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Archived News:
Epic Games offers a new
Fortnite gameplay trailer showing off the upcoming Unreal Engine 4 zombie
game. This was released at WWDC today along with the announcement that in
addition to the previously announced Windows edition, Fortnite is also coming to
OS X using Apple's updated Metal API. You can sign up for alpha testing on
the Fortnite website, and word is closed
beta testing will commence this fall. Continue here to read the full story.
Obsidian Entertainment announces a second wave of early access testing for
Armored Warfare will begin on Wednesday, as
they continue to put their upcoming tank combat game through its paces prior to
release. Testing will last for two weeks, but this will be part-time, with
servers running for four hours on weekdays and six on the weekends. You can
apply for a chance to participate on the Armored
Warfare website or guarantee acceptance with the purchase of a
Founder's Pack. Word is: "The
Second Early Access Test will include optimization and balance updates based on
player feedback, as well as powerful Tier 7 vehicles and the new map, Roughneck.
The full list of updates can be found here:
http://aw.my.com/us/news/general/introducing-early-access-test-2." The new Roughneck map is shown off in
this new trailer. Continue here to read the full story.
CapCom Unity now offers screenshots and a
new trailer for Resident Evil 0,
the upcoming survival/horror remake. Here is the accompanying text: Yes,
as previously announced in brief, the atmospheric survival horror of 2002’s
Resident Evil 0 is being remastered for a new generation. Following up on the
success of this year’s runaway hit remastering of Resident Evil, RE0 will
feature gorgeously upgraded HD visuals and sound, with toggle-able aspect ratio
(16:9 or classic 4:3) and an optional updated control scheme.
Experience the origin of the entire Resident Evil series canon when Resident
Evil 0 drops for PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, Xbox One, and PC in early 2016. Now hit the
jump for a trailer and some purty screens!
RE0 puts players in the shoes of two protagonists—S.T.A.R.S. Bravo Team’s
resourceful but green rookie Rebecca Chambers, and Billy Coen, an ex-Navy
lieutenant on death row. Throughout the game, players will take control of both
characters, with the ability to switch control between the two on the fly.
Learning the advantages of each character will be key to surviving the
nightmare.
Continue here to read the full story.
The
Bethesda Blog announces physical disc copies of Wolfenstein: The Old
Blood will arrive in North American stores on July 21st. Here's the news:
News Flash: By popular demand, we’re releasing a disc version of
Wolfenstein: The Old Blood for Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and PC. You can
pre-order the game at your favorite retailer today!
In case you’ve been sleeping since 1945, here’s details on The Old Blood:
The year is 1946 and the Nazis are on the brink of winning World War II. In an
effort to turn the tide in the allies’ favor, B.J. Blazkowicz must embark on an
epic, two-part mission deep within Bavaria…
Part one of Wolfenstein: The Old Blood – Rudi Jäger and the Den of Wolves – pits
BJ Blazkowicz against a maniacal prison warden as he breaks into Castle
Wolfenstein in an attempt to steal the coordinates to General Deathshead’s
compound. In part two – The Dark Secrets of Helga Von Schabbs – our hero’s
search for the coordinates leads him to the city of Wulfburg where an obsessed
Nazi archaeologist is exhuming mysterious artifacts that threaten to unleash a
dark and ancient power.
Link of the Day:
Real GTA and Behind
the Scenes. Thanks Ant.
CapCom Unity announces the Mega Man Legacy Collection, coming this summer to
Windows and current-gen consoles, offering enhanced versions of the original six 8-bit games
in the series on new platforms. Here is
the announce
trailer, and here's word: In mere months you'll be able to play the
original six Mega Man games in crisp 1080p and enhanced with modern bonuses.
Mega Man Legacy Collection hits Xbox One, PS4 and PC digital storefronts this
summer, with a digital Nintendo 3DS version following in the winter.
In addition to the original six games, you also get challenges, a huge
of-the-era museum packed with visual history and a helpful database that informs
AND tests you on your Mega Man prowess. And for those keeping track, the trailer
jam is "Searing Scissors," part of OverClocked Remix's excellent "For
Everlasting Peace" album.
Some notes about the additional modes:
Leaderboards, challenges, replays: Challenge Mode takes moments from each
title and weaves them into a series of, well, challenges! So things like 'can
you do these six areas strung together with one life bar' or 'try fighting all
six Mega Man 1 bosses in a row.' And to keep the quest for the best time alive,
the top performers in each Challenge will have their replay data uploaded and
viewable to everyone! There will be many challenges to vex seasoned players AND
help train newcomers in the ways of the Blue Bomber.
Database: Each Mega Man game will have a database that includes enemy
lists. From here you can read details about certain enemies and hop directly to
them for a practice session. For example, say you're tired of playing all the
way to Quick Man just to lose over and over. With the database, you can hop
directly to him and practice that buster run until you get it down to a science.
Then it's off to the full game for the real deal!
Museum: MMLC will sport an exhaustive collection of sketches, art and
other visual materials that help put you in that 1987~1992 time period. Part of
this game's goal is the preservation of history, and the folks at Digital
Eclipse are scanning items at absurdly high resolutions to make them as clean
and clear as possible.
Continue here to read the full story.
A
post on the GeForce website discusses NVIDIA GameWorks support in Batman:
Arkham Knight, showing off some NVIDIA-specific hardware effects in
a new. trailer.
Here's word: Batman:
Arkham Asylum,
Arkham City and
Arkham Origins each featured advanced NVIDIA GameWorks effects that
greatly enhanced graphical fidelity and immersion, so it should come as no
surprise that the upcoming
Batman: Arkham Knight is similarly enhanced.
We’ll be revealing further NVIDIA GameWorks features in the near future, as well
as other uses for the effects you’ve just seen. For now, here’s a quick rundown
on the effects presented in our GeForce GTX PC tech trailer:
- Interactive Smoke & Fog utilizes the many CUDA Cores on your
GeForce GTX PC to render interactive particle effects that would impossible
to create on a CPU. Each effect can be manipulated by character movement,
environmental conditions and external forces, and moves realistically around
and across surfaces. Such effects are further enhanced by Particle Shadow
Mapping, enabling particle self-shadowing and the casting of shadows on
surfaces.
- Like Interactive Smoke & Fog, Interactive Paper Debris uses the
power of modern NVIDIA GeForce GTX GPUs to render pieces of paper and other
pieces of debris that react realistically to character movement,
environmental conditions and external forces, heightening immersion as
Batman and friends battle thugs.
- Enhanced Rain is a new NVIDIA GameWorks effect created specially
for Batman: Arkham Knight. Using the extra performance available on PCs, the
new visual effect spawns additional rain particles with simulated velocity
when Batman’s cape opens for flight. For a real world comparison, quickly
close and re-open a wet umbrella and observe how the droplets of water shoot
off with some force.
Continue here to read the full story.
A new mostly Japanese Figureheads website
is online, revealing development of Figureheads by Square Enix
with this video. Most
of the text and voice-overs are Japanese, and the techno soundtrack might
actually inspire murder, but the visuals reveal a mech fighting game coming to
Windows PC. According to
Forbes this will be a freemium game with microtransactions surrounding five-versus-five online matches, so this
may be a MOBA to some degree or another. According to Forbes: "Based around team
battles of five players a side, there will also be strategical [sic] elements.
The latter is where the Border Break connection kicks in, as the top down map
controls and general pacing do look rather similar." According to the site, the next update
on this project is coming on Wednesday. Continue here to read the full story.
The OHIM
website, home of the Office for Harmonization in the Internal Market,
reveals an EU trademark filing for a project called Mirror's Edge Catalyst.
This is not the only hint about the title of a new installment in the Mirror's
Edge series, as
Electronic Arts has also filed for the domain for mirrorsedgecatalyst.com,
though nothing is parked there yet. Thanks
All Games Beta.
DSOGaming notes that tweets from
Qwiboo and
Puppygames offer perspective on
Steam's recently expanded refund
policy, showing this can be tough on small developers offering inexpensive short
games, noting in some cases players can get refunds after experiencing most of
the game's content within the allowed two-hour window. Apparently this
discussion has been touchy, as the first company is now protecting their tweets,
while the second's
most recent
post says: "Twitter is a singularly useless place to actually discuss
things. So, we won't be using it any longer." With a different perspective on
the same issue,
Gamasutra hears from some developers about the refund policy where some of
the indies offered a more positive outlook, such as this quote from
Defender's Quest
developer Lars Doucet, who sees this as protection against backlash from
bundles: "So a culture of selling to tons of people who may or may not like your
game trashes your quality perception, especially if you’re niche or otherwise
outside-of-mainstream taste. Now players who are frustrated or disappointed can
ask for a refund, a safety valve likely to decrease such negative reviews."
The Witcher III: Wild Hunt falls to number three on the
GfK Chart-Track PC top 30 for the week ending June 6th as The Sims 4 remains
on top. The new Witcher continues to bewitch the
all platforms chart, holding the top spot for a third straight week.
Their summary offers
more: Bandai Namco’s ‘The Witcher III: Wild Hunt’ (-44%) remains No1 for
a third consecutive week.
Rockstar/Take 2’s ‘GTA V’ juggernaut climbs back to No2 after 3 weeks at No3
(-16%) meaning that ‘GTA V’ still has not been outside of the Top 5 All Formats
this year. EA’s ‘FIFA 15’ also climbs 1 place to No3 (-23%) and Nintendo’s big
new release from last week ‘Splatoon’ drops 2 places to No4 (-50%). The only new
release within the Top 40 this week is Japanese sci-fi/time-travel adventure
‘Steins;Gate’ for PS3 & Vita – the title debuts at No18, is published by PQube
and developed in Japan by 5pb and Nitroplus.
Don't buy a Steam Machine - The Verge.
The official Steam Machines run SteamOS, which is basically Linux with
Steam’s Big Picture Mode. Even though Valve is working to bring more games
to Linux, most popular titles aren’t available for it yet, and there’s
really no reliable way to predict which games will be supported in the
future. Of the top 10 games you can buy on Steam right now, only one, the
Fallout Classic Collection, works on SteamOS. There’s no Grand Theft Auto 5,
or Skyrim, or DayZ. Hell, you can’t even play games that are compatible with
Linux but aren’t on Steam, which includes Blizzard’s popular catalog. If you
care about playing anything relatively new and popular, the Xbox One, PS4,
Wii, and Windows-based PCs are all clearly superior options. And games
aren’t the only compatibility problem. If Valve and HTC’s virtual reality
headset is anything like the Oculus Rift, it’ll need powerful hardware, and
it’s possible lower-end Steam Machines won’t support it.
I dunno about Game of Thrones, this season has not been as enjoyable for
me as those that preceded it. I won't spoil anything in my ranting, but I'll
just say that in general I think the pacing has become problematic. Of course
plotlines are starting to wrap up as the season concludes, but last night also
highlights my unhappiness with some roles (one in particular) acting out of
character, and the episode's dramatic climax featured the worst visual effects
in the show's history. I'm still caught up in things, and am by no means giving
up on the show (unlike *every* friend who has read the books first), but it is
frustrating to feel it is falling off.
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