden window:

In the future, free wifi will be even more plentiful!

What’s next? Tokyo? New York? Ancient Athens? Future Detroit? Los Angeles? Miami?

All images captured on my PC: AMD Ryzen 7 8700F 8-Core Processor (4.10 GHz), AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT (12 GB), 32GB DDR5 G-Skill RAM, Windows 11.

‘Cat Life Simulator’ Is The Latest In The Evolving Play-As-A-Cat Game Genre

Ah, to experience life as a cat for a few hours…

With the success of games like Stray and Little Kitty, Big City, it’s become clear there’s an escapism market for video game players who find it relaxing to step into the paws of our feline friends.

While Stray is an adventure game with heavy doses of mystery and atmospheric science fiction, Cat Life Simulator looks like it’s trying to scratch the same itch as Little Kitty by allowing gamers to experience the whimsical side of feline existence.

That is to say, don’t expect any major challenges, boss fights, or RPG mechanics like leveling up.

In a game like this, the journey is the point, and we use “journey” in a very loose sense here, since it can include napping, knocking objects over for fun and causing havoc.

The closest thing to a challenge mechanic we can see in the trailer is avoiding water. As we all know, our furry friends are generally not fond of getting wet. You wouldn’t either if you were walking around with the equivalent of a fur coat you can partially shed in the warm months but can never fully ditch. (Unless you have a human who brings you to a groomer, which for many cats may rank worse than getting soaked.)

As casual-friendly as Cat Life Simulator looks, the visuals are decidedly high end, and the early hardware recommendations indicate this is a game that will require a decent video card at least.

The game is listed as “coming soon” on Steam with no specific date. We’ll keep you posted as more information becomes available.

The Big Cats Of ‘Exodus’ Are Badass

The new science fiction franchise consists of novels, a short film, a game due out next year, and an encyclopedic art book. It’s got a compelling narrative, deep lore and all the trappings of great SF, and best of all it has awesome big cats.

Exodus is a hugely anticipated upcoming game from the team behind the beloved Mass Effect series, but it’s so much more than that.

It’s also a 900-plus page science fiction novel, Exodus: The Archimedes Engine by the outstanding novelist Peter F. Hamilton. A second book, Exodus: The Helium Sea, also authored by Hamilton, is due for release on June 16. A short film in the Amazon Prime Video series Secret Level, titled Exodus: Odyssey, further expands the fictional universe and its lore, as does an “encyclopedia” hardcover about the Exodus universe, its major factions, planets and technology.

Matthew McConaughy is enthusiastically involved, as an actor and producer. (Allright, allright, allright!)

Oh, and it has big cats!

The screenshots in this post are from Exodus: Odyssey, and depict an Awakened Jaguar.

In Exodus, certain animals are “Awakened,” meaning they’ve been genetically modified to give them cognitive and physical gifts.

In the case of big cats, it means they’re smart enough to understand human language, follow complex instructions, interact with technology, and make decisions. Big cats are companions, guards and serve as intimidating special units in the military.

The Awakened Jaguar in this scene is the companion and guardian of a planetary governor. He’s very protective of his human and immediately leaps up to growl in warning when a visitor takes an aggressive step forward.

The Awakened Jaguar leaps up as a conversation becomes intense.

Awakened animals can wear tech peripherals, weapons, armor and tools. Big cats are mostly muscle, guards, soldiers and are used to intimidate enemies, while planetary police forces use Awakened dogs and one prominent character is an Awakened octopus who occupies a tank in his own personal mech, allowing him freedom of movement outside of water.

In Exodus: The Archimedes Engine, there’s a scene depicting Awakened Lions deployed with the military. They’re considerably larger than terrestrial elephants, weighing several tons, standing three times the height of adult men. They’re terrifying to behold, which is precisely why the Celestial military has them accompany their generals as honor guards.

There are also Awakened Tigers who are bigger and much more intelligent than their Earthly counterparts, with fur that can function as active camouflage. The Awakened Tigers are described and illustrated in a companion book, which notes that while the genetically modified big cats are powerful, intimidating and extremely effective, they also have voracious appetites, scarfing down more than a hundred pounds of meat per day.

The Exodus encyclopedia shows an Awakened Tiger standing protectively over a recon soldier:

A two-page illustration of an Awakened Tiger from the Exodus Encyclopedia.

As for the story behind Exodus, I cannot say enough good things about Exodus: The Archimedes Engine.

Hamilton is known for sprawling far-future narratives that combine memorable characters with fabulous technology, vividly imagined societies and awe-inspiring discoveries in the cosmos.

Many of his novels deal with humanity’s encounters with alien civilizations, which range from the serenely benevolent (the Raiel) to the terrifyingly genocidal (MorningLightMountain) and everything in between.

Exodus departs from that template to tell a story about a conflict between regular humans and the Celestials, post-humans who have spent tens of thousands of years on a self-guided evolutionary path that has transformed them into creatures that no longer bear any resemblance to the rest of humanity.

A Celestial queen from the Crown Dominion. The Crown Dominion’s Celestials appear bizarre to us but are actually among the more “normal” looking of the Celestial factions. The most inhuman are said to be the dread Mara Yama and the Talloch-Te.

To say the Celestials consider themselves better than “baseline” humanity is a drastic understatement — Celestial societies have no qualms about breeding humans for specialized labor and roles, emphasizing traits like subservience and loyalty.

In other words, regular humans are treated the same way many in our current society treat animals, as commodities and resources to exploit.

Naturally that does not sit well with people, and the central narrative follows a rebellious group who seek to free every faction from Celestial shackles.

I’m looking forward eagerly to Exodus: The Helium Sea, the second epic novel set for release in six short weeks. I was a bit anxious that a series of novels as a tie-in to a game would be somehow not as great as Hamilton’s usual books, but I should have known the author doesn’t do anything half-assed. The first book introduced compelling mysteries and answered a lot of burning questions, but left plenty to look forward to and resolve.

And as much as I’m hyped for the story, I’m also crossing my fingers for more big cats. Maybe I can convince the creative team that their universe needs an Awakened Buddy…

“No, dude, I get the captain’s quarters! I will generously allow you to use my bed and you will continue to have the honor of being my pillow and stuff.”

Opening Your Heart To A Crazy Cat: The Story Of Kevin

A writer reminds us that feline friendships don’t always come easy, but some of the hardest-won are the most rewarding.

When San Francisco’s KQED, the local public radio affiliate, asked its culture writers to reflect on “one beautiful thing” from 2025, Rae Alexander chose her cat, Kevin.

Kevin is “chaos in cat form,” a feline “sociopath” who doesn’t realize how much damage he does with his claws. The tabby, Alexander writes, is “never not screaming at us for food” and pads around as if he owns the place. (That sounds awfully familiar!)

After bringing Kevin’s heavily pregnant mother in from the cold earlier this year, Alexander adopted Kevin’s mother and his “well-behaved sister,” but was repeatedly rebuffed when she tried to get rid of Kevin himself.

Three potential adopters fell through while Kevin was growing out of his kitten stage, drastically reducing his chances of finding a home.

Then something crazy happened: cat and human came to a mutual understanding and the beginnings of trust led to friendship and love. As with any progress in gaining a cat’s trust, it was not a quick process, but Kevin eventually showed another side — a much softer, appreciative version of himself who enjoys cuddling and expresses love despite his quirks.

“As this fraught year draws to a close, I want Kevin to be a pertinent reminder to us all that the little things bumming us out today might just lead to the things that make us happiest tomorrow,” Alexander wrote. “Start putting all those everyday stresses on the stairs. You never know where that might lead in 2026.”

Read the whole thing here:

https://www.kqed.org/arts/13983150/kevin-favorite-cat-sociopath

We’re back after a brief interruption!

Apologies for going radio silent over the past week. This past Saturday I sat down to write and my computer was dead. As in completely dead — I couldn’t even trick it into loading BIOS or getting a boot screen.

So I said farewell to a machine that had served me well since 2018, that served as my primary platform for writing, producing music and gaming.

Now I’ve got an absolute beast of a machine centered on one of the new Ryzen chipsets, and it takes quite a bit of restraint not to go into nerdy details. I’m still setting things up, especially the music production workflow.

The important thing is, I’m able to properly sit at a desk and write again, and Buddy can properly supervise me from his desktop perch again, so we are now back!

Wordless Wednesday: Nibbles The Cat From Cyberpunk 2077

Nibbles is the feline star of Cyberpunk 2077, a little buddy who adds a little levity and fun to the game’s dystopian future.

For PITB’s inaugural Wordless Wednesday, which is turning out to be a somewhat Wordy Wednesday, we’re celebrating Nibbles, the pet cat of protagonist V in Cyberpunk 2077.

Cyberpunk is an open world video game set in Night City, a sprawling dystopian city-state. If you’ve ever wondered what it would be like to live in the perpetual gloom of Blade Runner’s rainy, neon-soaked future, Cyberpunk 2077 is as close as you’re going to get.

Notably, you don’t start the game with Nibbles, who is initially a stray living in the filthy hallways of your apartment building and subsisting on garbage. You’ve got to find him, feed him real food and convince him you’ll be a worthy servant, because even trash-eating strays have standards.

A gamer shows off her pet cat, who bears a striking resemblance to Nibbles. Credit: Elissa Ayadi/Instagram

After you rescue Nibbles, he makes himself at home in your apartment, faithfully greets you when you return, protests when you use the shower, and meows impatiently for yums. He also enjoys lounging in your laundry basket.

You can pose with Nibbles anywhere in Night City for screenshots.