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Archived News:
The Merge Games
Store now offers a playable demo for Cast of the Seven Godsends, offering
one level from this upcoming platformer, saying "the demo also
lets players experience two of the special armour sets and three of the main
weapons." Here's word on the game: "Cast of the Seven Godsends harks back to the
days when classic 2D, run ’n gun, action-shooter games ruled the arcades.
Featuring four levels of difficulty, six worlds to conquer, twelve bosses, seven
god-like armour sets, five basic weapons and thirty-five magic combat spells
Cast of the Seven Godsends is the challenge that retro arcade fans have been
waiting for!" Continue here to read the full story.
- Guncraft on
Steam. Save 80%.
The
Project CARS website announces Project CARS 2, as Slightly Mad
Studios unveils plans for a sequel to the racing game they released just
six weeks ago. They are crowdfuding
this through the
WMD Portal, though they do not specify how much capital they are looking to
raise. Here's word: With over 10 years of heritage and pedigree making
some of the world’s most memorable and successful racing franchises – such as
GTR, Need For Speed, and Test Drive –
Slightly Mad Studios once again
pioneered and innovated in 2015 by launching the critically-acclaimed and
best-selling Project CARS; a game
wholly funded and created by a passionate community of racing fans from around
the world.
With tens of thousands of players testing the game, giving feedback on it, and
creating assets for it throughout development, Project CARS has been
hailed as a true competitor to long-established stalwarts, and as the market
leader in both visual fidelity and technical expertise.
With an existing schedule of
ON DEMAND content
already underway to continue providing Project CARS with fresh new features,
updates, and great things to play with throughout the year, Slightly Mad Studios
now turns its attention to the future with the announcement of the continuation
of the franchise with Project CARS 2. And once again, the sequel will be
created, tested, and ultimately approved by you – the gamers - through the
WMD Portal crowd-funding platform.
WB Games announces updated minimum system specifications for the PC edition of
Batman: Arkham Knight in
a post from yesterday, just a two of days before tomorrow's planned release
(thanks
DSOGaming). The post adds the AMD Radeon HD 7950 to the spec and also notes
that they are working with AMD on performance issues: The minimum specs
for Batman: Arkham Knight for PC have been adjusted and are listed below.
We also want to note that there are some known issues with the performance of
Batman: Arkham Knight for PC owners using AMD graphics cards. We are working
closely with AMD to rectify these issues as quickly as possible and will provide
updates here as they become available. We thank you for your patience in this
matter.
MINIMUM:
OS: Win 7 SP1, Win 8.1 (64-bit Operating System Required)
Processor: Intel Core i5-750, 2.67 GHz | AMD Phenom II X4 965, 3.4 GHz
Memory: 6 GB RAM
Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660 (2 GB Memory Minimum) | AMD Radeon HD 7950 (3
GB Memory Minimum)
DirectX: Version 11
Network: Broadband Internet connection required
Hard Drive: 45 GB available space
Bethesda
Softworks tweets a clarification that the PC edition of Fallout 4
will not suffer the performance limitations of the console versions. This should
go without saying, but a
post on Digital Spy about how the action/RPG sequel will run at 30 FPS at
1080p on "everything" made it sound like the game would be super-gimped running
under Windows. Of course this isn't the case, as Bethesda clarifies: "Fallout 4
is 1080p & 30fps on Xbox One and PS4. Resolution and FPS are not limited in any
way on the PC."
NVIDIA now offers new version 353.30 WHQL-certified "game ready" drivers to
prepare for tomorrow's release of Batman Arkham Knight, saying these
include SLI profiles and optimizations recommended for all planning to play the
action game sequel. They say: " Batman:
Arkham Knight is the finale to Rocksteady's much-loved Batman: Arkham
trilogy, and boy does it go out with a bang.
Reviews are excellent, and the praised console graphics are even better on
PC where there's additional detail, higher rendering resolutions, and a raft of
NVIDIA GameWorks
effects."
WBIE and DC Entertainment celebrate tomorrow's launch of Batman Arkham Knight
with the release of the
official
launch trailer for the superhero sequel, which also serves as a music video
for Mercy, a recently released track from Muse. Here's the description of the
game that accompanied the clip: "Batman: Arkham Knight brings the award-winning
Batman: Arkham trilogy from Rocksteady Studios to its epic conclusion. Developed
exclusively for the new generation of consoles and PCs, Batman: Arkham Knight
introduces Rocksteady's uniquely designed version of the Batmobile. The highly
anticipated addition of this legendary vehicle, combined with the acclaimed
gameplay of the Batman: Arkham series, offers gamers the ultimate and complete
Batman experience as they tear through the streets and soar across the skyline
of the entirety of Gotham City. In this explosive finale, Batman faces the
ultimate threat against the city that he is sworn to protect, as Scarecrow
returns to unite the super criminals of Gotham City and destroy the Batman
forever." Continue here to read the full story.
Funcom announces a June 29th rerelease date for LEGO Minifigures Online,
the LEGO-based online adventure that launched last year as a web-based
free-to-play game. This is now being re-launched as a buy-to-play game (that's
really a thing now?) for Windows, OS X, Linux, iOS and select Android devices,
and they also announce that players will be able to play in the same persistent
world across all platforms. The game will be available through the
LEGO Minifigures Online website,
which is currently under maintenance to prepare for the changes. Here's word:
"This really is the definitive version of LEGO Minifigures Online and we
are very much looking forward to opening the servers for players to experience
it," said Funcom CEO Rui Casais. "Not only will it feel like a fresh, new
experience for those who have played the earlier free-to-play PC version, there
is also so much potential unlocked now that you can play with each other across
platforms on a broad range of devices. Maybe you are playing on an iPhone while
your friend is on an Android tablet and your dad is on a high-powered PC; you’ll
still play together in the same persistent online world, along with thousands of
other LEGO fans from all over the globe."
LEGO Minifigures Online is an online game for LEGO fans of all ages, where
players can collect over one hundred Minifigures, each with their own unique
personality and abilities, and build a team to take on exciting adventures
through colorful, classic LEGO environments. From Pirate World to Space World,
players must play together and smash their way through aliens, sea monsters and
more to unlock the full potential of their Minifigures. The game is KidSafe
certified and fully COPPA compliant, with multiple safety measures in place to
ensure a fun and secure online experience for everyone.
The OpenRA website
announces the release of the June 2015 version of OpenRA, the
open-source, cross-platform program to support the Command & Conquer
series of real-time strategy games. This includes a new cross-platform WYSIWYG
map editor with full modification support. They also note: "Aside from new
features, the usual number of bug fixes has found its way into the code. Among
them is a fix for a high-profile bug that caused the inability to undeploy
construction yards. Several graphical problems, from glitches in the menus to
occasionally missing mouse cursors have been resolved as well as issues in our
single-player mission scripts." All the details can be found in a
changelog on GitHub.
Thanks
Linux Today via Ant.
Rugby League Team Manager 2015 debuts at number four on the
top 30 chart of the bestselling PC games in the U.K. for the week ending
June 20th. Much of the chart remains unchanged, and The Sims 4 retains
the top spot. On the
all platforms top 40 LEGO Jurassic World trades spots with The
Elder Scrolls Online to take the number one position. Here's
their summary: The
huge success of the Jurassic World film at the box office seems to have rubbed
off on Warner’s Lego title as ‘Lego Jurassic World’ (+3%) eats up ‘The Elder
Scrolls Online’, jumping one place to No1.
It is the first Lego No1 since ‘The Lego Movie Videogame’ in W7 2014. It also
becomes the 7th Traveller’s Tales Lego title to reach No1 since ‘Lego Star Wars’
kicked it all off in March 2005. The Xbox 360 version consolidates its position
as the lead format for Lego Jurassic World with sales up 26%. Sales of ‘The
Elder Scrolls Online’ drop by 71% in its second week as it falls down to No2.
‘The Witcher III: Wild Hunt’ (-19%) holds on to No3 ahead of ‘Grand Theft Auto
V’ (-4%) and ‘FIFA 15’ (-14%) who both climb one place to No’s 4 and 5
respectively. ‘Payday 2: Crimewave Edition’ falls from No4 to No6 with sales
only down by 24%.
Two very different shooters; ‘Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare’ (+8%) and
‘Splatoon’ (-8%) are both non-movers at No7 and No8, while a third shooter,
‘Destiny’ (-1%) sneaks back into the Top 10, up 2 places to No9. ‘Minecraft:
Xbox Edition’ (-3%) rounds off the Top 10, also up 2 places, to No10. No other
new releases make the Top 40 this week, although another new Warner No1 beckons
with big hitter ‘Batman: Arkham Knight’ due for release on Tuesday.
Cliffski's Blog - Gaming deserves neither tax breaks, or arts funding.
To put it another way, every government penny that gets spent on lower
taxes for game developers, or on funding to make games, is a penny not spent
on something else. Here is the UK, there is much debate about the huge rise
in the use of food banks, and the reductions in benefit payments. Can we
really make an argument that when the government cuts benefits that it
should still ring-fence money to provide for game developers?
Gamasutra - Puget Alain's Blog - Why we don’t believe in sales, discounts
and bundles.
It’s that time of the year again : Steam summer sales! Yeah, loads of
games at small prices! Like every PC players, I’ll probably buy a bunch of
games (which will mostly stay untouched for the next months) but as a
professional game developer, I’m more and more convinced that the whole
concept of these promotions is toxic.
Why toxic ? Because systematic sales and discounts contribute with other
factors (mobile stores pricing, bundles) to decrease the commonly accepted
prices of games to absurdly low levels. It’s now a standard gamer behavior
to wait 3 or 4 months before buying any game because you know for sure
there’s a major discount coming. It’s so systematic that it’s nearly stupid
not to do so!
Today is the 19th anniversary of the release of QUAKE! It's also the 15th
anniversary of the release of the original Deus Ex.
On a coincidentally related note, a question popped up
in the forums about the anniversary date for this site, as it turns 20
either this year or next year. The question of which year is correct is inspired
by the caption saying "Established 1995. Over three-quarters of a billion
visitors since 1997," which is a little vague. The reason is that the exact
answer is a little imprecise. Going back to the very beginning, the site started
sometime in the second half of 1995 as Blue's 3D House of 3D Carnage (hosted on
my homepage through my local ISP) as a more general site about FPS games, and
the focus on news came on gradually after that. Going by that, the 20th
anniversary of the site is sometime over the next few months, but I don't know
that I have any way to be more precise about that. If you go by the content
here, the site will turn 20 one year from now, as the oldest news stories in the
archive are from July 1996. That's not very accurate, though, as before that I
would delete older news as I added newer stories, and it was some time in
mid-July that I realized this was regrettable and started archiving older news,
and once again, I don't know if there is a more exact answer than that to be
found. Finally, if you want the answer in its strictest sense, the site will
turn 20 in October 2016, which is the anniversary of moving to the bluesnews.com
domain, and first use of the name Blue's News. The visitor count starting
in 1997 just reflects when a counter was added. As I say, it's a little
imprecise, but it's safe to say we're currently in our 20th year of operation.
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