Archived News:
Wealth of Nations will be the second expansion for Europa Universalis
IV,
announces Paradox Interactive, saying this will come to the Windows, OS X,
and Linux editions of the strategy sequel in Q2 of this year. This will bring
several new trade-focused features to the game, "including the ability to
secretly provoke trade conflicts, hire pirates to steal goods from your
competitors, establish the East India Company and create a bustling trade
capital for your nation." A
new product section is live for the add-on with details and images. Here's
the full description: Europa Universalis IV: Weath of Nations allows you
to create trade conflicts in secret, steal from your competitors with the use of
privateers, use peace treaties to gain trade power and create a new trade
capital to strengthen your grasp over trade.
The age of exploration is brought to life in this epic game of trade, diplomacy,
warfare and exploration by Paradox Development Studio, the Masters of Strategy.
Europa Universalis IV gives you control of a nation to rule an empire that lasts
through the ages.
A new
update on the Legend of Grimrock website offers some new screenshots from
Legend of Grimrock II along with some new details about the dungeon-crawler
sequel. Developer Almost Human lays out the setting for the game, and discusses
how things will work, including plans to address the most common criticism of
the original game: One of the few things some reviewers criticized about
Grimrock 1 was monster behavior in combat. We have attacked this problem
directly and rewritten the monster AI entirely. As a result monsters are now
smarter and they know how to use their larger numbers to their advantage. The
repertoire of tricks they know has been expanded greatly. For example, some
monsters can call other monsters for help and can use group tactics against you.
Of course the behavior of monsters depends on their intelligence so the most
stupid and most fierce monsters are still, well, fierce and stupid as they
should be. And talking of monsters, there will be lots of new monsters with some
of the old, familiar faces making an occasional appearance for old times sake.
A post on NeoGAF
shows a presentation slide alleged to be a screenshot of Left 4 Dead 2's
Plantation Level rebuilt in Source engine 2.0. This is unconfirmed, and there is
no explanation of why this would be in "crazy buttocks on a train"'s possession.
Thanks All
Games Beta.
The
GeForce website now offers new version 334.67 beta drivers for GeForce
accelerators, offering new 3D vision profiles, new SLI profiles, as well as
tweaks and improvements for more mainstream applications. Word is: "Headline
features include a dozen new and improved
3D
Vision profiles, reinforcing our commitment to stereoscopic 3D gaming, as
well as the latest SLI
profiles for games like HearthStone and Assassin's Creed Liberation HD. And as
always, numerous tweaks and changes are introduced to ensure maximum performance
and system stability across all titles."
GOG.com is launching a DRM-free "Time Machine Sale" tomorrow.
- The 7th Guest + The 11th Hour on
GOG.com. Save 80%.
- Duke Nukem Forever on
Steam. Save 75%.
- Original War on
Steam. Save 10%.
- Redshirt on
Steam. Save 50%.
- Sang-Froid - Tales of Werewolves on
Steam. Save 75%.
- Starlite: Astronaut Rescue on
Steam. Save 40%.
- Survivor Squad on
GamersGate.
Save 75%.
- Total War Series on
GamersGate. Save up to 85%.
Microsoft Studios announces the acquisition of the Gears of War
franchise from Epic Games, including "rights to all existing and future games,
entertainment experiences and merchandise" from the third-person shooter series.
The game is being handed over to Black Tusk for development, and the
announcement grants this is an "as-yet-unproven studio" but Microsoft's Phil
Spencer says this is "a world-class team with deep experience and passion for
the shooter space, and specifically the 'Gears of War' franchise." This
experience extends to the hiring of Rod Fergusson, the Gears of War producer who
went to Irrational as producer on BioShock Infinite
last summer. Says Microsoft's
Hanno Lemke: "We hope to be able to share more news about 'Gears of War' later
this year."
An image of
a poster on French site Xboxygen shows plans for Titanfall beta
testing starting February 14th accompanied by another image that indicates this
will run from February 14th-February 19th for the Windows, Xbox One, and Xbox
360 editions of the mech shooter. The posters indicate this is a preorder perk,
saying preorders will also receive a metallic poster and a t-shirt. The site
says they've confirmed this with a source at French retailer Zappos, and say the
U.S. version of this program will be run through GameStop. Thanks
NeoGAF via
Polygon.
The
Kickstarter for The Repopulation has concluded, with this
post-apocalyptic sandbox MMORPG beating its $50,000 goal by a cool 350%,
finishing up with $175,000 in crowd-sourced funding, with yesterday's surge
hitting two stretch goals, the final one allowing the creation of arenas for PvP
gladiatorial combat in player-created cities. In other news related to the game,
they have just published a new article on
Rogue and Scout Skills and at 4:00 pm EST today there will be a live
interview with Joshua Hall today on
DeadpoolyPlays' Twitch stream
to discuss the game.
There's a
Changelog for v. Furious Koala on the Starbound website showing that the
promised new patch is now available, and confirming previous
indications that they don't intend on having any more character wipes going
forward. Here's the first line of the change list: "Absolutely massive changes
to disk serialization (sorry reversers), which will allow us to never need to
wipe players or ships again, and hopefully never need to wipe worlds again."
Thanks Jeff.
Ars Technica has firsthand impressions of Valve's upcoming game streaming
service, after checking out the invitation-only beta on Steam. This streams
from another PC across your home network, so depending on your setup, this
involves less latency than cloud-based services. Since this involves playing a
game that resides on another machine in your same location, they do a little
explaining of why someone would want to do this: Valve’s Linux-based
SteamOS has one big limitation compared with the full Steam experience: it can
only run games compatible with Linux. That limitation may be mostly put to rest
when a Steam Box is now paired with a Windows PC, allowing users to run any game
in the Steam library either natively in the Steam Box or streamed. The other key
benefit to the new streaming option is convenience. Graphically rich games often
suffer when run on thermally limited notebooks. Decoding a video stream requires
drastically less computing power than rendering a 3D environment, so gaming on a
modestly specced laptop could become much more satisfying.
GfK-Chart Track is once again ready to elucidate us with last week's game sales
figures in the U.K. LEGO Marvel Super Heroes re-enters at #20 on the
full-priced PC games chart, which otherwise just shuffles last week's top
19, though the top three remain intact ( Football Manager 2014, The
Sims 3, and Battlefield 4). On
the all-platforms top 40 also has the same top three as last week, with the
first new entry at number 10 where Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Z debuts.
Here's the write-up: ‘FIFA
14’ (-14%) makes it 4 straight weeks in 2014 at No1 and 9 in total since launch.
In yet another quiet week for new releases the Top 3 are unchanged with Call of
Duty: Ghosts’ (-2%) still at No2 and ‘Battlefield 4’ (-13%) at No3. ‘Lego Marvel
Superheroes’ (-2%) is at No4 swapping places with Ubisoft’s ‘Assassin’s Creed
IV: Black Flag’ (-35%) at No5. Format exclusives ‘Minecraft: Xbox 360 Edition’
(+2%) and PS4’s ‘Killzone: Shadow Fall’ (-12%) are at No6 and No7 while ‘Grand
Theft Auto V’ (-4%) climbs a spot to No8. EA’s third Top 10 title ‘Need for
Speed: Rivals’ (-17%) slips two places to No 9. There’s a debut at No10 this
week for Namco Bandai’s ‘Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Z’. The title for Xbox 360,
PS3 and Vita becomes the best selling Week 1 for any multi format Dragon Ball
title as far back as 2009.
Further down the chart last week’s debutant ‘Mario Party: Island tour’ (-10%)
for 3DS climbs a spot to No17.
- Attitude One Sturmovik Gaming Keyboard on
Nikk Tech.
- KingFast F8 Plus Series C-Drive 240GB KF2510MCJ09 2.5- SATA 3 MLC SSD
on ModSynergy.com.
- Radeon HD 6970 vs. R9 280X on
ocaholic.
- Shuttle XPC Barebone SZ87R6 on
Mad Shrimps.
- SilverStone ML04 Milo HTPC mATX Case on
Benchmark Reviews.
- Western Digital My Passport Ultra 1TB Portable Hard Drive on
Bigbruin.
- Western Digital Black2 Dual Drive on
ThinkComputers.
- XFX R9 290X Double Dissipation Edition on
HARDOCP.
I didn't realize the GRAMMYs were last night, as that's not something I keep up
with. I'm happy to hear it though, as I managed to skip the awards along with
the Pro Bowl, and there's nothing that helps make one feel more productive than
doing two things at once. Or in this case, not doing. Multitasking for the win!
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