This Scary Video Shows Rabid Fox Attacking Several In Upstate New York

Super Monkey Ball Banana Rumble Review

It's best not to think about the animal welfare questions that series like Super Monkey Ball and Pokémon raise. Do these animals like being in their balls? Have they chosen to be in balls? How do they eat and…. Well, you know, in the balls? OK, that last one is a wild musing of my addled mind, but ever since the GameCube original, Super Monkey Ball has been putting simians in spheres and people have been loving it.

Super Monkey Ball Banana Rumble starts, as many of these games have before, with letting you choose which ape to trap in an oversized hamster ball, before setting forth across a series of nefarious courses designed to send your furry friend hurtling to their doom. Fortunately, any missteps here only result in a return to the start, rather than a visit from animal protection.

Banana Rumble is just as joyously happy as its forebears, and the core formula remains as tricky and teeth-gnashingly frustrating as ever, while retaining that essential 'one-more-go' flavour to keep you coming back. This time you're off to Juicy Island in search of the Legendary Banana. Now, this isn't an island populated by ladies' leggings, and there's a smattering of Chaos Emerald about the Legendary Banana, but you can probably forget all about this narrative as you'll be too busy trying not to fall off things.

The cast here, led by the indomitable AiAi, are as adorable as ever, but there's a batch of newcomers to keep an eye on, both in single and multiplayer modes. Alongside borrowing the Chaos Emeralds, Super Monkey Ball Banana Rumble also steals Sonic's Spin Dash, allowing your monkeys to hurtle across the screen even faster, more easily overcoming small walls and ramps. They're definitely falling off the level even more too.

Adventure mode has a narrative woven into it, though the adorable cutscenes are strangely low resolution, and if you're looking for meaningful simian drama you're probably better off with Planet of the Apes. A young female monkey Palette is looking for her father, and the Gala Family appear – a group of treasure hunters who have some unkind, banana-related putdowns to hand out to our beloved apes – but it's safe to say that their nefarious deeds don't really make any difference to the banana-collecting, goal-reaching action. Still, it's all very cute.

There's a clear emphasis on enjoying Monkey Ball Banana Rush with your friends, and every mode here can be played online or locally. Four players can team up for the adventure, with optional collisions to add a little more chaos, while the multiplayer Battle modes can have up to sixteen players, with AI bots able to fill out the room if you're playing with the local limit of four. If you're playing online, there's either open lobbies or a simple six-character password to connect to a friend's custom lobby, and everything runs surprisingly seamlessly, even if the Nintendo Switch isn't able to keep as smooth a frame rate as you'd like during this.

Battle mode sees Monkey Ball Banana Rush go all Fall Guys, and turns in a series of different events where you're aiming to come first or be on the better team. There's five game modes, made up of Race, Banana Hunt, Ba-BOOM!, Goal Rush and Robot Smash! And they're all pretty much as chaotic as you'd expect, with sixteen monkeys flying around the screen and bashing into each other as they try to collect another banana. There's a lot of fun to be had here, whether playing with friends or strangers on the internet, though whether there's going to be enough long-term appeal to keep coming back is questionable.

There is also an in-game season pass, though you only earn points by battling random people. Working through it unlocks new cosmetics and characters to use in the different modes. It's appealing enough to deck out your monkey in cool sneakers and a wicked pair of shades, but it doesn't feel hugely essential, particularly when you mostly see them from behind and inside a ball. Still, it adds a new tone to proceedings, and Goal Rush, in particular, got under my skin, as you race down hill and try to capture each goal for your team, while also trying to earn extra points with bonus goals while stopping your opponents from doing the same.

Besides fun with friends, repeat play hinges on you wanting to come back to Adventure Mode to better your times, collect more bananas, or achieve the different challenges that you'll find in each level. This would probably be more compelling if you were told what these missions were the first time that you arrived at each level, but they're all centred around collecting the golden banana, or picking up a specific number of bananas, so you do have some idea of what you're supposed to be doing. In some cases, these goals are really tight with their timings, and in turn you can push the difficulty level up for yourself as you become ever more skillful. Time Attack mode also benefits from having online leaderboards, so you can see what insane times other people have posted.

'Hamster' Crypto Craze Has Taken Iran. It Highlights Economic Malaise Ahead Of Presidential Election

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Cab drivers and bikers tap away furiously on their mobile phones as they wait at red lights in the Iranian capital during an early June heatwave. Some pedestrians in Tehran are doing the same. They all believe they could get rich.

The object of their rapt attention? The "Hamster Kombat" app.

A wider crypto craze aside, the app's rise in Iran highlights a harsher truth facing the Islamic Republic ahead of Friday's presidential election to replace late President Ebrahim Raisi, who died in a helicopter crash in May: an economy hobbled by Western sanctions, stubbornly high inflation and a lack of jobs.

Even as presidential candidates make promises about restoring the country's economy, Iranians, who have been hearing for years about bitcoin, are now piling into this app out of sheer hope it might one day pay off — without knowing much about who is behind it.

"It's a sign of being desperate, honestly," said Amir Rashidi, the director of digital rights and security at the Miaan Group who is an expert on Iran. It's about "trying to hang on to anything you have a tiny hope that might some day turn to something valuable."

Those able to divest from holdings in Iran's beleaguered currency, the rial, have purchased property, art, vehicles, precious metals and other hard assets since the collapse of Tehran's 2015 nuclear deal with world powers.

At the time of the deal, the exchange rate was 32,000 rials to $1. Today, it's nearing 580,000 rials to the dollar — and many have found the value of their bank accounts, retirement funds and other holdings gouged by years of rapid depreciation.

Meanwhile, prices of fruits and vegetables have jumped 50% since last year while the price of meat has risen 70%. The cost of a ride in a shared taxi, common in the Iranian capital, has almost doubled. Even rides in Tehran's Metro, still the cheapest option for the city's commuters, are up some 30%.

"Since morning, I had three visitors to my shop, none of them bought anything," said Mohammad Reza Tabrizi, who runs a clothing shop in downtown Tehran. "Most customers prefer buying from peddlers or pre-owned items in other places."

In underground walkways and other areas of the city, peddlers sell nearly anything they can get their hands on. It's this desperate environment that has seen the public's interest in cryptocurrency and mobile games offering coins rise.

The proliferation of smartphones across Iran, as well as the relatively low cost of mobile service compared to other nations, makes accessing apps like "Hamster Kombat" attractive.

The app is accessed through the messaging app Telegram, which remains popular in Iran despite efforts by the authorities trying to block access to it. It functions like an incremental or a "clicker" game — users repeatedly click on an object or complete repetitive tasks to earn points.

In "Hamster Kombat," users believe they may be able to access a purported cryptocurrency associated with the game that's still not traded publicly.

In an email, individuals describing themselves as the game's developers declined to answer questions about their identities or business plans, but insisted they were "not offering any cryptocurrency in the game."

"We are educating our audience about crypto through gaming mechanics," the email claimed.

Still, the game resembles another app that did offer Iranians cryptocurrency in the past — and it seems that just the promise of what could be free money can drive some Iranians to distraction.

Jokes online show one man tapping on a gravestone as if it were a mobile phone. Another uses a massage gun to rapidly punch a Hamster on the screen.

But the public's fascination with the game has also drawn the attention of authorities.

Rear Adm. Habibollah Sayyari, the deputy chief of Iran's military, described the app as part of the West's "soft war" against Iran's theocracy ahead of the election.

"One of the features of the soft war by the enemy is the 'Hamster' game," Sayyari said, according to the state-run IRNA news agency. He theorized that the "enemy" is popularizing the game so that people would be distracted and not "pay attention to plans of presidential candidates."

"Then (the people) fail to choose the best candidates," Sayyari said. Hard-line pundits in Iran have voiced similar opinions.

The daily JameJam, published by Iran's state television, also warned the ever-increasing interest in the game was a sign of "the dream of becoming rich overnight and gaining wealth without effort." It said those playing range from "builders, mechanics and refrigerator repairmen to colleagues and classmates in university."

"A society that instead of working and trying to succeed and earn money turns to such games and looks for shortcuts and windfalls gradually loses the culture of effort and entrepreneurship and moves towards convenience," the newspaper said, without acknowledging that the country's economic woes were potentially driving the interest in the app.

The app has even drawn the attention of a 97-year-old Shiite religious scholar, Ayatollah Nasser Makarem Shirazi, who is known for his fatwas declaring things "haram," or "forbidden," from his office in the holy city of Qom, Iran's center of Shiite learning, packed with religious schools and revered shrines.

Calling cryptocurrency "the source of many abuses," Shirazi said people shouldn't use the "Hamster Kombat" app or others like it involving bitcoin.

Iran isn't alone in having concerns about the game.

Authorities in Ukraine, locked in a devastating war with Iranian-armed Russia since Moscow's 2022 invasion, warned that users' data remains stored in Russia and could potentially put them at risk.

Then there's the wider risk of malware exposure as consumers in Iran often cannot purchase new software legally or even access legitimate app stores. They also face the risk of state-sponsored hackers targeting them for their political views.

Meanwhile, as Iran's election campaign goes on, presidential candidates are using Instagram, X and Telegram — all services previously banned by the theocracy after rounds of nationwide protests.

"As long as you are able to pay the price, everything is available," said Rashidi, the Iran expert.

Karimi reported from Tehran, Iran.

Hamster Kombat: Here Is All You Need To Know About The New Telegram Tap-to-earn Game

One of the innovations Web3 enthusiasts have come to terms with in 2024 is Telegram-based games. A handful of Web3 games built on the messaging app Telegram have already launched, and a significant number of them are in the developing stages, with launch dates already announced.

Technext has written about the launch of Notcoin, TapSwap, and Blum. Hamster Kombat is another Telegram-based game whose popularity has surged among Nigerians recently. In this article, we will discuss all you need to know about this new Web3 game and how to take advantage when it is launched.

Let's get to it. 

Read also: Blum: Here is all you need to know about the newest TapSwap replica game

What is Hamster Kombat?

Launched on March 26, Hamster Kombat is a Telegram-based tap-to-earn game that offers players the opportunity to mine coins by tapping their screens and doing tasks. The project claims to have over 100 million players. 

Hamster Kombat's core concept is similar to Notcoin and TapSwap, albeit with more complex game mechanics. It is a tap-to-earn game mixed with a crypto exchange simulator.

The project has already announced that it will launch its token and conduct an airdrop on The Open Network (TON), the blockchain where Notcoin was launched and TapSwap is preparing to be launched. 

Related post: TapSwap announces that $TAP will be launched on the TON blockchain and here is why it matters

With this anticipated airdrop, Hamster Kombat will reward players for racking up in-game coins by eventually airdropping them real, tradeable crypto tokens.

How the Hamster Kombat game works 

On Tapswap and Notcoin, users tap the screen to earn coins, but the Hamster Kombat mechanic is a different ball game. 

Picture this:

You are the CEO of an upcoming crypto exchange, and it's your job to grow the exchange to great heights. To do this, you tap a golden coin to earn coins and then use those coins to upgrade your exchange in the "Mine" tab of the game. 

This tab shows all kinds of upgrades that players can purchase (with in-game coins) for their exchange. The upgrade includes features like adding Bitcoin to be traded at your exchange, setting up a KYC process, or going on the Joe Rogan podcast.

Every upgrade purchased for the crypto exchange earns you more coins passively. In practical terms, adding the BTC pair to your exchange costs 250 points, but then earns you 40 points per hour. In simpler terms, these additions pay off and help boost your exchange.

Gamers can earn passively- they can purchase special cards in the "Mine" section, allowing their exchange to continue earning coins even after they exit the game for up to 3 hours. Various boosts are available in the game to accelerate earnings, such as increasing tap productivity and raising the energy limit, among others.

Additionally, Hamster Kombat players can complete special missions to earn additional coins.

Another way to gain more coins is through a referral program. Players receive bonuses for inviting friends to the Hamster Kombat game.

What will the Hamster Kombat airdrop token look like?

We mentioned earlier that Hamster Kombat has already announced an upcoming airdrop slated for July. Full details are not available yet but the team has already clarified that, unlike Notcoin, it won't be a straight conversion from in-game coins to on-chain tokens.

According to an X (Twitter) post on June 6: "Airdrop will depend on the profit per hour and some other [activity] parameters that we will reveal later, NOT the coin balance."

Also on May 31, Hamster Kombat announced on X (Twitter) that it would launch its token on the TON blockchain. 

"Dear CEOs! The Hamster Family has become the biggest edutainment community not only on Telegram but in the entire crypto industry. We are now happy to share that we have decided to launch our product & upcoming token on the TON blockchain." It said 

Hamster Kombat will join Notcoin, TapSwap, and Yescoin on the Telegram-backed blockchain. If you have not started, you can still join here. 

---