On this week’s Drill Down podcast, Net Neutrality may have a fighting chance, Facebook for kids, cryptocurrency in the news, Tesla powers Australia and goes to Mars… and much, much more.

On this week’s The Drill Down podcast, Amazon primes Whole Foods, Uber has a new head, Samsung loses its head, Half-Life comes to an end(?), Germany solves “the trolley problem,” and much more.

On this week’s Drill Down podcast, is this the end of Uber’s downward spiral?, Amazon buys Whole Foods, most U.S. voters have been hacked, why you can’t be kicked off the Internet, a precedent-setting case of manslaughter via text, and much, much more.

Podcast

On this week’s The Drill Down podcast, more trouble for Uber, a leaked NSA report on the 2016 election, great news for indie game developers, and all the best from Apple’s World Wide Developers Conference (Apple WWDC 2017), much more.

If you’re one of the few people on this planet of ours who has yet to play Bethesda’s post-apocalyptic RPG hit Fallout 4, this weekend is your chance to take it for a test drive.

The game is available to play for free to those who do their gaming on Xbox and Steam from today, May 25th, to this Sunday, May 28th (early May 29th for some). The full game and season pass will also be available to purchase permanently at a discount if you dig your time playing for free. And while PlayStation players aren’t in on the free trial, they will have the same chance to purchase at a discount, which is very much worth your coin.

More below, including a trailer to announce the free weekend.

This week, we recover from Black Friday, the NSA ends mass-surveillance, the private information of 200,00+ kids get hacked, a $5 computer, and the largest cloning factory in the world …All this and more … on The Drill Down.

Armello
Steam | PlayStation 4
Developer: League of Geeks
Release Date: September 1, 2015
Retail Price: $19.99

At this year’s PAX Prime I spoke to Trent Kusters, the Art Director at League of Geeks, a company based out of Melbourne Australia who came up with the game Armello.

Armello is a digital pattern board game with RPG and RTS elements. In it, you play as a “Hero” from one of the four animal clans: Rat, Rabbit, Bear, or Wolf. On every turn each player quests, schemes, fights, and explores across a procedurally generated board with the sole goal of becoming king or queen of the land of Armello. Armed with various types of cards (items, spells, and trickery), your mission becomes further empowered.

Tinertia, made by Candescent Games Inc., is a game which stars Weldon, a robot equipped with a powerful rocket launcher that allows him to propel himself through a series of levels and tackle obstacles along the way. Players are only provided the ability to move as well as a rocket-firing trigger that can destroy objects or propel Weldon along. In addition to being able to control Weldon via a game controller, players also have the option of using a keyboard and mouse for further precision.

At PAX Prime 2015, I had the opportunity to try out Tinertia and talk to their CEO, Vilas Tewari, about it. The game was inspired by the rocket-jumping mechanics of Quake and Team Fortress. The team identified that element as the most enjoyable part of the game. It was the one unique aspect that kept bringing them back day after day to these titles. Tinertia became their opportunity to dedicate and expose the pure fun of rocket jumping. As they began experimenting with the concept, they found it easier to tell their story from a side perspective where the world was visible rather than the traditional first person view of Quake. This became further realized by Section Studios whose artists helped formulate a gritty Mario 3D feel for the 7 worlds and 66 levels that comprise Tinertia. To amplify the industrial environment, Candescent Games incorporated music inspired by Deus Ex: Human Revolution to provide a relaxing atmosphere before becoming more energetic as the character progresses. It became a mix of electronica and classical beats. Overall, Vilas and his team’s vision was to create a game that could be taken on its own merit, and similar to the Nintendo games of old, be a purely fun experience to play through.

The long established battle between Red Vs. Blue in Team Fortress just got a little more exciting. Valve just announced on the Team Fortress blog that they have collaborated with the team from Bad Robot productions and Escalation Studios, to come up with a new game mode for TF2 called “PASS Time.” The new game mode is ready for beta testing, which was kind of the part that fascinated Bad Robot, initially.

This week, how Apple Music stands up to competitors, warrantless surveillance expands, new hardware from Valve & Xbox, DIY lethal weapons, and a selfie that killed — literally … all that and much more.