Norway’s Fyllingsdalen tunnel is a showstopping piece of urban cycling infrastructure — for a city where car-centric development still dominates.

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Bergen’s most recent attraction is a unique one: In April, the city of around 270,000 opened the Fyllingsdalen tunnel, a three-kilometer bike-pedestrian pathway that was bored through a mountain. Local officials proudly declared Fyllingsdalen tunnel to be “the world’s longest purpose-built cycling tunnel.” (The Snoqualmie tunnel in Washington State is lengthier, but it used to be rail line.)

Fyllingsdalen tunnel is about as photogenic as an urban bike path can get. Inside, it offers art installations and creative lighting; at its exit, there are stunning mountain views. CNN and Smithsonian have lavished it with international attention, and visiting cycling advocates like the Netherlands-based authors Melissa and Chris Bruntlett have swooned.

Last month I hopped on a bike to traverse the tunnel for myself, and I can confirm that it is an ingenious piece of healthy, climate-friendly infrastructure; I have never seen anything remotely like it. The tunnel is also practical, providing a car-free connection between Bergen’s bustling city center and a fast-growing neighborhood on the other side of the mountain.

But — there is a big “but.” As awe-inspiring as Fyllingsdalen tunnel is, it is still only a Band-Aid fix for Bergen’s decades of car-oriented development. The tunnel reflects the city’s current efforts to shift local trips away from cars, but that goal clashes with a national government whose transportation policies still revolve around the automobile. In such an environment, even the most spectacular bike path can only do so much

Jonathan Guessford was first confronted, then hassled, then pursued, then pulled over, and, finally, cited for a moving violation he didn’t commit by Delaware state troopers.

Guessford managed to attract the attention of Corporal Stephen Douglas, Trooper Nicholas Gallo, and Master Corporal Raiford Box by calling attention to a state police speed trap. As is detailed in Guessford’s lawsuit [PDF] (and captured on multiple cameras, including Guessford’s phone), the officers rolled up on Guessford armed with their attitudes and some convenient lies.

This is from the NBC report on the recent lawsuit settlement:

The cell phone video shows troopers approaching Guessford, who was standing in a grassy area next to the shoulder of Route 13 north of Dover. Douglas told Guessford that he was “disrupting traffic,” while Gallo, based on a witness report, said Guessford was “jumping into traffic.”

“You are a liar,” Guessford told Gallo.

“I’m on the side of the road, legally parked, with a sign which is protected by the First Amendment,” he told troopers.

Dascham video shows Douglas twice lunging at Guessford to prevent him from raising his sign. Gallo then ripped it from his hands and tore it up.

A lawsuit, filed by patrons of a county library in Arkansas, has been allowed to move forward by a federal court. The First Amendment lawsuit plausibly alleges the library’s decision to move anything determined to be “LGBTQ” from the children’s section to the adult’s section violates the First Amendment right to equitable access to information. (via Courthouse News Service)

Here’s how this started, according to the decision [PDF] that moves this lawsuit forward:

[I]n late 2022 or early 2023 the Crawford County Library System implemented a policy under which its library branches must remove from their children’s sections all books containing LGBTQ themes, affix a prominent color label to those books, and place them in a newly-created section called the “social section.” Plaintiffs allege this policy was imposed on the Library System by the Crawford County Quorum Court in response to political pressure from constituents who objected, at least partly on religious grounds, to the presence of these books in the children’s section.

Today's Xbox Digital Broadcast from Tokyo Game Show 2023 highlighted and revealed a slew of varied titles heading to the Game Pass subscription service in the coming months, ranging from first party games like Forza Motorsport, to pixel art adventures and day-one major releases from the Yakuza franchise.

Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney Trilogy - Xbox Consoles & PC - September 26
Forza Motorsport - Xbox Series X|S & PC - October 10
Mineko’s Night Market - Xbox consoles & PC - October 26
Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name - November 9
Like a Dragon: Ishin! - Coming to Xbox Game Pass in 2023
Persona 5 Tactica - Xbox consoles & PC - November 17
Persona 3 Reload - Xbox consoles & PC - February 2, 2024
Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes - Xbox consoles - April 23, 2024

My first demo is a shorter, linear slice set years before Remake’s events. Cloud, still a member of SOLDIER, climbs Mt. Nibel guided by Tifa and accompanied by his mentor and future nemesis, Sephiroth. At this point, Sephiroth has not yet gone off the deep end, while this younger Cloud has an uncharacteristically chipper attitude. The group is making its way to a mako reactor at Nibel’s summit, with copious monster battles reaclimating me to combat.

Rebirth plays identically to Remake; its entertaining hybrid of stylish action and turn-based mechanics remains a thrilling and strategic treat with a new wrinkle: Synergy Skills. These attacks combine the might of two party members to unleash a flashy tag team assault, provided you have an ATB bar to spend. One of Cloud and Sephiroth’s Synergy Skills, for example, is called Dualblade Dance, and it plays out as a cinematic and flashy display of tandem swordplay as both warriors eviscerate a target. Some Synergy Skills are defensive; while playing the second demo, Aerith partners with Cloud or Barrett to use Bodyguard, which sees her partner act as a human shield while she attacks from a distance.

Synergy Skills encourage players to experiment with different party combinations. On that front, you can now create saved party lineups that you can instantly swap between in-game. Need to change your Cloud/Barrett/Aerith crew to Cloud/Red XIII/Tifa? It’s just a button press away, saving you trips to the menu.

New Dragon's Dogma 2 footage was shared online today, providing a new look at some of the mechanics that power the highly anticipated new entry in the series by CAPCOM.

The new footage, which was shared during the CAPCOM Tokyo Game Show 2023 showcase, was presented by director Hideaki Itsuno, who highlighted how player choice is at the heart of the experience. The footage focused on some of the game's basics, such as the Pawn system, the four starting Vocations - Fighter, Mage, Thief, Archer - accompanying NPCs, and some open-world mechanics, such as means of transportation that can carry players from one location to another which can also be attacked by monsters, day and night differences, NPCs giving quests to the player and more. The new footage also introduces the human kingdom of Vermund and the kingdom of the beastren Battahl, advanced Vocations such as Magick Archer, and more.

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For starters, I don’t know how it’s possible, but somehow The Teal Mask runs worse than the base game of Pokemon Scarlet and Violet does. I complained about the poor performance of Scarlet and Violet in my initial review, and had hoped that a whole year later Game Freak would have made improvements to things like framerate, pop-in, weird lighting issues, model clipping, and everything else – problems Nintendo even stated it was working to address back in December. But it hasn’t. Instead, it feels like the DLC has the jankiness turned up about one or two more notches.

It’s still playable: I didn’t run into any game breaking bugs. I did suffer from one hard crash, which while not a huge deal due to the game's frequent autosave, is still pretty shocking given the franchise's relatively polished history. But more importantly, during my playthrough of The Teal Mask it was impossible to go for more than a minute or two without a visual distraction.

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That said, The Teal Mask isn’t all bad. The battling and competitive aspects are still what they’ve always been (good), and it’s still fun to fill up a PC box full of neat little dudes you find running around outside. The island checks all the boxes for that activity specifically: it’s big, full of Pokemon, and has lots of different biomes to poke around in. One of my favorite parts of Kitakami was the mountain at its center with crystalline pools at the summit, numerous caves along its path to the top, and a surprising cavern structure within full of Pokemon hiding around corners and in little holes. But the overall ugliness and performance issues did detract from locations that looked like they were probably quite beautiful in their concept art, just not their final execution – such as when I first laid eyes on those sparkling pools on the mountaintop, or when I crossed a thin, stone bridge to a mysterious cave as the sunset hit the surrounding rock formations.

After the closure of original developers Troika, a long-awaited sequel announcement, delays and layoffs at Hardsuit, a secret change of studio (which led to further layoffs at Hardsuit), preorder refunds and the belated reveal that a developer best known for (very good) non-combat narrative experiences would be taking the reins, the only thing I really want to hear about Vampire: The Masquerade Bloodlines 2 is that it’s definitely, absolutely going to reach the finish line. There are actual vampires that come back from the dead less often. But I'm piqued nonetheless by Chinese Room studio design director Alex Skidmore’s thoughts on how this Seattle-set World of Darkness action-RPG adaptation will differentiate itself from other games in the genre, and especially, how it will put its vampiric premise to use.

Ahead of Like A Dragon: Infinite Wealth, which we just learned will be released in January, Ryu Ga Gotoku (RGG) Studio will release Like A Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name. Announced in September, The Man Who Erased His Name stars longtime Yakuza series protagonist Kazuma Kiryu and focuses on his life after Yakuza 6: The Song of Life before he appears in Infinite Wealth. And now, thanks to Xbox's 2023 Tokyo Game Show broadcast, we know we'll be hanging with Kiryu on Xbox Game Pass on the game's November 9 launch day.

The Man Who Erased His Name will also hit Windows PC as part of Xbox's PC Game Pass program on day one as well.

After two rip-roaring outings, Sea of Thieves' wonderful Monkey Island adventure will soon reach its end; Rare has now confirmed its third and final instalment will launch next Thursday, 28th September - clearing the way for the pirate game's tenth season on 19th October.

Sea of Thieves' three-part The Legend of Monkey Island adventure got underway back in July, sending players on a quest to Mêlée Island where, thanks to the mysterious power of the Sea of the Damned, Guybrush Threepwood had become the mightiest pirate of all. It was a wonderful opening episode, managing to capture the magic (if perhaps not the humour) of the point-and-click classic, and things only got better in last month's vastly more open-ended part two.

Episode three, titled The Lair of LeChuck, whisks players away to an absolutely gorgeous rendition of Monkey Island itself - which you can see a bit of at the 4:49 mark in Sea of Thieves' latest news update below - spanning everything from dense jungle to lava-filled catacombs.

Microsoft has announced a string of titles from top Japanese developers coming to Xbox and/or Xbox Game Pass over the next few months.

Square Enix's closer relationship with Xbox continues with the launch of Octopath Traveler 2 on Xbox in early 2024, following its launch for PC, PlayStation and Switch in February.

Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name and Like a Dragon: Ishin! will both be coming to Xbox Game Pass, with the former joining on its day of release on 9th November, and the latter coming sometime "this year".

This all stems from the game's description of its offline (and online) multiplayer, which originally read: "Paw it out with your friends both online and offline".

But Party Animals does not have an offline mode. As a result, many owners have left negative comments about the release.

However, Party Animals developer Recreate Games has now stated this has all been a case of mistranslation. In a new blog post, the studio has sought to clear up "confusion" around the game's now-changed description, and said that English was not the team's first language.

"Our intention with this sentence was to convey that you can play with your friends remotely (online), or together in the same location using the same device (offline) through splitscreen," Recreate wrote, admitting its original wording led to a misunderstanding which the studio now regrets.