Tech review: From System Shock to the Google Pixel 8a where “AI is spread across the device’s functions like futuristic Marmite”

Whether you’re looking for new phone or a new game- you’re in good hands as Pavel barter review the latest in tech.

• System Shock Xbox Series X (Prime Matter)

The birth of Riverdance wasn’t the only cultural landmark in 1994. In that same year, a cyberpunk space horror played a massive part in writing the rulebook for the first person shooter genre (alongside games like Doom and Quake). System Shock has been given a complete overhaul for contemporary consoles, but weirdly this holiday from hell (with overtures to out-of-control AI) feels more relevant today than it did 30 years ago.

It’s 2072 and you play a hacker taken hostage on a space station where the aforementioned AI, who calls herself Shodan, has turned the crew into gangly rubber space zombies, and throws a litany of traps and challenges in your path. Explore the labyrinthian rooms and corridors, destroying security cameras to gain control of the station one floor at a time. Audio logs, collected along the way, tell the story of how Shodan went rogue.

System Shock’s balance of combat, puzzles and exploration hasn’t aged a jot. You can see how the game influenced franchises like Dead Space and Bioshock – and the neon-drenched nip and tuck to its otherworldly rooms and corridors accentuates the cyberpunk aesthetic.

7/10

System Shock

Google are past masters at creating a seamless Android experience and the Pixel 8a, a budget version of the Pixel 8, is true to form. The word “budget” is normally associated with stag parties in Ayia Napa or road kill hamburgers, but in this case, there’s little to separate the 8a from its big brother the Pixel 8, other than price (€599 for the 8a vs. €799 for the 8) and size.

Flexing a 6.1” display, the 8a is Lilliputian compared to most contemporary smartphones which struggle to squeeze inside a rucksack let alone a trouser pocket. The 8a’s diminutive stature and slick design – delicately curved corners on an aqua blue back cover (on the version we reviewed) – suggests great things can indeed come in small packages.

The 120Hz display is slick: YouTube plays videos with no sign of lag and the speakers blast out impressive audio firepower. The face unlock security function is also zippy – so fast you won’t notice it’s there – and the fingerprint scanner doesn’t dawdle either.

No great surprises from the cameras. The phone has two lenses at the front: 64MP main and 13MP wide lens which can record video in 4K (as can the front facing 13MP lens). Google’s AI sets it apart from rivals, though. Tap the Magic Editor icon to remove unwanted items from shots, or use Best Take to Frankenstein people’s expressions from one photo to the next.

AI is spread across the device’s functions like futuristic Marmite. Speech to text transcription is uncannily accurate. The Circle to Search function allows you to isolate part of an image – a hat on a celebrity, say – and search online for matches like a gumshoe detective.

8/10

• Crow Country Xbox Series X (SFB Games)

Just as every generation of music doodles with retro nostalgia (Billie Eilish drawing inspiration from Peggy Lee, Fontaines D.C. riffing on nu-metal in their new album, Oasis cosplaying The Beatles), so videogames occasionally hark back to another era for inspiration.

Crow County conjures up survival horror games from the mid-1990s, when the PlayStation One crafted surreal 3D terrorslike Silent Hill and the first Resident Evil. This story is set in 1990 – a rural theme park in Georgia, US, where the owner Edward Crow has gone missing. A woman (played by you) arrives at this rundown house of horrors in search of Crow.

What Crow County lacks in graphical finesse, it makes up for in gothic ambience. The abandoned theme park is full of decaying past echoes and populated by monsters torn from the pages of an HP Lovecraft fable. There are two playable modes – survival and exploration. The latter is literally a walk in the park, while Survival equips you with increasingly dangerous weapons (beginning with a handgun, graduating to a shotgun, flamethrower and magnum), in order to combat the creatures that stand in your way. This being a 90’s-esque survival horror, some of the puzzles are confusing – prompting you to scour through online walkthroughs – but it’s all part of the game’s 20th century charm.

7/10

Crow Country

Check out the tech review and more in our latest issue of Hot Press: