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Archived News:
Blizzard announces the Overwatch beta will begin on October 27th in the
Americas, with testing the teamplay shooter in other regions to follow. They say
they will recruit a small number of core testers but that they will also be
opening the game up to more players for some stress test weekends along the way.
This page has all the details along with instructions on signing up if you
are interested. They say: We're aiming to accomplish two primary goals
with our public beta test: First, get tons of top-notch feedback on the
gameplay—including balance, feel, and fun—to help us make Overwatch the best
team-based shooter on the planet. Second, we want to hammer the heck out of our
tech, including stress-testing our server infrastructure and making sure the
game runs great on the widest variety of systems possible.
To accomplish this, we're dividing our beta participants into two different
groups, each with different mission objectives and deployment schedules. The
Closed Beta group will form the core of our testing crew. In addition, we'll be
conducting a number of Beta Test Weekends with wider groups of players when it's
time to break out the big guns.
A
tweet from Star Wars Battlefront community manager Sledgehammer70 reassures
players having trouble succeeding on the rebels in the walker assault that this
was not just because the Force was not with them, as they admit there's a
balance issue: "@Focalin Nope! Its a balancing issue within the Beta." Thanks
Polygon via nin.
Bethesda is now accepting registration for
the DOOM - Multiplayer Closed Alpha from those who purchased Wolfenstein:
The New Order before May 26, 2014. Those customers are guaranteed access to
the beta of the upcoming first-person shooter remake, but as was previously
announced, some will also be selected for the technical alpha. The page has
details on what the alpha will entail, including game modes and weapons, and
they state that while the beta will support multiple languages, the technical
alpha will be English only. Thanks
Eurogamer.
Bethesda.net now offers the
penultimate video in
their S.P.E.C.I.A.L. series, taking a look at agility in Fallout 4, the RPG sequel. They
say: "This week's S.P.E.C.I.A.L. video focuses on Agility. Study it carefully to
ensure your survival and to discover what makes you S.P.E.C.I.A.L." Continue here to read the full story.
Okay, so as I mentioned earlier, I have my photo op tomorrow, and have already
begun with the drinking of scary fluids. I expect to update normally in the
morning and be able to catch up by the end of the day, but I can't rule out the
possibility that I'll miss tomorrow altogether. I don't think it will come to
that, but I wanted to give fair warning in case it does. Wish me luck!
Link of the Day:
How the
USAF reloads the largest combat jet gun in the planet. Thanks The Flying
Penguin.
The rise and fall of incarnates will end up spanning less than six months, as
Bandai Namco announces plans to close Rise of Incarnates on December
15th, a rapid demise for this two-versus-two combat game that
launched at the end of June (thanks
MCV). The game is no longer for sale (it's now listed as free-to-play), all
characters are free until the service ends, and all paid items are now
discounted, with some of them now free as well.
A new
Letter from the Chairman on the Roberts Space Industries website celebrates
the news that Star Citizen's crowdfunding effort has now attracted more than one
million contributors, or Citizens as they are called within their community
(thanks Kxmode). There's a new Incoming
Transmission on Vimeo from Gary Oldman to celebrate the news, word from
Chairman Roberts on the latest funding milestone for the space exploration and
combat game. This includes the announcement that they are opening up alpha
access to more backers and are eliminating future obstacles to participation:
In honor of our newest Citizen (really, our thousands of new Citizens!)
we would like to give something back to the entire community for all your
incredible support. Starting today, we are eliminating ‘Alpha Access’ and the $5
module passes. Anyone who has pledged for a Star Citizen Package can now play
today without worrying they won’t have access to some portion of the ‘Verse in
the future. No Star Marine pass, no Alpha 2.0 pass… no additional payment needed
for any module in the works, pre-release. Going forward, should we need to put
out some sort of limited release it will be done through the PTU test server.
All backers will have access to any live release, the moment it publishes.
In addition, I’d like to reward our earliest supporters who made it possible to
get to this point. Everyone with an ‘alpha access’ package will be awarded
10,000 UEC; everyone who purchased an Arena Commander pass individually will be
given 5,000 UEC (with the cap raising appropriately to allow this.) You also
have my most sincere thanks: you were our vanguard, the battalion that fought
the good fight from the beginning. Your impact on Star Citizen will never be
forgotten, for without your early faith we couldn’t be where we are today.
(Please note that this credit payout is going to take a big script, so it may
take Turbulent a few days to work out the logistics!)
Developer Cyanide Studios and publisher Focus Home Interactive
announce Styx: Shards of Darkness, a sequel to Styx: Master of
Shadows, their stealthy adventure game. They say this has already been in
development for six months and will come to PC, Xbox One, and PlayStation 4 next
year, in the meantime offering
this screenshot as a hint of what to expect. Here's a bit on the plan and
how to get the first game on sale right now: Following the fall of
Akenash tower, an extraordinary matter has forced Styx out of hiding to
infiltrate Körangar, the city of the Dark Elves. Supposedly impregnable, a
diplomatic summit offers Styx a chance at slipping in unnoticed, as he learns
that the event is nothing but a mere façade… Moreover, the Elves have joined
forces with the Dwarves, and the only thing both races have in common is a
mutual hatred of the Goblins…
Embark upon a stealthy adventure with new enemies, new environments, and a
plethora of new mechanics aimed at refining the abilities and movement of Styx;
grappling around corners, climbing ropes, and using his trusty knife as a
zip-wire. Shards of Darkness aims to offer unparalleled freedom of movement,
along with refined stealth and assassination mechanics, expanding and improving
on the strengths of Styx: Master of Shadows – which is coincidentally
the Midweek Madness deal on
Steam, until Friday 16, with an exceptional 66% discount off the price! A
great opportunity to discover the origins of Styx.
Publisher Vision Games and developer RedBedlam announce the official release of
Bedlam on Steam,
offering a fast-paced first-person shooter for Windows, OS X, and PlayStation 4,
with the Xbox One edition expected on Friday. Here's
a launch trailer, and
here's a bit from the announcement: In Bedlam, players take on the role
of Heather Quinn (aka Athena), a programmer at medical scanning developer
Neurosphere, who finds herself transported into the world of Starfire: a
nineties FPS she remembers from her teen years. Searching for an explanation and
a way home, she ventures beyond Starfire to discover a vast realm of
interconnected game worlds documenting the evolution of the FPS genre and of
video games in general. As Athena, players move through numerous game settings
while battling against a digital conspiracy that seeks to destroy the game
worlds and their characters. A fast-paced and authentically unique FPS, Bedlam
serves up a dizzying variety of genres from fantasy RPGs to classic 2D arcade
games to WWII shooters in an innovative journey through gaming
nostalgia.
Continue here to read the full story.
AMD support now offers new Catalyst version 15.10 Beta drivers for Windows
(thanks
AnandTech). The new drivers address a few issues, leave others unresolved,
and provide the following performance improvement: "Ashes of the Singularity™ -
DirectX® 12 Quality and Performance optimizations."
- Affordable Mechanical Gaming Keyboard Roundup on
TechSpot.
- be quiet! Dark Power Pro 11 850W Power Supply on
pcGameware.
- Kensington SD4000 Universal USB 3.0 Docking Station with 4K UHD
on
eTeknix.
- Lenovo ThinkPad Stack on
PC Perspective.
- MSI Z170A XPower Gaming Titanium Edition on
ocaholic.
- Patriot Memory Viper 4 Series DDR4 16GB 2400MHz Memory Kit on
Mad Shrimps.
- Streacom F12C on
Technic3D. German.
- Tesoro Excalibur Spectrum on
LAN OC.
- Thermaltake Toughpower DPS G 650W on
HARDOCP.
- Tt eSports Cronos AD on
Vortez.
I'd warn you to prepare for over-sharing, but I think most of you are used to it
by now. I will be fasting today as I prepare for a colonoscopy tomorrow, as I've
finally consented to this routine, if intrusive, procedure. This will involve
not eating solids for most of the day, and eventually drinking a bottle of
prescription Montezuma's Revenge to pave the way (or unpave it, so to speak).
I'm told that a guy will typically lose five pounds in the process, so this can
apparently be a little rougher on those as skinny as I am, but I presume I will
survive just fine. The fasting in advance does recall an old joke... something
about how the least the doctor could do is buy me dinner first.
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